If it wasn’t already obvious, we have entered the “whatever it takes” stage of proceedings.
The Coalition wants to get back into the contest, and is on the hunt for the knockout blow, or blows. The core objective at the moment is to get the whole country roiling about Labor’s “retirement tax” (that isn’t a tax, just like the carbon tax was never a tax despite what Tony told us).
The franking credits issue has become a proxy for “Labor will steal what’s yours and drive the country off the cliff”.
The means to achieving that end are unimportant. Whatever it takes, by whatever means, as long as voters are hearing the static, and wondering whether a new Labor government would embark on a wild-eyed outbreak of redistribution, and screw up the economy.
It’s that mindset that leads you to a place where you can establish an “inquiry” into a “retirement tax” (that isn’t a tax), funded by the taxpayer (thanks for that guys), and think it’s fine for the chairman of the relevant parliamentary committee (in this case Tim Wilson) to authorise what is clearly an accompanying, partisan campaign website (endorsed by him in his committee capacity) in order to better funnel outrage to the main event.
Again, in that mindset, it’s OK for Wilson to decline to answer direct questions about who is funding that campaign website which is pushing submissions into the taxpayer-funded process. I don’t have to disclose that information, so I won’t.
Voters keen to understand who is exerting influence in their democracy can talk to the hand. We decide the (taxpayer-subsidised) echo chambers, and the circumstances in which they come into being.
It’s also OK, when that mindset descends, for members of the government to hand out Liberal party membership forms to retirees concerned about the changes during a taxpayer-funded hearing of the standing committee on economics.
It’s OK, too, for Wilson to draft up pro-forma submissions to his own inquiry,…
