It was a strange performance where Hockey's smugness was periodically jolted by some penetrating questioning, and followed by avoiding answering, blaming Labor, or providing confusing answers which suggested no one would be affected by big issues like the $7 GP tax or the hike in fuel excise.
Despite Hockey's assurances on the night, it has emerged that more people than Joe is willing to admit will be hit with the GP tax
Joe did admit to numerous broken promises, but tried to fob it off as an effort by Tony Jones to verbal him (with ridiculous remarks about a Rabbit).
What has been interesting is that as the Hockey budget roadshow spirals out of control, members of the Coalition are starting to speak up. Ian Macdonald wants to broaden the GST and have it impact on education, health and fresh food. There's yet another price signal from the government which clearly doesn't value health (by increasing the cost of better food choices and increasing health costs beyond the GP, the pathologist, the radiographer and the pharmacy) and increasing education costs even further.
It has now been demonstrated that lower income families will be disproportionately affected. With further analysis and demonstration of the damage this budget will do here.
There was the bizarre policy of taking money from the sick (through the GP tax) to give it to Medical researchers whose discoveries will likely never help the people who are funding the research. And while you might expect those working in Medical research to support the move, they don't. They would rather see incentives given to people to see the Doctor early, to encourage early diagnosis and treatment.
And now we have the likes of Pyne and Abbott running away from facing angry students. There are likely conversations happening in Dutton's office too as he will soon face angry criticism from those impacted by regressive health policy. Criticism of the GP tax is certainly spreading
To make matters worse, consumer confidence is falling at the fastest rate since before the GFC
The only ace they have in their hand is that the Murdoch press is continuing to back them. Rupert however doesn't like unpopular losers. He likes to project the illusion that he is a king maker by jumping on the bandwagon of likely winners as early as possible. Another month or two of this kind of performance from Hockey and Abbott, and Rupee will dump them too.
by Mark Enders