A government halfway done

Anthony Albanese struggles to comprehened thecountry's challenges

John Roskam Nov 28

Last week was the halfway mark of the Albanese government'sfirst term in office. It's far too early to say its 'first and last' termbut yesterday's Newspoll did have Labor and the Coalition in a dead heat at50-50. If that result was repeated at a federal election the ALP wouldwould lose half a dozen seats and be pushed into a minority government relyingon the support of the Teals…and/or the Greens. The Newspoll resultmirrors other surveys such the Morgan poll that actually has Labor behind theCoalition.

The Canberra press gallery is struggling to come to terms withLabor's failing fortunes and its declining popularity. But as we sawduring the Voice referendum when Canberra voted 61% YES compared to the countryoverall that voted only 39% YES, if you're living and working in the nation'scapital your affinity with the rest of the nation is limited.

What's happening to the country's politics is about somethingbigger than the parliamentary to-and-fro with which the media isobsessed. The result of a YouGov poll from a few weeks ago isrevealing.

'Generally, do you think Australia is heading in the rightdirection or wrong direction?'

Wrong Direction -54%

Right Direction - 46%

Perhaps it's surprising that the 46% number is as high as it is.

Here's three facts I've come across in my reading just in thepast week which helps explain the YouGov poll:

• In 1991 the average Australian home cost five times the median income of a 25-39 year-old working full time. In 2006 that figure was seven times.In 2021 that figure was nine times.(Source: The Guardian, 23 November 2023)
• A traffic controller holding a 'Stop/Go' sign working on the Melbourne Metropolitan Tunnel Project is paid $126,200 a year.The qualification required for the job is completion of a two-day training course. The starting salary for a state school teacher is $78,000 a year. The qualification required for the job is a minimum of two years of tertiary education and in most cases four years of tertiary education. (Source: John Lloyd speech to the HR Nicholls Society on 17 November 2023 reported in The Australian Financial Review, 22 November 2023)
• In 2004 the Australian economy was ranked as the 4th most competitive in the world behind the United States, Singapore, and Canada.In 2023 our economy was ranked the 19th most competitive in the worldbehind Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland, Singapore, Netherlands, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sweden, United States, UAE, Finland, Qatar, Belgium, Norway Canada, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, and the Czech Republic. (Source: Dr Kevn You, Institute of Public Affairs Parliamentary Research Brief 'Australia's economic competitiveness in continuing decline', November 2023; International Institute for Management Development)

Writing on the weekend Greg Sheridan said 'the wheels are comingoff' the Albanese government. That's true. Labor's inability tocompetently manage the day-to-day issues of Canberra is becoming obvious. For example yesterday the Australian public was told it will cost a quarter ofa billion dollars for the authorities to monitor former detainees released intothe community following a decision of the High Court.

But something bigger is going on. Until a few years thebiggest policy challenge Australia faced was the question of how to spend ourprosperity. Kevin Rudd won the federal election of 2007 when he presentedhimself not as an alternative to John Howard, but as his successor. Theprosperity that was assumed to continue indefinitely was going to pay forthings like the NBN, the 'Gonski' education reforms, and the NDIS.

After eighteen months in office Anthony Albanese is gettingfound out and it's becoming clear he has little understanding - or interest -in what confronts the country. It might be that the Australianpublic are slowly coming to the conclusion he's not that good. Theremight be a reason while he's been a member of parliament for 27 years manypeople would struggle to name anything he's done - other than leading hisreferendum proposal to an ignominious defeat.

Becoming Labor leader and then prime minister as Albanese hasdone is notable. But that's all it is. For Labor the 2022 federalelection was like 1983 - a 'drover's dog' would have won it. When ScottMorrison committed the Coalition to net zero he destroyed the ability of theCoalition to critique any aspect of the ALP's energy policy. Labor'senergy policies helped the Coalition win the 2019 and the same thing could havehappened in 2022. It might have all been different had Morrison explainedLabor's climate change policies would potentially lead to blackouts, would be hugelyexpensive, and would require 3,500 wind turbines and 28,000 kilometres of newtransmission poles and wires. (To put that into perspective, thecoastline of the Australian continent is 34,000 kilometres, and that ofthe United States 20,000 kilometres.)

In any case Labor squeezed into office last year. It'sprimary vote of 32.6% was its lowest since 1903. In 1972 Laborunder Whitlam had a primary vote of 49.6%, at Bob Hawke's first victory it was49.5%, and Kevin Rudd got 43.4%.

Labor Party supporters are fond of quoting the left-wingeconomist Paul Krugman, 'Productivity isn't everything, but in the long run,it's almost everything.' That was meant to be the financial justificationfor Labor's massive increases in spending on education and childcare. Across the media today and yesterday is a story about the science syllabus inthe national curriculum - 'Australian students were learning 44 science topicsin their first nine years of schooling compared with an average (in England,Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the US, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta andQuebec) of 74.'

[OECD test results] confirmed a continuing long-term decline inAustralian students' reading, mathematics and science skills, with 10 countriesnow with 'significantly higher' results in reading than Australia, 23 in mathsand 12 in science.

Compared with students in the highest performing country,Singapore, Australians were more than a year behind in reading, about threeyears behind in mathematics and almost two years behind in science.

Back in March 2020 at the very beginning of COVID and all itsconsequences, I wrote in The Australian Financial Review - 'Virus crisissignals end of the road for the 'lollipop economy' '.

However this crisis ends, the era of Australia's 'lollipopeconomy' is over. Not in our lifetime will a worker ever again be paid$180,000 a year to stand hold a traffic sign at a construction site. (Which is the amount traffic controllers can earn under the Queenslandgovernment's minimum labour requirements on state-funded infrastructureprojects.)

If there's one thing that sums up what's happened to theAustralian economy after 29 years without a recession, it's the symbolism ofsomeone holding a Stop/Go sign being paid twice as much as a school teacher.

[After COVID] there's the very real possibility that the publicmight realise that many of the things that politicians have spent the lastdecade talking about are in fact utterly irrelevant. Climate change beingthe most obvious example.

That doesn't read so well today. Instead of the COVIDcrisis demonstrating the limits of what the government can do, and revealingthat the government can often get things very very wrong, COVID had the publicdemanding more from the government - not less. And when the governmentfailed the popular response more often than not was that government hadn't doneenough, early enough. To reassess the role of government and to ask whyin Australia someone holding a traffic sign is paid what they are questions sobig our political class is afraid to ask them - let alone try to answerthem.

During COVID the more politicians talked about how 'We're all inthis together' the more obvious it became we were not. The young and theold weren't 'in it together,' nor were the self-employed and public servantsworking from home on taxpayer-funded guaranteed incomes.

The YouGov survey I mentioned highlighted just how stark is thedifference in attitude of the two halves of Australian society. Only 30%of those who voted 'NO' in the Voice referendum believe Australia is heading inthe right direction, whereas of those who voted 'YES' 70% believe the countryis heading the right direction. That's a big difference. Two halvesof Australia want very different things. The extent to which Australia is'one' is a very real question. As flawed as the concept of the Voice was,and despite it being overwhelmingly defeated in every state, it shouldn't beforgotten nearly 40% of Australians nonetheless voted for it.

It's not unreasonable to ask what a Bob Hawke or a John Howardwould have done in the wake of the Voice vote and after looking at the numbersrevealed in the YouGov poll. They would have talked about what asAustralians we can all agree upon. Admittedly these days those things areharder to find - but it doesn't mean you shouldn't look for them. Butthat's not what Anthony Albanese is doing.

At his press conference the night of the referendum he couldn'thelp himself. He didn't blame 'misinformation' by name for the defeat ofthe Voice (although Labor MPs did in the days following) but it was clear whatAlbanese was talking about. So for example there was this question andhis response at his press conference on the night of the referendum:

JOURNALIST - Prime Minister, you said, 'Because Australians area fair, compassionate, and courageous people and we are ready to take this steptogether'. Does tonight's result tell you otherwise, that we aren't acompassionate, fair, and courageous people?

PRIME MINISTER - I think Australians are fair andcompassionate. I think during this campaign, we have had a clearproposition of just two things - recognition and a non-binding advisorycommittee.

But we have had, including in outlets represented in this room,discussions about a whole range of things that were nothing to do withwhat was on the ballot paper tonight. You all know that hasoccurred. Debates about the length of the Uluru Statement from the Heartthat no-one serious, in this room - is there anyone in this room that thinks itwas more than it was? But we had pages and pages and weeks and weeks inwhich those issues were portrayed.

In other words - it's someone else's fault. And theimplication is that somehow 60% of the Australian public were fooled intovoting NO because of 'discussions about a whole range of things that werenothing to do with what on the ballot paper'.

That's not leadership.

Onthe Saturday last year as Albanese was giving his election night victory speecha friend of mine bet $100 with his nephew that Albanese would not last as Laborleader to the next election. As remarkable as it sounds it wouldn'tentirely surprise me if my friend won his bet. For there's no indicationthe prime minister can change the trajectory of his government - or of thecountry.