Tony Abbott is the master of improvisation. He has a history
of playing the 'populist card' on climate change, paid parental leave, the NBN,
the no carbon compensation pledge and Medicare Locals.
However, before the last election, Mr Abbott realised his
education policy was an albatross and that the Labor government had a vastly
superior alternative. So on 2nd August he reluctantly 'accepted' the Gonski education model.
Recently, he tried to slip out of his
pre-election commitments by sending his shrill-prone Education Minister, Christopher
Pyne, to announce Gonski was a mess.
Enter 'the adults'.
The Abbott Government claimed their funding
was better than the ALP's because they were offering $230 million to the
non-signatory jurisdictions of Queensland, Western Australia and The Northern
Territory. Under Labor they would have received $1.2 billion but those states preferred
to hang out for their ideological counterparts to give them 'something better'.
But even these people could count and they realised that they were not getting
even 20% of what the ALP had offered. Mr Pyne bemoaned that he
simply did not have the money.
But then several opinion polls, including Newspoll, showed Labor to
be ahead once more, reflecting a surprise shift away from the
Coalition. These polls revealed that this government has had the
shortest honeymoon since polling began. It was then time for another change. Tony Abbott
slapped down Mr Pyne (not for the first time), and decided the government did have
the money after all!
So just three days after saying there was no money they suddenly
found it.
Even Mr Hockey had obviously not looked very well in the cupboards that he
claimed were bare!
Mr Abbott could go down as the most populist opportunist to
lead this country and someone who has made Paul of Tarsus look very second rate.
Frank Carroll
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