New Year’s resolutions, why bother? Does the party conclude with “happy new year” then a half pickled rendition of Auld Lang Syne before the host announces fasting and sobriety? Does the ogler of lecherous debauchery, lubricously canoodling amongst the revellers at 11.59pm, after a proclamation at midnight that they’ve changed, become the paragon of virtue at 12.01am?
These resolutions are made amongst good friends who either forgive us for the tedious repetition of last year or out bid us with something slightly more incredible. Many are made as part of a ritual, late in the well oiled night, where four equally fascinating soliloquies are delivered by four adults facing each other; ask any of the four what the other three said and they would not have a clue.
That other party, which the Prime Minister is the head of, has delivered some equally unlikely resolutions.
The PM on the 29th November said that 2011 would be a year of “delivery and decision” which poses the question; what of the years 2008, 2009, and 2010.
The Treasurer informs us that even though financially we are on the equivalent of smoking a couple packets a day, having just delivered the two largest deficits and the largest gross debt in our nation’s history, currently at about $175 billion, we will be running the surplus marathon by 2013. Unerringly the Secretary of Treasury Ken Henry appears, Mike Taylor- like, to have quietly left the theatre before the final scene. I think he may have seen this Greek tragedy before.
Minister Burke is going to put the High Court into permanent recess because that is the only way his desired changes to the outcome of the draft plan of Murray Darling Basin can come about. Why trifle with the constitutional issues of an act of parliament that sets up an independent body; just pretend that the act is not there or that no one will read the important parts.
Mark Arbib is going to loyally feign sticking by Julia even though Julia’s stocks are lower than Kevin’s at the time Mark informed the United States that he was going to remove the Prime Minister of Australia.
Kevin Rudd will continue to operate in a completely parallel universe to all of his colleagues. He will announce off the cuff international forums. From time to time he will come home. The sign stuck to the inside of the door of the VIP Jet will say: Kevin, it is not a bad dream. Yes she is now in your house and you now live near the Lodge not in it.
Paul Howes will write another book about Paul Howes and play dress ups, pretending to be a parliamentarian.
The NSW Labor party will disappear in a puff of blue smoke. The Labor Left will fight a turf war with the Greens for the soul of socialism. The Greens will jump on every random or divisive issue and the Labor left will mimic them. Blue collar workers will question their allegiance to a party that frolics in tokenistic peripheral ideas. Thus the Labor Right and the Labor Left will inch toward a very nasty civil war. The Independents will suffer the curse of getting what they wished forand the electorate will hold them more responsible for the mistakes than any other politician. In the interim there will be policy chaos.
Back to the party, the Labor party. Nothing is going to change because of mere statements; in fact even the statements are merely part of this predictable act to placate our fears of incompetence.
If there is one thing that concerns me more than anything else, it is this, the debt. For many of us the inability of the Labor Party to control the debt will mean a loss of services, an increase in taxes and upward pressure on interest rates. In Canberra if they can’t control the debt many will lose their job.
Labor has a 50-50 chance of seeing the year out. There will be no resolution to Labor’s lack of resolve and their pathological incapacity to deliver. The CD will be stuck on random replay. The real Julia, the unhappy Kevin, the massive debt and a retinue of soap opera escapades will just roll along like NSW Labor to the inevitable political train wreck