MAYBE WE NEED A LITTLE DICK

STATUS

WEIGHT: Fat, but less fat than last week - 90.4 (-0.2)

ACHILLES: Promising - Pulled up ok after stairs.

HEAD SPACE: All over the freakin' shop - but recovering - and lemon citrus tart is helping lots.

RATING FOR THE WEEK: 5.

SUMMARY

Not much training at the end of last week. June audit at work, assignment due Friday (submitted at 11:57PM). Pretty much buggered.

Thursday - Gym

Saturday - 5 x stairs – big improvement on last week - 2:50 average (3:06 last week), Range 2:41 – 3:06 (Cracked at the end)

Sunday - 4 x 4km reps on bike – good session - 6:06, 5:58, 6:01, 6:06 (TT bike, aero wheels on, conditions perfect – little breeze)

Monday – Gym

OTHER STUFF: OH F#$% THERE'S AN ELECTION ON

Argh! The atrophy in political culture is just aweful. While whinging about Australian politicians has been sport since… well forever really, in essence Australian politics has served us well, (and anyone disagreeing with that need only look at Spain, Italy, or even the US for a comparison). Notwithstanding occasional moments of lunacy, (Menzies' blind commitment to the Suez Crisis works as well as anything I can think of off the top of my head) governments and leaders from both teams have generally steered Australia with quite safe hands, both economically and socially, bounded by the reasonably modest extremes of the progressivism and conservatism of Whitlam and Howard respectively. Australian governments have been (generally) prepared, though with a pragmatic eye to the election cycle, to address emerging imperatives even if contrary to popular opinion – acknowledging that change always makes winners and losers:

Ø  Despite Australia’s prevailing British race patriotism, Chifley and then Curtin turned to the US for military support in the Pacific when they realised that the British assumption of global influence could not be sustained by the modern British economy. They signed ANZUS in 1951 - in 1968 Britain announced a full withdrawal of troops East of the Suez. Australia wasn’t happy, but it was prepared.

Ø  In contradiction to his own personal sentiments and much of the electorate, Menzies negotiated releases into the Imperial Preferences system that enabled Australia to expand markets in Japan and Asia in the late 50’s. In 1961 Britain turned away from the Commonwealth and towards Europe via its first (unsuccessful) EEC application. By the time tariff exemptions ceased, Japan had become out largest export market, and the USA our largest supplier. Again, Australia wasn’t happy, but it was prepared.

Ø  Gorton and Whitlam unwound the administrative and symbolic ties to Empire, hammered the final nails into the British race patriotism coffin and laid a platform for multiculturalism to become the dominant nationalist myth. A lot of Australians who weren’t happy now have solid retirement savings because of it.

Ø  Hawke and Keating undertook major reform to labour markets via the Accord v.x, which laid a path to the productivity gains that underpinned international competitiveness, and freed the capital markets, and Howard broadened the revenue base via the GST, and took on organised labour in bringing flexibility to labour markets. (The latter cost him an election - possibly).

And 'maybe' this is where things turned ugly in domestic political culture. Since Work Choices no prime minister has been willing / capable of delviering any serious reform agenda (without losing their job in the process). No labour reform, no mining tax, no broadening of the revenue base, no carbon tax, no industry policy, no marriage equality, and at best a weird-assed approach to energy security. Whether people agree or disagree with any of those potential initiatives, the fundamental point is that governments are currently unable / unwilling to govern, and as a consequence there has been no preservation of mining boom revenues (having been given back in the form of unnecessary tax breaks, school halls and other associated sweeteners by both colour jerseys); no labour reform; no industry policy. Australia is quietly slipping into uncompetitiveness (in terms of productivity growth, research investment, non-mining exports etc) under the cover of the (softening) mining investment and harvest cycle.

At the earliest point of the terms of trade coming off, the country was suddenly under a revenue-stress that could escalate from mild to severe in the space of a decade unless addressed. Ignoring the politicking of the times, government deficits have exploded not through waste (though there are elements of such) but because revenue has karked.

Depressingly there is NO rhetoric in the lead up to this election that would suggest anybody is prepared to address issues of future competitiveness – because they are genuinely hard. This in spite of having hands, (particularly in Rudd and Turnbull) capable of making confident forward looking policy calls - because they CAN’T - we (via our private and public media agencies, business and union lobby groups) simply won’t let them.

Riley will be a bigger beneficiary or otherwise of the next government than I will, but he doesn’t get to vote, otherwise Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson would be calling the shots by Christmas. Short of this, it seems reform might only be possible as a response to extreme crises, still comfortably a few years away yet. Unless China stalls or US debt cracks – then we’re well rooted – and Batman and Robin might be the only remaining policy lever.