In 1990, when Bob Hawke outlined his vision for Australia to become, not only the lucky country, but the clever country, he said we had a clear choice between opportunity and privilege.
He detailed how Labor were working to enlarge equality of opportunity for all through taxation, education, training, industrial relations, health care, child care and superannuation.
He spoke of the important role of scientists and researchers in mobilising our human resources to become a leader in the production and export of ideas.
He stressed that we had no greater responsibility than to pass on intact to future generations Australia’s priceless environment.
Reading Hawke’s speech reinforces how much the political divide in this country retards our progress. We are still arguing about the same things as shown by the following excerpt:
“I said at the outset that the great divide between us lay between opportunity and privilege.
There are two key issues in this election which starkly show the difference – capital gains tax and Medicare.
The plain fact about the Liberal/National plan for the abolition of the capital gains tax is this:
billions of dollars that would have been available for education, health, training, roads would be shovelled into the pockets of less than one in a hundred Australian taxpayers.
The capital gains tax is a fair tax. The vast majority of wage and salary earners do not pay capital gains tax and never will.
And you find on Medicare that same conflict between privilege and opportunity.
For all their confusion, their twisting and turning, the truth is that the Liberals and Nationals would dismantle Medicare – scrap bulk billing – leave two million and more of our fellow Australians without health cover – benefit only the wealthy – and saddle the Australian family once again with all the burden, the anxiety, the cost, the inconvenience and the confusion that existed before we delivered affordable health care to every Australian.
I will tell you our policy in two words: Medicare stays.”
The Coalition has been dragged kicking and screaming to every social reform that Labor has ever accomplished and then spent their next term in office trying to dismantle it.
Take superannuation.
The decision to freeze the superannuation guarantee at 9.5% rarely gets a mention compared to the outrage expressed by a comparative handful of wealthy retirees who may have to limit the amount they can stash away tax free and pay a pittance of tax on their substantial earnings.
As Bob said:
“But there is another, immensely serious, consequence of the Liberal/National desire to smash our wage/tax package and the Accord with the trade union movement which underpins it.
Australians now have for the first time a national superannuation scheme which all people covered by industrial awards can enjoy; a benefit which helps fight inflation; a benefit which prepares Australia for the ageing of its population; and a benefit which the nation and its businesses, large and small, can afford.
Yet the Liberal/National coalition would sabotage this national savings plan, a plan already amassing a huge bank for investment in Australia’s export and import replacing industries.
Because of our policies, eight out of ten Australian employees already get an average of $15 a week paid into their own personal superannuation scheme by their employer.
Over the next three years, under our package, that will double to $30 a week saved for your retirement.
Every one of the dollars saved through our superannuation plan helps finance Australia’s development without foreign debt. It’s a national savings scheme – good for you, good for Australia.
It’s too important to be put at risk.”
Even when they acknowledge the importance of certain policies, the Coalition abandons them when in office.
In September 1994, Coalition Senator Ferguson submitted to the Senate for discussion as a matter of public importance, the following:
The short sightedness of Labor Government policy leading to the retrenchment of CSIRO scientists at a time when science and research is vitally important to a competitive and successful Australian economy.
Senator Coulter went on to say:
“evidence after evidence indicates that so many of our major companies in Australia are now foreign owned, that they do their research overseas and that they are not spending the amount of money that they should be spending in Australia. They are spending it elsewhere. Therefore, it behoves the government to relatively increase its expenditure if we are going to meet the sorts of targets that we need to meet.
…world leadership in basic research will confer a competitive advantage only if it is coupled with world-class performance in the extensive set of skills, institutions, and investments that are required for the creation of economic wealth.
We need to spend a great deal more. Given that Australian industry is not spending the money in the R&D area, government must come in and fill that gap or we will simply lose again and again the applications of our basic science overseas.
To conclude, I think that the state of science in Australia is extremely parlous; the quality of our science is decreasing; the government is not recognising the seriousness of it; it is particularly pulling funds away from fundamental and basic research; and it needs to get back to and more strongly support research.”
The same is true of the NBN.
In 2004, the Federal Government released Australia’s National Broadband Strategy, which included the vision:
Australia will be a world leader in the availability and effective use of broadband, to deliver enhanced outcomes in health, education, community, and government to capture the economic and social benefits of broadband connectivity.
It clearly stated that Australia needs high speed, widely available, low cost broadband services. Our national economic performance depends on it.
And then along comes Tony Abbott who, though not a “tech head”, decided the NBN was a white elephant and set our current PM the task of “demolishing” it, an outcome he achieved all too well.
Malcolm Turnbull’s vision for the future is to cut the company tax rate for multinational companies earning billions in profits every year by 5%, to cut the income tax rate for people earning over $180,000 by 2%, and a very small tax cut for people earning over $80,000. Grants and tax concessions will be given to entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.
At the same time, this government has cut many benefits to low income earners and hopes to cut more. They have cut funding for childcare and aged care, family benefits and pensions. They have cut services like legal aid and community support programs. They have abandoned real action on climate change and slashed funding for research. Social reform and reducing inequality does not get a mention from this government.
Bob was right and the question remains the same.
Opportunity or privilege? The choice is ours.
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