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When Julia Gillard says she believes in economic reform it sounds as if she is playing Peter Pan in a pantomime.
"Quick, children!" Peter cries. "If we don't all shout out ?I believe in fairies' Tinker Bell will die."
The Prime Minister seems to believe if she doesn't talk about reform something similar will happen to the market and the Australian and United States currencies will never again reach parity.
But despite all her words hopes for any genuine economic reform this year are off in never-never land.
What the Prime Minister describes as reform and what the term is generally understood to mean are two separate things. Wasting $40-odd billion on a technological white elephant is not reform. Nor is bumping up power bills.
The makeup of the parliament is scarcely conducive to the passage of any legislation likely to cause even the slightest short-term smart of pain.
And those of us who believe in reform have failed to put our case clearly.
Despite its importance economic reform is not an end it itself. It is a means, the means of ensuring greater prosperity.
That seems to have been forgotten in the two decades since Bob Hawke sacked Peter Walsh...