21 December

Long-term political success depends I think on being elected at the right time ‘economically’. When things are doing well and people have money in their pockets, they tend to assume the government in power is responsible and keep electing them. The danger for Labor right now is that economic conditions around the world look dire. If they come to power next year and Australia goes into recession, you can already hear the conservatives crowing about ‘Labor is no good with the economy’. John Howard and Peter Costello were absolutely hopeless managers of money, but have a reputation of being economic miracle workers. They rode a boom not of their own making, and pissed the lot of it away. I have my ‘told you so’ on ice, ready.