Andrew Bolt: Just be thankful Anthony Albanese isn’t in charge
Anyone who watched Labor leader Anthony Albanese gave his Budget reply speech, would’ve realised that he is a political leader who hasn’t figured how badly we’ve been smashed by the coronavirus, writes Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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So there I was last Thursday, presenting a good episode of my show on Sky News when Anthony Albanese barged in.
Bang! I instantly lost more than half my viewers, as the Labor leader gave his Budget reply speech.
Which was a pity, and not just for him. In fact, more Australians should have watched something remarkable: a political leader who hasn’t figured we’ve just been smashed by the coronavirus.
Albanese — or Albo, to those who think he lacks gravitas — was responding to the frightening Budget delivered two days earlier by the Treasurer of what I’d assumed until then was a Liberal government.
Unfortunately, that Morrison government decided to be more Labor than Labor and promised so much spending that government net debt by 2024 will reach nearly $1 trillion.
That’s a debt so monstrous that I will not live to see it repaid, but here’s what Albo didn’t seem to get.
This is not the time for Labor to be even more Labor than the Morrison government. Labor should not see a trillion-dollar debt and say: hey, let’s spend even more!
But, alas, Albo leads a Labor Party that long ago said goodbye to being careful with other people’s money.
Its modus operandi now is not to look at the economy, and say: this is how much we can responsibly spend, and no more.
It is instead to check whatever the Liberals are spending and say: that, plus more.
So to Albo, a trillion-dollar debt is apparently just a good start. So on Thursday he promised to spend another $6.2 billion on child care, so that even people on $500,000 a year still got a handout — thanks mainly to taxpayers earning much less.
Worse, he doubled down on expensive and unreliable green power, promising to “invest” a staggering $20 billion on running electricity cables to solar and wind projects dotted over the landscape.
For the same money he could invest instead in 10 reliable coal-fired power stations — we have 20 now — pumping out electricity even when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.
Can you imagine how cheap electricity would be again? How manufacturers might think it worth investing and hiring here again?
But why is the Labor leader promising even more spending in the first place? Is he so blind to our plight?