Dr Ryan Walter, School of Politics & International Relations, ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences

Larry Saha Seminar Room 2175, Level 2, Haydon-Allen Building, The Australian National University

This paper investigates two rhetorical strategies deployed in debates over the budget surplus during the Gillard government. The first is the contested use of evaluative descriptive terms, such as ‘fiscal discipline’ and ‘responsible economic management’. These terms were invoked by the government to legitimate its actions while opposition politicians denied the applicability of these terms and mobilised their own negative evaluative-descriptive terms. The second strategy examined is the rhetorical description and redescription of the government’s behaviour using economic language and concepts, including growth rates and debt to GDP ratios. This exercise makes possible a number of interventions into key issues in political and social theory, including the viability of reading political rhetoric in relation to ideologies such as liberalism and conservatism, and the relationship between economic expertise and sovereignty.