Rudd’s first year: spin wins over substance

AC | November 21 2008

Malcolm Turnbull

“Throughout his year in office, Mr Rudd has had a political strategy but no economic strategy,” Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said today.

“Everything has been focused on the grand gesture, the headline.

“We saw it at the beginning of the year, at a time when every other country in the world was getting ready to deal with the credit crisis in the United States and getting ready to deal with the impact on growth that the sub-prime crisis would have, what did our Government do? We had Mr Swan and Mr Rudd talking up inflation.

“In fact Mr Swan said the genie was out of the bottle. In other words, it’s out of control. They egged on the Reserve Bank to put up interest rates at precisely the wrong time, when others, including the Opposition, were saying hang on, there are some bad developments overseas, what we’ve got to do, what the Reserve Bank should be doing, is staying its hand and not raising rates.

“Now, with the benefit of hindsight, you can see the damage that is done with a Government that’s got a political strategy—because it wants to blame its predecessor for higher inflation—and no economic strategy.

“We’ve seen it with the bank deposit guarantee, an unlimited bank deposit guarantee created enormous problems, as indeed the Government has acknowledged because they have already had to roll it back. They wanted a grand gesture, a big headline,” Mr Turnbull said.

“It has been a government of spin, it has not been a government of substance. They have got to get off politics and the spin and focus on solid economic management. That’s what Australia needs, real leadership,” Mr Turnbull said.