Jeremy Cordeaux has a long memory for a politician’s excuses. On this Garage edition of the Court of Public Opinion, he set one against another, and the contrast, he argued, laid bare the government’s real priorities. Health Minister Mark Butler had claimed there was no money lying around to keep the health rebate for the over-65s. Yet the same government, Jeremy noted, has found billions to crush guns taken from law-abiding citizens.
Up To $10,000 A Gun
The scheme is the New South Wales gun buyback, which Jeremy expects to spread. Under it, the government will pay up to $10,000 for a single surrendered firearm. Most, he conceded, would fetch around $1,000, but the ceiling is $10,000, and the state expects roughly 272,000 guns to be handed in.
Doing the rough arithmetic, Jeremy landed on a staggering number: an allowance of at least $2.6 billion. That is $2.6 billion, he argued, for nothing at all except the ideology of a Prime Minister he accused of a socialist aim to disarm the population.
Crushed, Not Kept
What compounded the waste, in his view, was the fate of the firearms. Many, he pointed out, are treasured by their owners, who paid a lot for them and kept them in good order. Rather than crush them, he asked, why not store them, in an armoury attached to the army, or with police, held in case they were ever needed.
Others, Pete noted, could be sold for serious money, particularly in America, or placed in museums. Instead, Jeremy said, they will be crushed. And these, he added, are the very people who lecture everyone else about recycling.
The Contradiction At The Heart Of It
For Jeremy, the two claims cannot both stand. If the government genuinely has no money lying around, as Butler insisted while defending the health-rebate cut, then how, he asked, can it instantly find nearly $3 billion to take guns from law-abiding citizens for no good reason?
Either the money exists or it does not. That it appears at once for a buyback, but not to keep 3.2 million pensioners in private health cover, tells him the plea of poverty was never about money. It was about priorities.
A Government That Should Be Ashamed
Jeremy’s verdict was blunt. A government that pleads poverty on health while spending $2.6 billion to destroy the property of law-abiding citizens should, he argued, be thoroughly ashamed of itself.
The buyback, in his telling, is the clearest proof yet of a government whose spending reveals its values. Money is never truly unavailable in the abstract; it is found for what a government wants and withheld from what it does not. On this occasion, Jeremy argued, it chose crushing guns over the health of older Australians, and hoped no one would notice the contradiction.
Listen To The Full Episode
Catch the complete Garage edition of The Court of Public Opinion, recorded live around the dining room table.
Watch The Full Episode
The Court of Public Opinion streams live every Friday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (ACST), right here at jeremycordeaux.com. Download the podcast anytime on your favourite podcast app, and join the conversation with your calls and comments.
