It is excruciating listening to Coalition politicians responding to the question of what they have learned from the election result.
The initial response was “we was robbed”, “they lied”, “union thugs and GetUp intimidated voters”, “Tony would have won”. For some, this is still the line they are using despite the almost universal condemnation of their blame game.
Someone must have pointed out to Malcolm that his election night speech didn’t go over well so he had another go. This time he took full responsibility for the campaign because “that’s what leaders do.” As to what went wrong and what they would change – they will “listen to the people”.
The problem is, and always has been, that they listen to the wrong people.
The only collective that have any voice in influencing Liberal Party policy are business groups. The purpose of these groups is to lobby on behalf of their members to get conditions that maximise short term profit. They focus on reducing regulation and taxation, minimising wages, and winning government subsidies and concessions for investment.
It is fair enough for them to present their case but, when all other voices are silenced, this echo chamber which is solely focused on private wealth creation for the owners of capital has distorted the purpose of government and deviated its direction to unfairly benefit them to the detriment of all others.
Funding for legal aid and NGOs has been cut by $1.5 billion and is dependent on them not acting as advocates for the vulnerable. The Human Rights Law Centre released a report titled ‘Safeguarding Democracy’ in February, which argued governments were eroding Australia’s democracy.
“Governments are using a range of funding levers to make it harder for community organisations to speak out, to advocate on behalf of the groups they represent (and) the natural environment and that’s bad for the health of our democracy,” Human Rights Law Centre executive director Hugh de Kretser said.
“The combined effect of the savage cuts . . . requiring organisations to compete against each other to survive and the constraints in the contract against the ability to advocate has had a really serious, chilling effect,” said ACOSS chief executive officer Cassandra Goldie.
Ms Goldie said corporate stakeholders were increasingly better able to lobby government.
“Democracy doesn’t just happen,” she said. “The government has a core responsibility to ensure that there is (balance) in the dynamics of the democracy and we clearly haven’t got that balance right.”
Unions, the collective voice for the workers, have been demonised and undermined. With their bargaining power diminished, workers are now seeing their standard of living go backwards with stagnant wages, attacks on penalty rates and workplace conditions like paid parental leave, a freeze on the superannuation guarantee increase, the increase in part-time and contract work, increased housing prices, and moves towards user pays in health and education and toll roads.
Despite a relatively good GDP annual growth figure of 3.1%, it has nothing to do with “transitioning to new sources of growth”. It has been fuelled by greater production from the mining sector and increased public spending, particularly on defence and national security, and lower than expected imports, but disposable incomes are going backwards. We are producing more but earning less.
Scott Morrison, in response to the threat to our AAA credit rating, has said we must “maintain the trajectory that the government has set out”, completely ignoring the fact that the downgrade was in response to his budget, not to the election result.
They don’t believe his assumptions about iron ore prices and they don’t believe the “zombie” legislation still counted in the budget will pass. S&P also warns that there is a risk that revenue projections in the budget may get hit “if Australia’s inflation and wage growth is weak for longer than the budget anticipates”.
While the credit agency did express concern about Australia’s level of external debt it noted that this is “mostly generated by the private sector”. S&P also blamed “a portion” of that debt on the surge of “unproductive household borrowing for housing during the 1990s and 2000s, which was intermediated by the banking sector”.
From 1995 to 2007 the level of housing debt as a percentage of household disposable income went from 50.3% to 112.9%.
But is Scott listening? Absolutely not. He insists on no changes to negative gearing or capital gains tax.
He seems incapable of understanding that property concessions steer investment away from productive areas like infrastructure and business investment that would generate jobs and income and improve productivity.
Like so many things, Malcolm used to know this was true. In 2005, he described negative gearing as a ‘sheltering tax haven’ that is ‘skewing national investment away from wealth-creating pursuits, towards housing’ and has caused a ‘property bubble’.
Scott is also determined to further decrease revenue by going ahead with his company tax cuts despite the fact that businesses do not make investment decisions based on tax regimes regardless of what he says.
Removing the carbon and mining taxes did not result in increased investment. Also, if the gap between the top marginal rate and the corporate tax rate is too large, it encourages people to divert their income through a company.
Revenue will be further reduced if he goes ahead with his income tax cuts for the wealthy. I would also suggest that his one equity measure of reining in superannuation tax concessions will be in doubt with some very vocal opposition from his own party.
Peter Dutton is another whose response has been interesting. He feels the close result was because he was so successful that he couldn’t find enough new people to torture on cue. Where were the invading hordes, only kept at bay by his vigilance? Where was a terrorist incident when you needed one to remind people of how afraid they should be? His eagerness to share onwater matters during the campaign was thwarted.
It seems they take their lessons from their guru, John Howard – the master of not listening. He would not say sorry to the Stolen Generation and he sure as hell isn’t going to apologise for the Iraq war.
If the Coalition want to be a successful government, they have to realise they are not there to act purely as a facilitator for business. They must bring together representatives of all sides of society and use their expertise to negotiate a way forward where all Australians share in the growth built by their labours and the resources and assets we commonly own.
When deciding how to spend the money we have entrusted to them, instead of just looking at the cost, they should focus on the benefit. Consider the return on investment, even if that may take a while to eventuate. The NBN is a disgraceful example of a wasted opportunity.
The economic and social benefits of lifting people out of poverty, educating them, keeping them healthy, housing them, providing affordable childcare, an adequate safety net for the unemployed, sick and old, skills training and the infrastructure to support a growing population are inarguable. This is what governments are for. Business has a role to play in that but they are not the only players. Without a healthy, skilled workforce and customers with disposable income, businesses are just an idea.
This is their chance to rethink and start listening with both ears but I fear any sense will be shouted down by those who think they were robbed.
