When we look back in 30 years, we are likely to view the current political term as one of the most divisive eras in Australia’s political history.
Debate over the Budget has reached shambolic proportions with some $40 billion of savings measures at risk of being blocked in the Senate.
We’ve got the Palmer United Party flapping in the wind and seemingly changing its position on key Budget measures on a daily basis, whilst promising a range of pie-in-the-sky and unworkable proposals.
We’ve got Labor and the Greens opposing nearly every Budget measure because they are “unfair”.
And we’ve got cross-benchers, like David Leyonhjelm, opposing any increase in new taxes.
While some Budget’s measures in isolation are undoubtedly highly questionable, such as tougher requirements on young unemployed, changes to university fees and funding, and Abbott’s flawed paid parental leave scheme, the Budget at least acknowledges that the nation’s finances are unsustainable in their current form and need fixing.
Yet, at no time has any opposition party seriously acknowledged the serious long-term structural issues facing the Budget. And nowhere has anyone provided an alternative plan to cut expenditure and reform taxes, such as clamping down on Australia’s egregious tax expenditures (e.g. superannuation and negative gearing) and championing for broad-based tax reform.
Instead, we have become a nation of “Dr Nos”, whereby the default position is to oppose each and every attempt at reform.
The shambolic nature of the current political system is best encapsulated by the Budget’s proposed re-indexation of fuel excise which, shock horror, attempts to ensure that the rate of excise keeps pace with inflation. Both the Greens and Labor are dead-set opposed, citing vague notions of fairness and claiming that the poor would be unfairly disadvantaged by such a measure. Yet, excise is also applied to cigarettes and alcohol – items that are also disproportionately consumed by the poor. And notions of fairness didn’t stop Labor from dramatically raising cigarette taxes when it was in Government, with the support of the Greens.
If you want an example of blatant political point scoring, you would be hard pressed to find a better example than lifting fuel excise. It is fully consistent with both Labor’s and the Greens’ positions on the environment and climate change, as well as the Greens’ desire to reduce Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels. And yet, the measure does not have their support and is currently dead in the water.
Australia has become the first developed world nation to repeal carbon laws – a move that is likely to stifle efforts to reach a global agreement on emissions reductions. The Guardian’s Lenore Taylor has captured the mood of this decision, as well as the “complete and catastrophic failure of the political system”:
After climate policy helped dispatch three prime ministers and two opposition leaders, and dominated three election campaigns and eight years of polarising political debate, it has come to this: we have no national climate policy.
After all that vitriol and hyperbolic attack and all those reports and modelling and studies, and all last week’s drama, we are back to exactly where we were before John Howard reluctantly said he would introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2007.
…the government’s alternative “Direct Action”, as it stands, is no such viable alternative. The legislation that gives it any rigour may or may not pass the Senate…
As eight years’ work by thousands of people disappears with the Senate’s vote, many may have cause for regrets…
But that’s all in the sorry pages of recent political history now, and the absence of any credible policy is the big and pressing question for the future.
The challenges confronting the nation are mounting and they are historic. With Australia’s population ageing, and the biggest commodity price and mining investment boom in our history now unwinding, we desperately need to boost the nation’s productivity. This will require a broad-based reform program capturing everything from tax policy, retirement policy, competition policy, and land-use/planning. Climate change moves forward inexorably and we seem only able to run in circles.
The oft-quoted representation of Australian policy-makers by The Economist is that we manage the good times poorly but the bad times well. The only correlation I can see is that the harder the challenges get, the less effective our political system becomes.
