Don't Be Misled By Election Fever

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday March 10, 1987

By Ross Gittins

Don't be deceived by the present political hullabaloo - the Federal Cabinet on tour in Bathurst, the Joh for PM bumper stickers, and all the rest. It may look as though we're in the middle of an election campaign, but we're not. Far from it.

The nice thing about election campaigns is that they are the only season when all the news is good. Bad news is banished and our political leaders (and would-be leaders) speak only about such pleasant topics as tax cuts, falling interest rates and the endless plain of prosperity stretching before us.

If you're in any doubt about the imminence of an election, today will set you straight. The bad news begins today.

At 10.30 this morning the president of the learned gents on the Arbitration Bench will bring down his gavel and give us all a pay rise - the first we've had since last July.

If you think that sounds like good news, wait until you see how big the pay rise is. The ACTU has asked for $20 a week, an amount that would still leave many employees behind the ball.

We'll be lucky if we get $12. And I won't be surprised if we're told that it's the last pay rise we can expect this year.

Of course, we'll all be given a ticket in the lottery known as the "second tier". The prize is an additional pay rise of up to 3 per cent. But the commission will be doing its darndest to see that prizes are hard to win and the draw is strung out for months, if not years.

Tomorrow, the Statistician will release his first estimate of how much business intends to invest in plant and buildings next financial year. With luck, the figures will suggest that investment is picking up.

But even if they do, they're certain also to show that new investment by business is falling far short of the level necessary to bring a quick end to the miseries of our swollen trade deficit and climbing foreign debt.

On Thursday, we get the figures for unemployment last month. You'd need to be quite an optimist to hope for a repetition of the small fall which occurred in January.

A small rise is more likely. And if, by the end of this year, we can look back and say that unemployment hasn't risen much, we'll have done about as well as could be hoped.

Next week, the big news will be the national accounts for the December quarter. They will show whether the economy went forwards or backwards in the last part of 1986.

My crystal ball says 0.5 per cent growth during the quarter. If I'm right, Paul Keating will hail it as most encouraging news. (Encouraging news, you understand, has been a bit thin on the ground lately.)

After that, the Razor Gang will be well into its task of slashing a path up to the mini-Budget on May 14. The kites will be flying, the Left will be revolting and you and I will be reading the morning paper with ever-growing trepidation.

It's the decision to hold a mini-Budget which allows my fearless prediction that there will be no early election. It's too late for an election before the mini-Budget, and you can be certain sure the Government won't want one after it.

Of course, Bob Hawke has begun making election commitments. He said at the weekend that "we will make an explicit promise: under this Government, there will be no wage freeze".

Would that bribe buy your vote? It's about as good as the Government's good news is likely to get this year.