There is always a period in the life of any government when it stops listening to advice, a wise old bureaucrat commented recently. But, he said, he had never known a government to stop listening so early in the political season.
It fits in with a Peter Costello remark in the recent biography of Howard by two academics, Wayne Errington and Peter Van Onselen. In Costello’s version, 2004 saw the Treasurer’s office prepare a smorgasbord of about 20 costed policy ideas that might be put up for the election campaign. Some were about tax. There was an education initiative. A health one. A childcare one. The idea was that Howard, and his tacticians would pick two or three of the best according to their view of the best electoral bang for the buck. But John Howard took everything, and more. As Costello put it, "He ordered everything on the menu: entrée, main, dessert, the vegetarian option". Ate the toothpicks too, one might add.
In a later section of the book Costello complains of such binge spending, saying that, as Treasurer, "I have to foot the bill and that worries me. And then I start thinking about not just footing the bill today but, if we keep building in all of these things, footing the bill in five, 10 and 15 years, and, you know, I do worry about the sustainability of these things."
The quotes are noteworthy not for some mere partisan point. It’s a major problem of government these days. The remarks were made more than a year ago, even if they were published only in recent weeks. Since then, John Howard (without any form of apparent resistance from his Treasurer) has committed the Government to many billions more in long term public expenditure, and has given every indication that the pace will increase enormously as the country moves closer to election.
More ominously, the expenditure plans are going through no normal process of government. Notoriously, because Ken Henry, Secretary of the Treasury complained of it, there was no input from Treasury (or Finance, or Environment) in John Howard’s $10 billion water plan. The 'plan' — and just what it involves other than spraying $10 billion about is still quite unclear months after the announcement — was concocted, over four days, by a group of ministers, minders and a few people from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Likewise with the invasion