Turnbull Discovers Reaganomics

When you are a besieged Opposition leader, launch a new policy. However, it didn't work for Simon Crean and it won't take the torch off Malcolm Turnbull this week.

Putting Reaganomics into practice was something that Ronald never quite managed himself. It sounds like the squirming trio at Turnbull's press conference today are going to try. Some not-so-original ideas were:

• Stop waste and duplication in government spending
• Reduce government spending as a percentage of GDP
• Increase growth through spending on infrastructure, small business and innovation
• Independent scrutiny of public finances

Presumably Joe Hockey and Helen Coonan will have to come up with some concrete proposals as there were none on the horizon this morning, just cheesy grins all round.

The new spending will, of course, replace the stimulus infrastructure package and other government programs for innovation and small business. Need to check the thesaurus for synonyms for 'stimulus'.

Malcolm's media release reads not only like a lift from Reagan's election manifesto but could be a cut and paste from Kevin Rudd's 2007 campaign launch.

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