YOU can put down the binoculars, this race is over. It is time to think about what the Abbott government needs to do in order to create the prosperous Australia that its leader is promising.
The business of repairing the federal government’s own accounts will be long and gruelling, but it is not the same as building conditions for wealth creation. The ease of doing business in Australia is declining. This decline must be reversed.
The Abbott government needs to work on two tiers – in two teams – to reverse the decline. In order to remain in government, the first tier must repair the budget and solve important headline issues such as boatpeople and abolishing the carbon tax and allied programs. The second tier must work away in the background, reinventing government.
Government is not simply a cash cow for electoral sweeteners, nor is it a Keynesian plaything. Its major purpose should be to assist where the market and individuals cannot reasonably be expected to cope: call them market and personal failures.
Where these are not warranted, it should get the hell out.
