Traditionally, the Finance Minister is the tough guy. The Finance Minister is the one that imposes fiscal discipline on his more or less unwilling colleagues all of whom are usually keen to protect their patch and deliver the goodies for their portfolio’s clients. As Peter Walsh (pretty much the creator of the tradition) used to say it’s the job for someone with no further political ambitions.
Tanner likes to pop up on the media, far too often, proclaiming himself the torch bearer of this tradition, but the evidence so far suggests otherwise. No amount of spin about the Government’s ‘toughness’ can hide the reality. As Alan Wood noted in the Australian today:
This is a Government that couldn’t make the hard spending decisions in its first budget, has managed only a half-hearted effort in its second and is unlikely to do much in its third, an election budget.
Tanner’s unwillingness, or inability, to do his job properly is further undermining the Government’s already shaky economic management credentials. He needs to scale back the media chattering and start putting some real muscle into the job.
One Comment
I could maybe understand your criticism of the 1st Budget, wherein the structural budget deficiencies left behind by the former government should have been identified and dealt with, even if the country was in rude good economic health at that time; what I can’t agree with is your criticism of the 2nd Budget, which needed to be toough, but not so tough that it exacerbated the economic instability around at the moment.
As many objective commentators have said, the 2nd Budget gets the balance between toughness and caution about right.