Rudd vs. Whitlam
April 9, 2009
People have asked me why the IPA describes Kevin Rudd’s government as “Whitlamesque”. Which is what I did in my Australian Financial Review column last week. Surely Rudd’s not that bad!
So here’s the explanation:
Rudd has increased the size of government more in one year than Whitlam did in two!
I enjoyed this interview last night (11 minutes) with the conservative satirist PJ O’Rourke on the 7:30 Report talking about comedy, the US presidency, and life. PJ will be speaking later this month in Sydney for the Centre for Independent Studies and in Perth with the CIS & Mannkal Economic Education Foundation.
The failure of the government’s big broadband tender wouldn’t have surprised anybody. (See the IPA’s Chris Berg in Crikey on Tuesday.) In the Business Age, Kevin Morgan also has a good piece on just how the government’s plans have unravelled.
And looking to pick up a last-minute read for Easter? I recommend Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Tom Switzer reviewed Nixonland in the most recent IPA Review, and Reason Magazine’s Jesse Walker has a fascinating interview with Perlstein here.
In The Herald Sun, Alan Moran isn’t convinced that government is the solution to the problem: “An FDR future with muddleheaded Rudd“. And remember last weekend’s G20 summit? In “Home is where the solution is“, Sinclair Davidson asks the Australian government to ‘think global, act local’ when it comes to economic policy.
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