I didn’t think it possible a few months ago but the stunning ineptitude of the Tony Turnbull Government, as well as the toxic influence of a compromised RBA and Treasury on its policies, has opened an opportunity for Labor to re-enter power. Bill Shorten can win and here is how:
- the ALP currently has a developing policy platform with strength in carbon, education and housing affordability policies;
- it needs to add others and go to the election with a full scale, fully declared platform about the future of Australia;
- most importantly, and this is the key, it must wrap these policies together in a tight and understandable narrative as soon as possible. That narrative must be based on the precise opposite of the advice being spouted by the RBA and Treasury around Australian “rebalancing”. These two agencies have royally stuffed their mining boom management and the aftermath and are trying to bury the fact by protecting their ridiculous housing and consumer bubble. Tony Turnbull has bought this hook, line and sinker. Instead of treading quietly around reform in the hope of nursing bruised consumers through the mining bust, Shorten must blast the trumpet of reform as the plan to lead Australia through and out of post-mining boom adjustment for the future prosperity of the nation;
- the three pillars to this are a productivity/infrastructure plan, a tax reform plan to shift capital from unproductive to productive investment as well as repair the Budget, and a massive push on competitiveness and exports. Every policy can be linked back to these simple principles. For example, negative gearing reform is not only about housing affordability, it is also about keeping land prices competitive for industry and lowering the dollar via a more competitive interest rate structure;
- he should also make this election a full bore generational conflict. Paint the Coalition as the defenders of the grey gouge. Shame anyone that questions it as not caring about Australian children’s future;
- above all, Shorten must explain that he understands that people’s living standards are falling and that his is the only plan that will turn things around via mutual sacrifice and effort. If not, he must say, things will only get worse as China slows further in the years ahead and the vested interests controlling the Coalition dither. He can even politicise this last point and blame the Coalition for failing to address Australia’s real issues over two governments.
- Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen was banging on about all of this at the last election. Give him as much airtime as possible.
In short, it is the same advice MB gave Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull but they all chose electoral suicide instead.
It’s a novel method, I know, to tell the truth and win.
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