Back in the forgotten age of 2009, the state of Victoria had been ravaged by bushfires and the Prime Minister of the day announced his governments response. Amongst the standard stuff, Kevin Rudd made the mistake of briefly linking the second stimulus package with the bushfire reconstruction. A few government backbenchers got in the act saying at the doors that voting against the stimulus was letting Victorians down, but the condemnation for linking bushfire recovery to a partisan political issue of the day was swift and this line was quickly abandoned.
Tony Abbott, never being one for subtlety is doing the exact same thing with the Queensland floods and the National Broadband Network.
Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has called on the government to scrap its multibillion-dollar National Broadband Network (NBN) to help fund the Queensland flood recovery.
With the damage bill for the recovery effort estimated to run into the billions of dollars, Mr Abbott called for government expenditure to be “reprioritised “, starting with the costly NBN.
Tony Abbott is right that the commitments to rebuild after the floods will mean hard decisions will have to be made. But isn’t it oh so convenient that the government program he is calling on to be scrapped is the most partisan issue in federal politics at the moment and one that he already opposed long before the floods. It’s perhaps the most blatant case of concern trolling from an Australian political leader.
It would be harder to doubt Abbott’s sincerity if he was advocating cutting a government program that he had previously been a passionate advocate for. But do you really think Abbott would support cutting our Afghanistan excursion, the baby bonus, the school chaplain program or the don’t abort your baby phone service? Of course not, he only wants to make the hard sacrifices on the stuff he doesn’t like.
The arguments for and against the NBN are still valid after the flood. Either its a vital investment in infrastructure that will pay for itself or a needlessly expensive white elephant. If the money is quickly recouped after thing is privatised then it is hardly wasted money, but if you are of Abbott’s view that it is money down the drain then the Queensland floods has nothing to do with that.
Its trying to push a false argument onto the people of the towns that have lost everything. Its trying to trick them into thinking that there is a choice between fixing their communities or the NBN, and if that was the choice obviously they would pick the former. But we are a prosperous country and we can afford to do both. Just like there isn’t talk of cutting back on the military or health care to pay for reconstruction, because they are very separate issues.
But hey, whats the point of having natural disasters if you arent gonna try and get a few votes from it hey Tony.
