The polling tealeaves seem to be pointing us to an election result that has been three years in the making – the Australia population will be giving Tony Abbott’s Liberal National Coalition the reins. Malcolm Farnsworth posits the idea that this will be a result that loomed way back in 2011, with the carbon pricing “lie”. I think the roots of lay earlier, with the hung parliament and the Gillard Government having to compromise on things like carbon pricing. Much of our political media have not been good at reporting a minority government – most journalists have seemed incapable to go beyond “this is a Government in crisis narrative”, when it really wasn’t. My fiancee floated the idea that it would have been better for the Labor Party for Tony Abbott to have been the minority government leader, replete with having to pander to Bob Katter and the other independents. I still think she is right about that. Hence why I’ll have a punt at what I think an Abbott Australia would look like.
What will an Abbott Government be like for people? Firstly, it depends somewhat on the senate election – that election that will go largely unreported on our media outlets, as ever. It’s going to be a tight race between the Liberals and their fellow travellers and for the Labor Party and the Greens. The complicating factor for the ALP and Greens is that candidates that appear to be progressive or independent aren’t acting that way.
- Nick Xenophon, the anti-wind farm, anti-pokie, independent politician is directing some of his probable SA surplus towards the Liberal Party instead of the Greens.
- The Wikileaks Party are directing their preferences to the Nationals in WA, who are the direct opponents for the 6th WA senate seat against the Greens’ Scott Ludlam, the only politician in the current parliament to stand up for Julian Assange (the irony is breathtaking). Their candidate, Gerry Georgatos, claimed that he was preferencing Ludlam “first” when placing him behind the Nationals:
Contradicting what he wrote about this election here:
- The Wikileaks Party is also directing their preferences in NSW towards the fascist Australia First as well as towards a party with a realistic chance for the 6th Senate seat in that state – the Shooters and Fishers Party, away from the Greens. That decision begs the question as to how much the Shooters have supported Assange over the years. For an “administrative error”, it’s quite remarkable that these decisions could well help the Coalition gain control of the Senate, with the added bonus of the shots being called in an Abbott Government by the Shooters’ Party. I can’t imagine an Abbott controlled Senate would exactly be friendly to Assange and his party’s ideals. In any case, as Greens staffer Max Phillips revealed, it was no administrative error. It may be a large strategic error, however.
- The Sex Party are directing their preferences in NSW towards the very same Shooters’ Party and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation instead of the Greens, indicating that the Eros Foundation front / stunt party is really about gaining power, rather than a believer of progressive policies. Unless they have agreed that there will be an ad for some Racist Gun Pornography in the lead up to the election.
If the Coalition gains the control of both houses due a swing as well as these micro party deals, the picture will be pretty clear for them.
- Carbon pricing will be gone, replaced by an underfunded “direct action” policy, which seems to be about planting trees and an Green Army cleaning up riverside weeds at this stage – which will put us outside carbon pricing markets being devised in China, California and Europe and future markets.
- Industrial Relations will be back on the table, and without the Senate to stop them, there will be a modified WorkChoices, but it will be sold as “flexible workplace reform”. I say this not because I fully believe the campaign being waged by unions, more because there are many in the Liberal Party and their feeder groups to whom “flexible workplaces” – as in, flexible for employers – is a core part of their idea of how to achieve optimum productivity. The difficulty will come with how to structure it so it doesn’t look like WorkChoices, plus, with the DLP and Shooters having the balance of power, there could be the issue of pay offs. These could include some kind of restriction based on abortion related healthcare and allowing of some kind of weapon to be used “for recreational purposes”, or “as a way to cull feral animals” as we saw in NSW when the Shooters gained the balance of power. In terms of the former, having a look at this speech by John Madigan of the DLP and its preoccupation with “pro-life” matters will give insight into his focus as a potential holder of the balance of power.
Even if Abbott doesn’t get full control of the Senate, there would be a few changes to the way things are done – and a number of the same.
- Gone will be a significant number of public servants – well, public servants being offered voluntary redundancies and not being replaced – making it even harder for government departments to do their jobs of helping the public – something they already struggle to do – the Labor Government haven’t been exactly generous with the staffing formulas.
- Public education will probably not receive, over the long term, the same increases of funding as would be provided by the Labor Better Schools program, especially if this is a two term government. As we saw in the Howard era, the main focus of past Federal Liberal Governments was to increase the number and size of independent schools (including Islamic schools, ironically enough) while they consistently say that public school funding is a matter for the states. As we have seen with the Liberal Party announcement of the adoption of the Gonski reforms, they are seeking just that. They would also be seeking the agenda of making public schools “independent” – that is, autonomous and run by local school boards. However, this experiment is still in its early days and it’s not clear what benefit pitting schools against each other for staff and resources – a possible outcome – will help public schools. We also may see the Government attempt to peel back the National Curriculum and elements they think are “politically correct” – or maybe not, especially if Christopher Pyne is the Minister. He seems more interested in motherhood statements and harkening back to “classics” than showing understanding of the detail in education.
- Back will be the “history wars” waged by historians and academics who have grumbled outside the halls of academia – though I can’t imagine Abbott being an enthusiastic champion of this as was John Howard, who had a fiery proselytising zeal against the “black armband school of history”. Abbott seems to be too much of a practical, outdoors person to find history any more interesting than economics.
- There is also doubt that the economy will be much different under the Liberals, simply because the ALP’s actions don’t seem to have damaged the economy any more than any Government’s. They will be as captive to world shifts as any Government is – except this time, there won’t be the big revenues that Costello and Howard had to play with.
- Middle Class Welfare, in the guise of private health insurance rebates, subsidies for private car ownership (oops, I meant novated leases for non-for-profit employees) – as we can see by the way the industry is paying for advertising in Lindsay -
Courtesy of @chrissiem
Generous paid parental leave for those paid up to $150,000 will come, no matter its impact on the budget bottom line. Plus, the comfortably off – like me, can continue to enjoy the fruits of a Liberal Government. But that’s not what Governments should be doing, helping the likes of me, who can afford to have access to things like private health insurance if I want it. All the while, Joe Hockey will make all the noise he likes about the Age of Entitlement being over, but Abbott seems as though he will be as profligate as John Howard.
- Asylum seekers won’t really experience all that much of a different experience with either party in Government. Scott Morrison (or someone else ready to take the flack) will enter DIAC and realise that it will be hard to tow back the boats or hear advice that Temporary Protection Visas actually encourage more people to use people smuggling operations than less. The backflipping and dissembling should be fascinating.
- Car drivers should feel happier under an Abbott Government, with more road funding to come, making sure that drivers save 10 minutes on their drive to cities. Maybe. In 10 years. With a toll. Having said that, the ALP have been busily promising more roads as well. Public transport users are generally already poorly served by Liberal Governments – though they are also served poorly by Labor ones, so there is rarely much different between them.
- The environment will be worse off under an Abbott Government, with various money to be stripped away from environmental initiatives as the Government reward the developers and farmers who have supported them for these years. We will see various lists ticked off as unsustainable housing developments extend along the land, with very little in the way of supporting infrastructure.
What we can look forward to, however, is the gaffes. The mistakes. The sexism. Avoidance of justifying policies and actions. Walking away from press conferences. Spectacularly poor decisions. All of those things we have seen and will continue to see under an Abbott Government. The cartoonists will love it. Though Gemma Jones, future Abbott Government press secretary, might not be so happy.
Filed under: Budget / economy, Communication, Cost of living, Greens, Independents, Labor, Liberal, Media, Minor parties, Policies, Values
