BBQ led recovery and PM provides the pork

THE ABC covered Deputy PM Julia Gillard's visit yesterday to a Sydney school with its usual jolly approach. With all of its stars firmly marching to Labor's tune, why would anyone expect otherwise?

Yet questions do exist and one was raised on the ABC's The Insiders last weekend by Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner. (I declare an interest. I have been an occasional Insiders panellist since the program began.) Here's Tanner: ``And on everybody's lips in the economic debate now should be one word -- productivity. That's what we're committed to doing. That's [what"> 70 per cent of our stimulus packages are about ... ``That's got to be the objective for our economy and we don't back away from those investments because that's what'll drive the prosperity for Australia's future.'' Let's look now at the essence of Rudd's stimulus spending. In NSW alone, more than $79 million is being spent on community infrastructure, which the ALP mocked as pork barrelling when in opposition. The money is being spent on upgrading cycle paths, shade structures, soft-fall areas, curved pergolas, seating near a community wood-fired oven, new airconditioning, community centre renovations, kitchen facilities, barbecues, street furniture, social rooms, carparks, gym equipment, tennis courts, swimming pools, cricket pitches, picnic tables, skate parks, interpretative signage, kiosks and canteen facilities. How does any of this fit into Tanner's callfor productivity-enhancing projects? How will these projects drive the prosperity for Australia's future? The answer is that they will not. A lick of paint on the walls of the Bombala Council's Progress Association's Rural Transaction Centre is definitely not going to ensure the future of the young people of Bombala but who's to deny the good folk of Bombala ahandout from Canberra? What these projects will do is drive the Rudd Government's popularity. Voters never reject a gift. The problem is the Rudd Government's bounty is exactly like those ``free gifts'' offered on late-night television, along with sex-enhancing pharmaceuticals and miraculous vacuum cleaners. The Government's largesse is not free. It carries a hefty price tag, an interest bill thatthe Rudd Government is bestowing on future generations of Australians. Tanner, if he stuck to his principles, could not possibly support the Commonwealth going into debt to the tune of $315 billion, and counting, for projects like those I've listed. Don't expect a public backlash, though. The Rudd Government has successfully chloroformed the electorate into believing that its spending has saved the nation. There's no evidence for this. The Rudd Government has not been able to point to one job that it has created (its initial promise) or saved (its modified promise). All we will have when we look back in future years on Rudd's extraordinarily high popularity figures will be flapping shade cloths, a mounting debt and no marked increase in productivity to show for the oceans of red ink flowing through the once sound national accounts. Rudd is buying drinks for all on the national credit card but at the end of the day we will be stuck with his bill.