Word: snedden
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Opposition Leader Billy Snedden's Liberal-Country party coalition got an equally rousing endorsement from the country's top football coach, Ron Barassi, and tried to ignore the polls that showed Labor gradually inching ahead...
...Snedden, 47, a somewhat drab and uninspiring speaker, could scarcely hope to match Whitlam's charisma. In the campaign, he tried to capitalize on something more important to voters: inflation, which under Labor has jumped from an annual rate...
Though many economists found Snedden's patchwork anti-inflation package of wage-price controls an unconvincing program, his emphasis on money matters put Whitlam on the defensive. Only midway through the campaign did Labor regain the initiative by pointing to its own inflation suppressants: a combination of tariff cuts and an upward revaluation of the Australian dollar. "It's possible to freeze meat and vegetables but not their prices," snorted the Prime Minister, knocking down the ON SERVICE idea of a wage-price freeze...
...Though Snedden had been derided by one of his critics as a Milquetoast who "couldn't go two rounds with a revolving door," he has, in fact, turned out to have a distinct knack for political combat. He has unexpectedly put the more charismatic Whitlam on the defensive by his broadsides against Whitlam's abrasive policies. In foreign affairs, Snedden has accused Whitlam of needlessly alienating Australia's two closest friends, the U.S. and Britain, and has promised a more traditional, pro-Western policy...
...home, Snedden scored points by promising to restore the incentives to foreign investment that Whitlam took away-necessary incentives, Snedden argued, if Australia is to develop its vast resources-and pledged to give free enterprise a looser rein. Most important of all, he promised to put a curb on the country's worrisome economic problem, inflation, which is now running at the rate of 14% a year. He promised that he would resign in six months if he could not curb inflation-a promise that most Australians viewed with skepticism...