Laurie Oakes wrote an interesting article today about leaks to the media. This time it’s not about the Labor Party but the Opposition and what Joe Hockey did to catch a rat in the ranks.
It centres around “a $70 billion budget black hole” that Labor keeps saying Tony Abbott will have to fill if he wins the next election and has been repeated so many times, it’s widely accepted as fact.
In August last year when the Coalition met to look at ways of saving money, there was a leak that Hockey needed to find $70 billion to balance the books and now Hockey knows who did it. He told all his colleagues a different figure so if there was a leak, he’d know where it came from. Sure enough, soon after “a $70 billion dollar black hole” was in the headlines. This strategy has been used before and has worked a treat.
Whether the figure is 40, 50, 60 or 70 billions, it’s clear that the Opposition will need to be ruthless to get the economy back on track and it was a logical form of attack from the government when parliament resumed on Tuesday. Little wonder Gillard and Swan were able to seriously undermine Coalition credibility on the economy.
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