I will read what Jim Belshaw says with interest: he has already said he will need to get behind the speech to the detail. He is far more competent than I am in such matters.
Otherwise I pretty much agree with Thomas. No great surprises, and it is true that on the 7.30 Report afterwards Malcolm Turnbull sounded and looked like a total self-absorbed twat; it was a very second-rate schoolboy debating job, Malcolm. Embarrassing for the Liberal Rump that the Rudd government seem not to be a total bunch of maddies, isn’t it? Hard to get a grip…
And that’s about all I’ll say about it, because I am really reflecting on a range of other things right now: reading Farewell my Lovely again; the Chinese earthquake and the contrast in reaction to natural disaster between the Chinese authorities and the buffoons in Burma; something I read today in the South Sydney Herald; my ambivalence about the State of Israel being 60 years old, while hanging on to how much I detest the extremists on all sides on that one…
Some of that may become posts.
NEXT MORNING
Not tough enough, says Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald, but “could have been worse — as it almost certainly would have had John Howard been re-elected.”
Not a lot for pensioners either…
If you want to study the full details, visit Budget 2008-9.
