Extract from The Guardian
Last modified on Sat 3 Oct 2020 09.01 AEST
Scott Morrison likes maximum flexibility. Australia’s 30th prime minister would happily outrun his own legacy if it was possible to do that.
But prime ministers can’t outrun their own legacies, because the job demands that you write yourself into history. Prime ministers are the sum of thousands of small and large decisions, and the consequences of those decisions stick. This coming week, the Morrison government will make some of the most consequential decisions it has made since taking office.
When I say important decisions, I’m not overhyping the importance of individual budget measures unveiled on Tuesday night. These can be recalibrated quickly if need be, if circumstances change, and judgments from voters are unlikely to be harsh. The public during this crisis has shown an inclination to cut governments some slack if they think they are trying to get it right.
What matters, ultimately, is the sum of the parts. Morrison and the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will next week make choices about how Australia recovers from the coronavirus shock. Put simply, the government can track a path back to economic growth that is fair, that enhances the social capital that has buttressed our nation through the toughest year many of us have experienced, or it can plot a path to recovery that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
Morrison has been running to stand still since he took the prime ministership in August 2018. By necessity, pretty much all his calculations in the top job have been about how to prosper in this five minutes, or survive the next week, or consolidate over a couple of months. For much of this year, Morrison has been governing in crisis mode, making decisions for now, or next week, or for four weeks, which is all that can be reasonably expected of a leader during a year of colossal shocks, both domestic and global.
But at some point you have to stop calculating, stand still, and frame the future, otherwise you are a political consultant, not a prime minister.
In terms of framing the future, the messages heading into next Tuesday night are a bit mixed. Morrison tells us this budget will be the most important economic statement since the second world war, but Frydenberg says the budget is all about dealing with the “here and now”. Portentous and temporal is an unusual combination; a government believing it can be all things, all ways.
The government has been largely pragmatic during the crisis, and it has adjusted the fiscal strategy to allow itself to shed the cartoonish debt and deficit disaster stupidity of the Abbott era. But the open question as we head into budget week 2020 is will ideology assert itself in the recovery?
Morrison and Frydenberg were Keynesians during the opening months of the crisis, a warp speed conversion to an economic orthodoxy the Liberals once derided. They are still talking about pursuing an aggregate demand strategy, which is a concept fundamental to Keynesian theory.
But will Morrison and Frydenberg be Reaganites in the recovery? Rather than sustained pump priming, will the medium-term model for jumpstarting economic growth be tax cuts for the rich (that magically pay for themselves), deregulation for business, and ballooning government debt (because tax cuts for the rich don’t magically pay for themselves)?
All the pre-positioning and strategic briefing ahead of the budget would suggest we are transiting from Keynes to Reaganomics. But reaching settled conclusions in advance of the facts really isn’t my bag. I’m happy to wait until Tuesday night to form concrete judgments.
Morrison and Frydenberg aren’t the only folks mulling big decisions, and wondering whether they’ll get both the measures and the budget week narrative right.
If you are an opposition, budget week furnishes a chance to be noticed. Parliament will be back and that restores normal conventions, like the daily political contest, which has been in suspended animation for much of 2020 because the government has done everything it can to be weightless during this crisis, and because Labor federally struggles to get a word in.
There is a perception around the traps that federal Labor has been missing in action this year. I understand why people think that, because the opposition gets crowded out of daily coverage because every day of Covid is a conga line: Daniel Andrews, Gladys Berejiklian, Annastacia Palaszczuk, Mark McGowan, Morrison and/or Frydenberg, the health minister, Greg Hunt, and the chief medical officer hold their press briefings. After that onslaught, there’s next to no bandwidth for an Anthony Albanese press conference.
From my vantage point, Labor is on the field most days, but I completely understand why people going about their normal business might conclude that the opposition is reclining on the banana lounge. So budget week, with the budget-in-reply convention on Thursday night, gives an opportunity for Labor to project themselves into the national conversation at a time when people will be tuned in.
Albanese has tried to be constructive during the crisis, but Labor’s attack on Morrison has been ramping up over the past couple of months. The opposition is keen to portray the fast moving and protean Morrison as all sizzle and no steak – the prime minister creates an appearance of being industrious by unfurling announcement after announcement, but then fails to follow through.
To have any chance of winning an election in an environment that will very likely benefit incumbents, Labor does need to land some blows on their opponents, so parsing Morrison’s performance is part of what will be required to position themselves for a campaign that could be in the second half of next year.
But you don’t win an election by saying “that bloke’s a flim flam merchant”. You win an election, particularly in a crisis environment, by making a compelling case for change, and right now it is unclear what Labor’s change offering is. I watch these guys 24/7, so if the change case is unclear to me, it will be a total mystery to voters.
Doubtless there is a spectrum of views inside the opposition about how to break back into the contest.
Some in Labor will be gun shy about prosecuting a substantive alternative agenda during budget week and drawing focus and fire away from the government. Politicians are always fighting the last war, and there is a cohort in Labor still regretting their role in pushing a torrent of policy out there during the last election cycle. Call this the residual fear of being a big target and being punished for it.
But given where things are tracking, it would be a serious misjudgment in my view to hide, or play defensively, when voters are actually looking.
Labor has to hold the government to account. It’s a core part of the job.
But if Labor wants to have any chance of winning the next election, waiting for Morrison to fail is a fool’s errand. Albanese and his colleagues need to start mapping a tangible alternative as well.
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