Swan - a true swan or goose?

Comments on, Michael Stutchbury “Swan must not turn out a goose”, 7/10/2009, http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/currentaccount/index.php/theaustralian/comments/swan_must_not_turn_out_a_goose/

Michael, I agree with you completely that the government has become locked into activist recession-busting and its stimulus spending has become a political entitlement and re-election strategy.

This is an opportunistic Labour government that disguised itself before the last election by saying it was economically conservative.

It got an excuse to get rid of that excuse from the financial and economic crisis and now it is showing the full swing of its big spending approach, more than a pure activist approach.

But they will be surprised by the inadequacy of their approach sooner than later and will be forced to abandon it in the course from now to the end of next year, due to Australia's economic strength.

That will expose the government an awkward economic manager once again just as it did to it when the crisis hit to show its outlook of the economy in its first budget was so out of steps with what was to come by over estimating its revenue.

Of course, they may argue that it isn’t and wasn’t their problems but the Treasury’s. That is half true. Treasury is the government’s economic advising agent and does the forecasts or estimates. But it is the government and its ministers’ responsibility to accept their or not.

It is ultimately the government’s responsibility to get the forecast and estimates right. Treasury is only part of the government’s apparatus.

The government can’t use that excuse to its political advantage. It should live up to its responsibility.