grodscorp@grods.comAsk the oldies
 | Posted by Bridgit Gread on Monday 15 October 2007, 8:32 am Categories: Australia Decides '07 Tags: Tags: economy, InterestRates, parents |
We already know the Coalition spin-doctors will hammer away the ‘interest rate button’ because the ALP is, like, economically incompetent and stuff. If Rudd is elected then mortgage rates will hit 20+ percent, we’ll all be in soup queues and Channel Nine will bring back Hey Hey It’s Saturday. All a gigantic furphy, of course, since external factors dictate interest rates to a much larger degree than domestic management. The cash rate was 13 percent when Howard was treasurer in the early 1980s, peaked at 17 percent in 1989 and declined rapidly thereafter (sitting under 8 percent during the last five years of ALP government).
Anyway, one of the Liberals’ campaign ads to debut on TV last night used this gem:
“If you don’t remember how bad things were under Labor interest rates, then ask your parents!”
Genius! What better source of informed political commentary could there be than asking your parents. Don’t listen to us, don’t follow the campaign, don’t look at Kruddy’s Myspace page …. just ask your parents. Makes campaigning easy when you just keep harking back to the past - and debt-bound, middle-aged parents are the Coalition’s natural fodder when it comes to interest rate fear-mongering, of course. I wonder though if they can go even further with this tactic:
“Don’t remember how Bob Hawke left Hazel? Ask your parents!”
“Remember how Chifley tried to nationalise the banks? Ask your grandparents!”
“Hey, the Great Depression was all Scullin’s fault! Ask someone really, really old!“
