If you look at politics over the past fifty years or so, certain patterns start to emerge both federally and in state elections. The pattern has consistently gone something like this:
- The Coalition are in power because people have been convinced that they’re the more stable party who will govern soundly and be economically responsible.
- Eventually people start to notice that this is not happening and get sick of the self-congratulations of the Coalition and think that Labor deserve a chance and that they seem less dangerous than previous Labor governments who were all communists hell-bent on destroying the country by thinking that unions had the right to push for better working conditions.
- Once enough people agree with Point 2 and no longer believe what the papers are telling them, Labor wins enough seats to form government.
- Some people will express disappointment that Labor aren’t the communists that the papers promised, and that they’re no better than the other mob, but most people are happy for a while because while they haven’t solved everything, there’s one or two glaring problems that have been fixed… such as the Liberal leader who was in charge is gone and the Labor leader who’s taken over hasn’t shown themselves to be a complete tosser yet.
- The Coalition do a bit of rethink and stay out of the limelight and try to work out what they can do to regain power. This might mean saying something like, “Well, we really wanted to stick with Harold but once he didn’t come back from that swim, we made the mistake of picking the wrong guy and… Look, it isn’t about us, have a look at what Labor’s doing!” But they usually realise that the best thing they can do is become invisible and hope people forget who they are. (Recently, this hasn’t been happening thanks to Peter Dutton’s attempts to make himself more visible.)
- With the Coalition only bobbing up whenever Labor make a mistake, people forget how bad they were and start to grow disappointed with Labor.
- Eventually there’ll be some world-wide crisis (oil shocks, runaway inflation, GFC) and the media will give free rein to the Coalition’s argument that this is all Labor’s fault even though the rest of the world is going through the same problem. By this stage, Labor will have also actually made some bad decisions so when it’s all combined, a bright, shiny new Coalition will be elected and they’ll proceed to talk about needing time, core and non-core promises and tell us all that we must have misunderstood: no cuts didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be some adjustments to the funding, and that a promise not to axe something merely meant that they wouldn’t be using that wood-cutting tool when they got rid of it.
- Labor have a period of soul-searching where they agree with the media that they got it wrong, while the new government will remind us that the Coalition never get anything wrong and that it’s only the electorate that make mistakes occasionally, which will start the whole process of Now We Remember Why We Voted These Guys Out…
Of course, if that last point about guys looks a little sexist, remember we are talking about the Coalition, so there’s a good chance it was mainly guys because they don’t believe in quotas for women, but quotas for National Party Ministers are just fine.
Anyway, I just thought that I’d remind people of the patterns as we approach a Budget which I’m sure will be disappointing for many. Ok, it may be more disappointing for Peter Dutton than most people but I’m keeping my options open.
On one hand, there’s a delicate balancing act that Labor have to walk between doing anything vaguely humane – which we all know it what’s called “socialism” on Sky After Dark – and keeping the financial markets happy… So you could say that they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. (Of course, I wouldn’t say that because I try to avoid meaningless cliches, but I’m certainly not going to stop you.) On the other hand, Labor are extremely fortunate for the first time in my lifetime. For once, the thing hit while the Coalition was in power so the billions of dollars in debt racked up during Covid can’t be blamed on Labor… All right, that won’t stop Rupert’s reactionaries from trying to, but no thinking person is going to say that all that JobKeeper money was all the fault of the Labor Opposition for not stopping Josh and Scott. Of course, it’s also true that no thinking person could have blamed Labor for the oil shocks of the seventies or the GFC, but that didn’t stop the media from somehow suggesting that the economic conditions were the result of something Labor had done, or not done.
Now, while it seems that in the upcoming Budget they’ll be damned whatever, it’s also true that – politically speaking – they’re in a great position. They can get close to delivering the surplus that Joe Hockey promised the Liberals would deliver “in their first year and every year after”. This will undoubtedly lead to complaints that they should have done more in terms of cost of living relief from both the left and the Coalition where Angus Taylor will assure us that, not only should there have been more help for struggling taxpayers, but that his party would have delivered an even bigger surplus.
Politically speaking, however, it gives them the chance to wait until the Reserve Bank has managed to achieve its aim of suppressing inflation. The nearest analogy I can give is to suggest that the attitude of the Reserve Bank at the moment is rather like asking a vet if they can stop your dog barking only to have them put the poor mutt down. It may be effective but it’s completely lacking in both understanding and compassion. Once the Reserve Bank has the economy heading towards a recession, not only will they pat themselves on the back and say job done, but there’ll be a great opportunity for Labor to step up and say, “You know what this pre-election budget needs? A really healthy stimulus in the form of all sorts of things that people wish we’d done when we first got elected…”
Politically speaking, Labor aren’t in a terrible position at all. But then, politically speaking, neither is the worst dictator. Yes, it would be nice if Labor spring a few surprises next Tuesday and actually do things to help the most disadvantaged but I suspect that – if they get the chance – they’ll prefer an “up yours” to the Liberals by having Chalmers announce a small surplus.
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