‘When will I get my money?’

Wednesday, 11th March 2009

Neither libertarians nor social democrats, Australians will welcome Kevin Rudd’s handout, says John Heard

If the intervention does more harm than good, Rudd won’t survive anyway.

For the moment, however, Australians set to receive the payments are already speaking in terms favourable to Rudd’s political longevity.

‘When will I get my money?’ is, of course, a crystallisation of the obstacles that a certain kind of politician faces in opposing the handout. For a principled conservative, however, on either side of the aisle, but especially for Liberals, this otherwise demoralising victory for Rudd could yet be another hopeful sign of the enduring conservatism of the nation.

The winning conservative answer to that question is not, then, Turnbull’s flat ‘You won’t’ — and it is not the libertarian’s ‘Never!’

The right response might be informed by Howard’s deliberately ‘fusionist’ pragmatism about government intervention, and something like the Old Whigs’ faith in what Locke called ‘a standing rule to live by’.

That is, ‘Let’s wait and see’ — which is a distinctly conservative, Australian sentiment.