A few short months ago the Coalition was in league with the major banks as they built-out a perverse rent-seeking fake government to dodge a royal commission. In lock step, Do-nothing Malcolm was spawning phony banking inquiries faster than breeding rabbits. The alliance appeared unshakable even as it cost both government and banks. That is now history as, instead, the Government falls in behind the national interest and foists a large levy upon their erstwhile mates.
Although the results of the Budget have yet to swing polls, the tenor of debate around the Government has changed markedly as a result. MB’s widespread meme of “Do-nothing Malcolm” has given way to impressions that Do-Labor Malcolm is now at least “governing”. The banking levy is very popular, as were many of the Budget measures, even the Medicare levy increase, from Essential:
There is a clear political lesson in this. It is not that the Coalition has suddenly given itself a chance of winning the next election, it has not, a point I will return to. Rather, it is that when it comes to winning elections nothing is sacred.
Now, take a look at the below Essential poll of voting preferences:
The standout result is the vote for One Nation. Ever since that party’s rise last year, the Coalition’s primary vote has sunk to catastrophic levels and it will not rebound until One Nation is sent packing.
As we mull what sacred cow Do-Labor Malcolm will slaughter next in his quest for re-election, there is only one policy lever that he can pull to destroy One Nation. It’s as obvious as the bank levy. The Coalition must cut immigration openly and forcefully.
There are two ways it could do it. The first is a phony cut aimed at Muslims, given Islamophobia is the particular brand of racism currently fashionable within One Nation politics. Such a racist sop would allow the Coalition to also maintain headline immigration numbers to satisfy its business cronies. It would be analogous to John Howard’s late nineties bait and switch that demonised boat people while opening the flood gates to economic migrants.
But would it work? It would be the worst act of national interest sabotage since John Howard trashed Asian relationships for political gain. Moreover, the obvious evil of deploying apartheid in immigration policy would be catastrophic for the Coalition centre, triggering revulsion in the wider community as it sympathised with local Muslims while still having to endure the economic fallout from high numbers from elsewhere. For the same reason, it would still not win back the One Nation vote. It is too cynical by half.
Why even risk it? Global politics has opened the way for a much smoother and altogether convincing second way to cut immigration that would be so popular it would dwarf the bank levy. It is to follow the UK Tories into a Brexit-style campaign to revive the fortunes of Australian workers. The Tories are unabashedly aiming to boost local incomes by reducing immigration by two-thirds:
- Doubling the Immigration Skills Charge levied on companies employing migrant workers to £2000 ($3500) a year, using the revenue to train UK workers.
- Toughening visa requirements for students, requiring them to leave the country at the end of their course unless they meet new, higher requirements.
- Increasing the Immigration Health Surcharge to £600 ($1050) for migrant workers and £450 ($780) for international students, to cover their use of the National Health Service (the UK’s version of Medicare).
- Increasing the earnings threshold for people wishing to sponsor migrants for family visas.
There is nothing racist or economically harmful in these policies. It is simply putting the interests of locals first as income growth rises while asset price pressures fall. The former is so low and the latter so high that the net economic effect is likely to improve competitiveness as the currency falls with asset deflation not rises with some firming of wages growth.
Replicating this policy in Australia holds out enormous benefits to the Coalition. Not only would cutting Australia’s immigration intake by two-thirds (to roughly the historic norm of 70k) wipe out the raison detre of One Nation, it would drive a bloody wedge directly into the heart of Labor’s most popular policy platform, its negative gearing reforms. At last the Coalition would genuinely be able to claim it has a substantive housing affordability agenda without having to touch its favoured tax lurks in negative gearing and CGT exemptions.
Nor would it shut the Coalition off from other policies that integrate Australia with the global economy and support its economic liberalism. On the contrary, managed immigration can be done hand-in-glove with a vociferous free trade agenda.
The benefits go much further.
Cutting immigration by two-thirds would also help defuse the Abbott time bomb sitting on the backbench as it stole the key policy supporting his alternative platform.
Bill Shorten would be exposed as a complete fake when it comes to looking after the interests of Aussie workers. The meme that Do-nothing Malcolm tried on in Parliament several months ago – that Bill Shorten is the “sycophant of billionaires” – would have daily resonance in the polity every time somebody got knocked back for a pay rise, got crush-loaded into a train or got stuck in traffic. Bill Shorten the “sycophant of billionaires” and “pro-immigration extremist” could be come inter-changeable phrases as he positioned as the rampant destroyer of Australian living standards.
It is also a Greens killer, exposing their toxic hypocrisy of putting social justice ahead of environmental credentials. Ditto for Labor. Dick Smith, the Wilderness Society and all manner of other traditionally Left groups would endorse Coalition policy as it took pressure off the Australian environment.
Indeed, cutting immigration holds within it the seed of a complete reset of domestic political allegiances as:
- Labor voters are wedged;
- Greens voters are wedged;
- One Nation voters are wedged;
And every frustrated city-dwelling progressive sitting in traffic, as well as bush dwelling conservative mulling One Nation, is forced to confront the fact that he, his income and his environment, will be much better served by voting Coalition.
Do-Labor Malcolm is already on the move. It began with gas policy, has delivered infrastructure spending and has shunted the Budget into the political middle ground. But he still lacks a “killer app”; a defining policy that ties the platform together into a singular and cogent vision for the country. The missing piece, the hole in the donut, the one off key, is big immigration cuts. With that at the center of his policy matrix he can label his platform – governing to boost living standards – while others fritter them away:
- keeping Australia engaged with the global economy via free trade deals;
- raising income for local workers, as well as to meet Budget tax forecasts;
- investing in infrastructure to catch-up on past high immigration and boosting productivity;
- lowering the pressure on house prices and putting local kids ahead of foreigners, and
- preserving Australia’s natural and built environments.
There is no need to change leaders for this. Having a troglodyte like Abbott cut immigration turns the Coalition into One Nation with its attendant lunacies. Do-Brexit Malcolm is the one to do it.
Business and the insufferable Left will hate it of course but that’s all to the good on both sides. As the bank levy shows, putting nation ahead of interests is very popular, and being stamped racist by the loony Left is a badge of honour these days. The UK Tory vote is thumping along, pulling votes from across the traditional spectrum, for similar reasons.
If the Coalition doesn’t go this way soon then we can only conclude that it is too inept to look after its own interests and, therefore, has no right to govern ours.
