You would probably think that the government was crazy: “Why is it bothering to tell us this stuff? – this is what we expect it to do.
And your would probably think that it was a good idea for the government to keep owning Telstra.
Stop imagining, and think about what’s actually happening.
The government’s Future Fund (and associated Higher Education and Health Infrastructure funds) still does own $17.6 billion of Telstra shares and heaven knows what of other shares...
The Treasurer has announced that a certain proportion of each year’s dividends will go to public service pension payouts, a certain proportion will go to funding capital expenditure on universities, and a certain proportion will to buying medical equipment.
As he put it yesterday: "we are now beginning to see the results of long, hard work to strengthen the Australian economy.'"
But it could have been done years ago. It could have been done in any year that Telstra shares and the like paid dividends.
Steven Bartos, a former deputy secretary of the department of Finance describes it as “jam jar economics”.
You put away a little bit of your expected earnings for this, a little bit for that and so on – for the kind of thing you would have any way.
Peter Costello is asking to be given credit for the kind of things we employ him to do any way.
He wants us to re-elect him for it.
