What happens at a typical branch meeting? Perhaps you imagine a handful of political nerds trading gossip, or some minor union functionaries concluding their factional horse-trading. Perhaps a group of students in Che Guevara T-Shirts discussing Marx?
The reality is perhaps less interesting but more fun. Our branch is a very active one, and we have about 130 people as members. We generally have north of thirty locals attending the monthly meetings, many more if we have a high-profile speaker.
According to conventional wisdom, the Coalition are the ones to be trusted on economic management. A current poll offers these distressing statistics:
The Coalition is strongly ahead as better economic manager — 40 per cent, compared with 12 per cent who put Labor as the better manager of the economy.
I’m sure many Labor insiders bridle at these sorts of statistics, because like most conventional wisdom, if you really try and investigate the logic behind it, you don’t come up with much. For instance, according to Wikipedia – a source that Howard’s own staff are free to edit:
During Howard’s tenure as Treasurer, the 90-day cash rate peaked at 21% on 8 April 1982, while home loan mortage rates were capped at 13.5%, and inflation peaked at 12.5% in September 1982. Peter Costello commented, in 2007, that “The Howard treasurership was not a success in terms of interest rates and inflation… he had not been a great reformer.”