Last week I criticised the Abbott government for taking four days to pass two insignificant pieces of legislation. This week they have passed none.
This week's excuse for the government failing to govern is that they have been busy bullying Qantas into changing their position on the carbon tax. On Monday Qantas released a statement which said that their financial problems "were not related to the carbon tax". This angered a government who on the same day were claiming it was the primary reason.
On Tuesday the government pulled the plug on a proposed $3 billion dollar loan to the airline. On Wednesday Qantas reversed their position on the carbon tax while Hockey and Abbott denied putting any pressure on the airline. Today Hockey has admitted he had a number of "chats" with the board of Qantas, that the airline have now changed their position on the carbon tax and that the government was again looking at the rescue package it had ruled out earlier in the week.
The problem I have with this corrupt, dishonest, intimidating, delusional, hypocritical and at times insane government is not that they govern in a corrupt, dishonest, delusional, hypocritical and at times insane way but that they don't govern at all. This is not only bad government, it is bad business.
Australia's international airline, once the envy of the world, is on the brink of collapse. The response of the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the rest of the "party of business" is to ignore the problems that have led Qantas to where they are today (an incompetent and short-sighted board, high fuel prices and strong competition from Virgin, who are doing very well despite paying the same carbon tax) and instead used billions of taxpayer's dollars to bully Qantas into supporting their "everything is the fault of the carbon tax" fantasy.
While this government continues to throw good money after bad with the sole aim of perpetuating the same bullshit they and the Murdoch press bombarded us with when they were in opposition, these problems won't go away. The only thing that will go away is the money and resources that could have been used to fix them.