Emptying the Haunted Air

Coalition Fiscal Policy

The appointment of Barnaby Joyce to the Shadow Finance portfolio may well be Tony Abbott’s biggest mistake for the coming election year. Regardless of how many times the guy reminds us all that he’s an accountant, Joyce has the heart of a market interventionist. He has proven, time and again, that his loyalties lie only with his electorate, that he scarcely understands what a tax is, that he sees national debt as akin to household debt. The man is an economic illiterate – even if a thoroughly entertaining one – and he will really struggle against Lindsay Tanner. He’s never been one to tow the party line, either – his interview with Annabel Crabbe (linked above) showed us that he doesn’t quite understand that the price of promotion to the front bench is to limit your opinions to your own portfolio. It already looks like an Opposition with two leaders – far from a sound election strategy.

In other news, I composed a song about Christmas beetles! All in AudioMulch; loops of recordings from my modular synth, granulators, and pulsecombes, which I’ve only started using recently. The pulsecombe’s rhythmic possibilities are incredible – it’s just a shame that you can’t program LFO-like contraptions to modulate parameters, because I still find the automation system a little clunky. There are no words, but then again I’ve never heard a Christmas beetle sing.

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