- The Guardian
- Issue #2140
savings (= cuts)
It’s good to make savings. It’s also bad to take forever to process Veterans benefit claims, or make the process of contacting Centrelink purgatory because there aren’t enough public servants there for the place to operate effectively, but the people who’ve announced the savings don’t care about that. They aren’t veterans, they aren’t unemployed and they have staff to look after the annoying phone calls.
Efficiencies
See savings. One person’s efficiency is often someone else’s six hours on the phone waiting for an understaffed government department to pick up.
achievable
Peter Dutton says the Coalition “has an achievable plan to get our country back on track.” Good-oh, if you have a plan it might as well be achievable and not impossible.
green-teal
Don’t panic, this is not a new colour you have to know about if you’re choosing paint for your new kitchen. It’s Peter Dutton’s slur for candidates who are ‘teal’ (as the community independents are called), implying that they’re just Greens in disguise. It’s also an attempt to slag off the Greens. Fair play to Dutton, ‘green-teal’ while inaccurate and petty, is better than Labor’s tactic of constantly calling the Greens ‘The Greens political party’ as though we’re going to be appalled to discover the Greens are – gasp! – political.
wasteful spending
Not a weasel word as such, but in the hands of Peter Dutton many words are weaselly. ‘Wasteful spending’ is pretty rich coming from a man who wants to spend at least $600 million on back-of-an-envelope plans for nuclear power, also from a man who was part of a government that dished out $20.8 billion on consultants because they don’t like cheaper public servants.
stealth tax
Stealth means that thing A can sneak up on thing B without being detected. Depending on who or what A and B are, this can be a good thing or a bad thing. It’s fun when James Bond is stealthy and escaping from bad guys. It’s annoying when someone sneaks into the tea room and takes your biscuits while you’re working.
Stealth is a weaselly thing when used to describe ‘bracket creep,’ because far from being stealthy, bracket creep is one of those things that never changes and which people never shut up about. You have more money now, so you’re paying more tax – that’s it. It could be done away with by indexing tax rates to inflation, but until that happens bracket creep is a stealth tax in the same way that Taylor Swift’s last global tour was a stealth tour.
the good guy
Independent MP Andrew Gee in Calare in NSW has ‘done an Angus’ and posted a social media message thanking himself for showing a fictional young voter who “the good guy” is. It’s the sort of mistake anyone could make – especially if ‘anyone’ is Angus Taylor, Shadow Treasurer, who famously answered one of his own messages with “Fantastic. Well done Angus. Great move”.
Incentives
Incentives are always weaselly, but even more so at budget time. ‘Incentive’ sounds so much nicer than what’s really happening, which is ‘a handout’ or ‘a bribe’. To de-weasel this word, just ask ‘incentive to do what exactly?’
the focus
The Liberals, like Labor, hate talking about possible minority government. Peter Dutton, trying to avoid chatting about the possibility of him having to negotiate with various independents, said that “the focus is on how we can present our positive plan to the Australian people.” Oh really? Is that where the focus is? Thanks for letting us know. The focus is certainly not on Dutton’s insane nuclear policy. Someone must’ve told him it’s not popular.
