Could Whitlam’s election tactics be copied by Albanese?
Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock must have been horrified at the chaoticparliamentary legislative frenzywhich took place on Thursday.
The frenzy has delivered government bodies, in conjunction with unions, the ability to micromanage Australian enterprises small and large. The great consultation lessons of Bob Hawke were burned and the productivity pleadings of Bullock were considered utter nonsense during the frenzy
Because of the scope of the amendment frenzy, we don’t yet know the detail of what the politicians actually did on February 8. But, we do know one devastating blow they delivered — they combined the potential of a powerful union representative in every single employing Australian enterprise with the ability to dispatch to the “Fair Work pit” any manager who contacts a worker out of agreed hours.
Being sent to the Fair Work Commission could involve penalties, but more importantly family businesses are set to be micromanaged by the combination of unions and government’s Fair Work body with all its tensions and legal costs.
The unions are flush with cash. What they now want is power, and having a union delegate in almost all enterprises with the power to monitor company communication delivers real community-wide power.
And while union representatives in each business will be trained online in those enterprises with less than 15 employees, if an enterprise has more than 15 employees union delegates must be sent off for face-to-face training by the CFMEU and other hard-line union officials.
Most businesses are no longer a ‘nine to five’ and family operations usually have the advantage of flexible staff arrangements and a close relationship between owners and staff. This relationship is now under threat.
When we are able to see the detail of what happened during the February 8 frenzy, I fear we will discover a whole range of new horrors. This looks to be a deliberate and carefully plotted attempt to lower Australian productivity in defiance of the Reserve Bank.
Managing a business where the combination of the union and government bodies are key players requires a totally different skill. Few family business owners have this skill.
In the commercial building industry, it is part of the scene. The large builders simply add on the costs and governments, who are the main users of these builders, simply pay. In some cases, likethe revamp of the **ba for the Olympics, the costs become too great.
In the smaller jobs where there is competition, only those builders who are able to manage the unions prosper. Again, it is a skill totally unaligned with running an ordinary business.
Meanwhile, in taxation, Anthony Albanese might have gone back on a promise, but his tax package has been approved by big areas of the Australian community.
A great many Australians think all politicians lie and are more concerned about the suffering of those under mortgage and rent stress, so approved tax reductions being directed their way. Albanese is now riding on an electoral support wave.
The horror of what happened on February 8 will not be apparent to Australians until well after July 1 when the act comes into operation.
Following his referendum defeat, Albanese now knows what it’s like to be on the back foot.
Now he is back on the front foot, so my ‘tip’ is after the federal budget he will seriously consider calling an early election, before the community wakes up to the horror of February 8. I emphasise, this ‘tip’ is only a guess. I have no knowledge.
What is happening in 2024 is remarkably similar to what happened in the years following Gough Whitlam’s election as PM in December 1972.
While Gough himself was pursuing social agendas, he allowed some of his radical ministers to pursue left wing causes.
Some 17 months later in 1974 the Coalition opposition set up a situation, so Whitlam could call a double dissolution — which he won.
It was not until after the 1974 election, the left wing ministers’ mistakes — including the infamous Tirath Khemlani affair — hit the electoral radar. Support for the government slumped.
Leaving aside the issues in the 1975 dismissal, the Australian people had had enough of Whitlam, so Malcolm Fraser was swept to power by a huge majority.
By May Albanese will have been in power almost two years, but, as in the 1974 double dissolution election, in a theoretical mid-2024 election it is unlikely people will have grasped the long term implications of the combination of a vicious attack on family business compounded by environmental policy out of line with the rest of the world.
Accordingly, given current opinion polls, the government would win an election held in the next few months. This would therefore deliver them power until 2027, by which time business in the nation will have been fundamentally changed.
During this period, the RBA governor’s reconstituted board may put her under unprecedented pressure to stop worrying about productivity.
It will be a very different Australia.
12/02 Indices, page-4
Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock appears before the House Economics Committee at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Picture: Ian Wilson
Could Gough Whitlam’s election tactics be copied by Albanese?
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