Stronger........... more secure

My tax dollars at work

Today I picked up a suburban newspaper and saw this full page advertisement put out by the current conservative Howard government. It is a piece of spin put out, selling their version of their upcoming Industrial relations reform. You can zoom in and actually read it if you click it then click again.

I'd send you directly to their pdf file here but it just doesn't seem to want to load.

I note the use of the words "STRONG" and "SECURE" words used in their re-election campaign and also in the use of their border protection policy. For example from Brian Loughnane in his post election analysis in an interview at the Nine network.

BRIAN LOUGHNANE: Well in his speech last night the Prime Minister was clearly focussed on the future. He indicated that he's got a very clear plan of action, that he's going to begin immediately. I spoke to him on the telephone a couple of times last night and he was very, very focussed on hitting the desk running. So you know our job, the job of the Government, the job of John Howard as Prime Minister is to honour the commitments that he gave to the Australian people to make sure that the economy does remain strong, that families are able to plan for their future with confidence, and that Australia remains strong and secure.

From the National Party/Liberal Party (Coalition) manifesto. The opening statement reads and the BOLD comments are theirs..... not mine.

At the federal election on 9 October, the Australian people will decide who is best able to shoulder the huge responsibility of keeping Australia prosperous, strong and secure in the years ahead.

Now lets look at the recent industrial relations ad. The header reads.

MORE JOBS
HIGHER WAGES
A STRONGER ECONOMY

And the closing quote:

OUR PLAN FOR SECURING THE FUTURE

By working together, we will create more jobs, with higher wages in a stronger economy and secure the future for Australian workers and their families.

Seems their milking this "strong and secure" thing for all it's worth. I did a google search using "strong and secure" and terrorism and the hits were mainly Liberal Party spin.

So what am I getting at? Well I suppose this "stong and secure" meme seems to be thrown at those things that would "weaken" Australia's position in the current Howard governments worldview. Illegal immigrants, a poor economy and I suppose workers involved in the union movement.

Again, I point to policies of the HR Nicholls Institute, established by a young lawyer called Peter Costello in the 80's who currently serves as the Australian treasurer. Young Costello took the side of an company Dollar Sweets whose workers were on strike and sued the arse of the union. hence his nickname at Crikey "Dollar Sweetie".

I wrote a post going into a few more details about that here.