Extract from The Guardian
The centre-right political offering in Australia is heavy on slogans
but light on substance, and the Coalition party as a whole needs to do
some deep thinking
We’ve
already written loads and doubtless we’ll write more over this weekend –
meticulously reported previews of Monday’s first meeting of Coalition
MPs since the election. We’ve parsed who is cranky about what, who is
thinking of taking a stand on which issue, all important stuff, but, at
some level, comprehensively missing the elephant in the room.
Coalition MPs have emerged from an eight-week campaign alight with questions, bristling with rancour, with regret, with frustration. How did the election go so wrong? This must be Malcolm Turnbull’s fault or Tony Nutt’s fault or Mark Textor’s fault. Tony Abbott would have done better – are you freaking kidding? And so the internal postmortems go, round and round and round.
But there is a bigger question that needs to be asked. This question for the Coalition is a simple one: why are we here? Why do we want to be in government? What is our true purpose?
The first-principles question needs to be asked, because to be blunt, the centre-right political offering in Australia is vacuous, heavy on the slogans, light on substance. The absence of defining principles and animating ideas in centre-right politics following the global financial crisis is not a phenomenon unique to Australia, but we nonetheless need to call this for what it is.
While Australia’s political parties will take time to review their campaigns and reach conclusions, it’s reasonable to conclude that the Coalition did not win a stronger mandate from voters on 2 July because the voters aren’t stupid. They were able to intuit easily enough that “jobs and growth” was a slogan masking a complete ideas vacuum. If jobs and growth meant anything at all, it was more of the same, it was more of the default neoliberal offering that people had seen for two decades or more, an offering that, in the lived reality of ordinary people, is delivering manifest benefits for some, but not for all.
Politics on the right is fracturing after the global financial crisis, at least in part because the benefits from globalisation are being distributed unevenly. The right vote is splitting along an axis of haves and have-nots. Rage-soaked reactionary populism and nativism are fuelling the rise of Donald Trump in America and the Brexit vote in the UK, and in Australia we’ve seen the resurrection of Pauline Hanson. Nick Xenophon is not a Hansonite, but he’s a populist and protectionist who has emerged from centre-right politics.
In the UK, a centre-right government literally collapsed right in front of us. David Cameron’s government imploded after he failed in a strategy of appeasement to the hard right rump of his party. Perversely, Cameron, who seemed from this distance to be trying to chart a sensible course in a maelstrom, sounded very often like a leader with nothing to say, while his opponents made merry, peddling their aggressive simplicity, and in the current climate, aggressive simplicity resonates more than the more indirect, politics-as-usual language of common sense and compromise.
On the progressive side of the ledger, some political parties have been recalibrating their offering post-global financial crisis. Look at the primaries process in the United States, where Bernie Sanders has pulled Hillary Clinton to the left. In Australia, the ALP spent much of the past term in opposition fine-tuning its economic policy offering. Labor has shifted incrementally from the shibboleths of the 1980s, coalescing around the theme of inclusive growth, although we should note the ALP presented its shift very passively during the recent campaign. I’m not sure the shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, was entirely on board with the new orthodoxy, and Bill Shorten was always happier talking about something else. Passivity and hesitation in public presentation notwithstanding, there is at least evidence of considered policy thought.
Now, let’s look at the Coalition. Under Abbott, it took the austerity road. Given this was lumped on the electorate without warning, at a time when the economy was in the middle of a difficult transition, the plan was comprehensively rejected by voters, whatever the current self-interested revisionism from the DelCons and their media boosters at News Corp Australia and Sky News. Abbott was always unconvincing as austerity’s new prophet, and even if he believed it, which I strongly suspect he didn’t, the mantra was out of time.
Turnbull’s period as prime minister has had some recalibration of priorities. His early period was about rebuilding confidence after the fractious tribalism of the Abbott leadership. He moved on to focus on innovation before accepting the orthodoxy of boosting economic growth by cutting corporate taxes, but only belatedly – only after he had flayed around on the various tax reform policy alternatives and found them all wanting. During the recent election, Turnbull clung to “go for growth” (never mind how the benefits are ultimately distributed) like a shipwreck survivor clutching a life raft.
But at the margins, the Turnbull period did herald the beginning of a process of the Coalition beginning to grapple with fairness. If we are to select a totem of this shift, it’s the Coalition’s superannuation policy, announced in the budget.
The Turnbull policy is predicated on a simple notion: cute tax planning by high-wealth individuals is not a universal human right. The super policy benefits low-income earners, and it requires the well-off to make more of a contribution, still at a concessional rate of taxation, which, regardless of where you line up on the political spectrum, is a sound principle of evidence-based policy making.
The super policy matters because it is about fairness. If Turnbull and the government he leads are to begin the process of shoring up their political fortunes against incursions from the new populists, protectionists and xenophobes now intent on fracturing the centre-right, then fairness really needs to become the core of the enterprise.
People such as Cory Bernardi believe voters can be won back by pitching harder to the right. That is of course, one way to skin the cat. But there’s another way, in my view a more durable way, and that is by plotting a more centrist path that speaks to the voters whom Turnbull spent absolutely no time speaking to in the recent campaign – the voters trapped in the old economy.
The Coalition has to find a way of being relatable to these voters, firstly as a broad national interest principle – governments are supposed to be about all of us – but secondly because it makes sense as a political strategy. A lot of these voters are not inclined to vote Labor any more because they see the party as being too progressive, too much a captive of inner city preoccupations, in cahoots with the Greens. This sentiment has been a problem for Labor in places such as regional Queensland for the best part of a decade.
So that’s why Monday’s meeting needs to be the start of something more profound than a bit of tit for tat, a spot of proxy war, and a session indulging government MPs who actually think their mission in politics is to defend tax breaks for high-wealth individuals and make sure policies are tailored to ensure the maximum level of political donations.
All the internal forces are nudging Turnbull into another period of attrition with his conservative wing, a more substantial period than even the first round of attrition that fatally damaged his personal standing with voters.
He will be under enormous pressure to cede – to the Nationals, to the young conservatives, to the ropable former tax planners, then to whomever comes next. His opponents aren’t actually interested in suing for a durable peace, they just need to keep him on his feet, weakened and beholden, until they have a viable candidate to take his place.
Turnbull has only one shot of remaining prime minister and saving his government. He needs to follow his centrist instincts and develop a policy offering that resets the centre-right political project in an Australian context, and use his considerable communication skills to reconnect with voters in ways that are meaningful to them. He needs to understand that empathy matters, and if he can’t connect, he’s finished.
So, on Monday, the Coalition has only two objectives worth mentioning. As a group, its members need to think, and think deeply. What is government about for a centre-right party post-GFC? What can be done to bind our society together in an era where western democracies are cleaving into tribes?
And Turnbull, if he wants to lead, if he wants to be something more than an unfortunate footnote in history, needs play to his strengths, do the work, and most importantly – fight.
Coalition MPs have emerged from an eight-week campaign alight with questions, bristling with rancour, with regret, with frustration. How did the election go so wrong? This must be Malcolm Turnbull’s fault or Tony Nutt’s fault or Mark Textor’s fault. Tony Abbott would have done better – are you freaking kidding? And so the internal postmortems go, round and round and round.
But there is a bigger question that needs to be asked. This question for the Coalition is a simple one: why are we here? Why do we want to be in government? What is our true purpose?
The first-principles question needs to be asked, because to be blunt, the centre-right political offering in Australia is vacuous, heavy on the slogans, light on substance. The absence of defining principles and animating ideas in centre-right politics following the global financial crisis is not a phenomenon unique to Australia, but we nonetheless need to call this for what it is.
While Australia’s political parties will take time to review their campaigns and reach conclusions, it’s reasonable to conclude that the Coalition did not win a stronger mandate from voters on 2 July because the voters aren’t stupid. They were able to intuit easily enough that “jobs and growth” was a slogan masking a complete ideas vacuum. If jobs and growth meant anything at all, it was more of the same, it was more of the default neoliberal offering that people had seen for two decades or more, an offering that, in the lived reality of ordinary people, is delivering manifest benefits for some, but not for all.
Politics on the right is fracturing after the global financial crisis, at least in part because the benefits from globalisation are being distributed unevenly. The right vote is splitting along an axis of haves and have-nots. Rage-soaked reactionary populism and nativism are fuelling the rise of Donald Trump in America and the Brexit vote in the UK, and in Australia we’ve seen the resurrection of Pauline Hanson. Nick Xenophon is not a Hansonite, but he’s a populist and protectionist who has emerged from centre-right politics.
In the UK, a centre-right government literally collapsed right in front of us. David Cameron’s government imploded after he failed in a strategy of appeasement to the hard right rump of his party. Perversely, Cameron, who seemed from this distance to be trying to chart a sensible course in a maelstrom, sounded very often like a leader with nothing to say, while his opponents made merry, peddling their aggressive simplicity, and in the current climate, aggressive simplicity resonates more than the more indirect, politics-as-usual language of common sense and compromise.
On the progressive side of the ledger, some political parties have been recalibrating their offering post-global financial crisis. Look at the primaries process in the United States, where Bernie Sanders has pulled Hillary Clinton to the left. In Australia, the ALP spent much of the past term in opposition fine-tuning its economic policy offering. Labor has shifted incrementally from the shibboleths of the 1980s, coalescing around the theme of inclusive growth, although we should note the ALP presented its shift very passively during the recent campaign. I’m not sure the shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, was entirely on board with the new orthodoxy, and Bill Shorten was always happier talking about something else. Passivity and hesitation in public presentation notwithstanding, there is at least evidence of considered policy thought.
Now, let’s look at the Coalition. Under Abbott, it took the austerity road. Given this was lumped on the electorate without warning, at a time when the economy was in the middle of a difficult transition, the plan was comprehensively rejected by voters, whatever the current self-interested revisionism from the DelCons and their media boosters at News Corp Australia and Sky News. Abbott was always unconvincing as austerity’s new prophet, and even if he believed it, which I strongly suspect he didn’t, the mantra was out of time.
Turnbull’s period as prime minister has had some recalibration of priorities. His early period was about rebuilding confidence after the fractious tribalism of the Abbott leadership. He moved on to focus on innovation before accepting the orthodoxy of boosting economic growth by cutting corporate taxes, but only belatedly – only after he had flayed around on the various tax reform policy alternatives and found them all wanting. During the recent election, Turnbull clung to “go for growth” (never mind how the benefits are ultimately distributed) like a shipwreck survivor clutching a life raft.
But at the margins, the Turnbull period did herald the beginning of a process of the Coalition beginning to grapple with fairness. If we are to select a totem of this shift, it’s the Coalition’s superannuation policy, announced in the budget.
The Turnbull policy is predicated on a simple notion: cute tax planning by high-wealth individuals is not a universal human right. The super policy benefits low-income earners, and it requires the well-off to make more of a contribution, still at a concessional rate of taxation, which, regardless of where you line up on the political spectrum, is a sound principle of evidence-based policy making.
The super policy matters because it is about fairness. If Turnbull and the government he leads are to begin the process of shoring up their political fortunes against incursions from the new populists, protectionists and xenophobes now intent on fracturing the centre-right, then fairness really needs to become the core of the enterprise.
People such as Cory Bernardi believe voters can be won back by pitching harder to the right. That is of course, one way to skin the cat. But there’s another way, in my view a more durable way, and that is by plotting a more centrist path that speaks to the voters whom Turnbull spent absolutely no time speaking to in the recent campaign – the voters trapped in the old economy.
The Coalition has to find a way of being relatable to these voters, firstly as a broad national interest principle – governments are supposed to be about all of us – but secondly because it makes sense as a political strategy. A lot of these voters are not inclined to vote Labor any more because they see the party as being too progressive, too much a captive of inner city preoccupations, in cahoots with the Greens. This sentiment has been a problem for Labor in places such as regional Queensland for the best part of a decade.
So that’s why Monday’s meeting needs to be the start of something more profound than a bit of tit for tat, a spot of proxy war, and a session indulging government MPs who actually think their mission in politics is to defend tax breaks for high-wealth individuals and make sure policies are tailored to ensure the maximum level of political donations.
All the internal forces are nudging Turnbull into another period of attrition with his conservative wing, a more substantial period than even the first round of attrition that fatally damaged his personal standing with voters.
He will be under enormous pressure to cede – to the Nationals, to the young conservatives, to the ropable former tax planners, then to whomever comes next. His opponents aren’t actually interested in suing for a durable peace, they just need to keep him on his feet, weakened and beholden, until they have a viable candidate to take his place.
Turnbull has only one shot of remaining prime minister and saving his government. He needs to follow his centrist instincts and develop a policy offering that resets the centre-right political project in an Australian context, and use his considerable communication skills to reconnect with voters in ways that are meaningful to them. He needs to understand that empathy matters, and if he can’t connect, he’s finished.
So, on Monday, the Coalition has only two objectives worth mentioning. As a group, its members need to think, and think deeply. What is government about for a centre-right party post-GFC? What can be done to bind our society together in an era where western democracies are cleaving into tribes?
And Turnbull, if he wants to lead, if he wants to be something more than an unfortunate footnote in history, needs play to his strengths, do the work, and most importantly – fight.
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