Prick up your ears, Tony (A response to 'Against Roonism')

God blessed Tony Abbott with ears. Why won’t he use them?

If he did, he wouldn’t revive an eighty-year-old comic verse that is out of touch with the reality of Australian family life and a patronising putdown of our rural communities to defend his Government’s record.

And what a way to launch your campaign for the leadership of the Liberal Party!

We’re all berated for knocking Australia, for talking our country down. But Mr Abbott forgets that only six months ago our nation was united in pride at running the best games ever. We were all on the edge of our seats, now we’re on the seat of our pants. Minister, if your Government gives the Australian people something to cheer about, we will!

It is not Australia that people have given up on…it’s the current Australian Government. It is the out of touch spruikers like the Minister that the Australian people have given up on, and his Sydney Institute address is a good example of why.

It is a strange twist when an Oxford Educated Minister who represents a very wealthy electorate labels the poor and struggling an ‘elite.’ Instead of ‘the poor’ he speaks of the ‘economically vulnerable.’ And he blames each and every victim of the Howard Government’s mismanagement for being negative.

It’s not the poor who have caused the Australian dollar to fall to record lows in recent times.

And its not struggling small businesses that have sent prices through the roof.

The fact is Mr Abbott is your classic bully. He can dish it out but he can’t take it.

When Mr Abbott chooses to knock the efforts of Australia’s 600,000 unemployed branding them ‘job snobs’ its somehow alright. But when Labor, groups like St Vincent De Paul or pensioners call the Government to account for the damaging impact of its policies on the living standards of ordinary Australians –we are dismissed as Roonists, pessimists or even theologically suspect.

Mr Abbott’s bizarre conspiracy theory in which Labor and the chattering classes have somehow ‘used the battlers against the Government’ is as extraordinary as it is delusional.

Mr Abbott is merely the worst example of a Government whose arrogance is just about to become terminal. What he is really saying in his Roonism speech is that far from blaming itself for the mess the GST is making of the economy, the Howard Government now basically wants to blame the Australian people.

How long before Messrs Howard and Abbott – in Brecht’s words – decide to abolish the people and elect themselves a new one?

Mr Abbott should get out more. If he spent time talking to pensioners or working families on modest incomes he might then understand why people are pessimistic and why they are angry.

Take those on low fixed incomes. People on pensions were deceived about the nature of the government’s GST compensation. The government oversold its compensation in the lead up to the 1998 Election because it would have been voted out if it had told the truth. It baldly promised every older Australian $1000; that pensions would rise by 4%; that there would be no increase in the price of petrol; and that no-one would be worse off as a result of the GST.

With price rises on essentials like electricity (up 10.9%), gas (up 12.5%), telephone (up 8.1%), and prescription medicines (up 6%) is it any wonder that attention has focused on the promised GST compensation and the fact that, like sugar coating on a bitter pill, it is quickly wearing away. People can see that they been left with a pervasive 10% tax and no financial buffer against rising prices. And they are not happy.

The GST adds a premium to almost everything people buy. And ABS household expenditure surveys show that it is those on low incomes, particularly aged pensioners and families, whose spending patterns mean they are not fully compensated for their expenditure.

Labor has been accused of a scare campaign on the issue of GST compensation for pensioners. This suits the Prime Minister and Mr Abbott because it allows them to avoid dealing with a difficult reality – the GST many people voted for is not the GST they are now stuck with.

John Howard’s battlers have not been used against him. Labor has simply listened to their grievances. Mr Abbott seeks to portray all this as Roonism. If he can convince people that he is the only one in Australia who is allowed to do any ‘knocking,’ good on him. I don’t think he stands a chance.

Australians don’t think ‘things are stuffed’ They have just worked out that the Howard Government has stuffed up.

Instead of defending the battlers as he promised to do, John Howard has been creating more of them.

Remember Gordon’s Creed Tony, and take a lesson in real Australian culture and the reality of where you sit in Australian history:

"Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone:
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own."

Tony, prick up your ears.