If Rudd thinks that people will forgive excessive interest rates rises he has a short memory. If he believes that he can't remember Keating, Hell! he can't even remember his own election campaign.
Rudd is currently in the process of re-writing history as little as 100 days old. He is trying to say that Howard left the economy in a terrible state and it's up to the the true "economic conservatives" of the ALP (that still makes me laugh) to fix the situation. The story is as fanciful as the King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and as farcical as Monty Python's SPAMALOT, and it goes something like this...
The Lord of Rudd, Sir Lies-a-lot, faces the crowd gathered around him. Atop his trusty steed ALPAX he breathes deeply and struggles to fill the shimmering samite suit of armour he has made for himself, for he is more Wizard than Knight. He is a man of feeble frame and feminine face, lacking in impressiveness, and with a milky heart. He would sooner make his escape with with smoke and mirrors than stand and fight. His followers, bless their maleable souls, are ignorant of his his shortcomings. He wishes to relieve himself of the terrible burden of this deception, and the all-too-heavy armour, but he has sworn an oath of service to the shadowy reclusive Union of Labor Lords, Burke amongst them, and he will not fail in his duty. He is a Wizard and the power of the illusion must hold. This small deception pales in comparison to what is to come, so for now he will accept the peasant's praises out of necessity, and humility. He wishes it were not so, but the underlings need someone to praise. It might as well be him.
From his gilt saddle he produces a parchment, holds it aloft and reads, in his thin shrill voice, the declaration of his own greatness. "I, Lord Rudd, as representative of 52% of the population of this land hereby decree that I am a living god. It is the The Divine Right of Rudd to rule this land by the virtue of my superior intellect and superficial sympathy. These first 100 days have brought a new peace between the people of this land and the media that rule them. We can now move formard in unity and unanimity to a brave new world of uniformity and conformity. The benefits have begun already. Allow me to me to list my achievements. 'Twill take a mere 4 hours out of your insignificant lives, so bear with me ... or else"
After his declaration the almighty Rudd looks down (his nose) at the crowds swooning with admiration for him and eagerly anticipating his every word. The hush turns to hisses at the utterance of one word from the master's thin lips, "Howard". Lord Rudd decries the former ruler of Australis, the black knight Howard, to the joy of the assembled flock. The evil Howard, he shreeks, has let loose inflation on the fair lands of Australis. He brought this beast from the bowels of the economy by neglecting to spend enough on education and infrastructure. The loyal vassals are blinded by the sheen of Rudd's apologetic armour and fail to see that that education and infrastructure are state (labor) responsibilities and that their link to inflation is tenuous at best. Rudd presses on, exclaiming that the mythical beast inflation was the most terrifying creature imaginable and was rampaging over the kingdom. The crowd sucks in air in fear and anticipation of what was to come.
The mythical beast must be stopped, declares Lies-a-lot. To do that end he would need the help of the people, and for this assistance he has now come to beg, albeit not that humbly. "We all must bear the burden," says His Ruddness. "You have more money than you ought to and it is fueling demand. Having a strong confident economy is bad. Howard left the economy with too much can-do attitude. We'll i'm afraid we can't do. You must learn that individual enterprise has no place in this country. The centralist government runs the economy by playing favourites along the Beijing/ALP model now. You money is being taken away as punishment for believing in Howard all those years."
"Together with my helpers the Reserve Bank of Aus I must put up interest rates. I know they are supposed to be independent but I actually have them in my pocket. How else do you think we got a rate rise out of them during the election campaign dispite a world-wide trend for reserve banks to drop rates signigicantly because of sub-prime. But never fear, my dear little ones, you can trust me. I will not abuse the power I have cunningly usurped."
After a deep self-satisfactory breath Rudd moves to finish his oration. "Return you your homes and tighten your belts. I know that inflation is only a problem to the extent that it causes your money to be worth less. I know what I will now force upon you has exactly the same net effect. But you must not worry yourself about these contradictions. Do not fall foul of the classical divisions between right and left, right and wrong and black and white. The time for facts has past. The variable certainty is the way of the future."
"God save the King. Hang on, I am the King, and I'm also a God. So i guess if we were to be technically correct I have to say "Me save me". Ok, now everybody say it! Rudd save the Rudd! Yippeee. What fun this all is. Toodle-oo peasants."
With that Lord Rudd turns Alpax around and trotts off. On his way back to his Ivory town his eyes dart from side to side as he muses in his mind. It was fortnute that the underlings did not protest. He had outshined them with his brilliance. No-one had dared drop a dull dampener on the sheen of the procedings. He knew that there were many things he did not mention. Firstly, the fact that inflation is only as low as it is because the the wages system is still flexible, thanks to his secret mentor, the hated Howard. He knows that if he keops the flexibility, then all those mums and dads out there in community would not have to put up with interest rate rises at all. Moreover he doubted that interest rate rises would slow the economy down stably. He wonders whether house prices inflation and mortgauges were the real driver behind inflation. If only state labor had released more land for houses he would not have to lie to the people so.
(Sorry, tense changing to past now. I guess I just could not maintain a medievil story in the present tense and it slipped in by accident)
But there was no time for negative thoughts. He had a job to do. No man can serve to masters, and his master was not the people of Australia with their house payments, it was the shadowy Labor lords of the unions movment. They they had demanded an end to workplace flexibility in return for delivering him power through adversiting, and he would not disappoint them. It was a matter of honour, and not at all one of saving face and protecting himself from Burke and the other large intimidating men.
As Lord Rudd rode across the moat of his Ivory Tower, he shivered at the thought of his dark masters beady eyes, sausage fingers and thick red necks. He pulled himself together as he rode through the gates and his servants attended to his horse. Nose in the air he strode up the stairs to his quite study. There he took off his crown and pulled the hood of 'his cape over his head. He pulled a book on the bookcase, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations", and chewing on bitter irony stood back as the bookcase rotated, revealing a secret passage down to the under world beneath the Ivory Tower. Looking around to make sure nobody saw, apart from Terese who he blow a kiss to, he slipped into the blackness and decended the stairs. His masters were waiting. He hoped they would be pleased with him.
