A tale of two claims - Labor gonged

Thursday, 12 August 2010 07:49

Two different articles in two different papers today that cast doubt on Government numbers. One on the Governmnent's overblown economic claims and the other on the Murray-Darling buyback claim. Both claims rely on dodgy numbers.

In The Australian Independent Reserve Bank Director Warwick McKibbin and the Independent Audit office raise doubts on Government claims the stimulus saved Australia from recession. Both talk about the timing of stimulus making the point that monetary policy rather than fiscal policy had the most timely impact and noting that the BER school hall payments in many cases took place after the recovery or, indeed haven't taken place at all yet.

The modelling the Government relies on has been superceded by Treasury forecast changes and of course this is the same Treasury/Treasurer that got the Mining Tax wrong by a mere $15 billion.

On another matter the SMH article "Labor's empty promise" bells the cat on Labor's unfunded, unsubstantiated and unsupported Murray Darling promise, saying up to one third of the water said to be bought back doesn't exist. Herein lies the issue.  If you want environmental flows you might not get what you pay for.  If you have concern about farmers you might wonder where the water is coming from and if you worry about good economic management you might wonder if State Governments are not being bailed out for the fraudulent sale of water rights that don't exist.  And the mugs in this are people like us.

You can't trust the Government's claims on the Murray Darling on face value - which is another reason why the secret Murray Darling report should be released immediately.

What do you think?

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