Daniel Wills: Events are testing Premier Steven Marshall like never before as State Government sets up for a ‘make or break’ year
From bushfire to jobs threats from coronavirus and defence confusion, Premier Steven Marshall’s mettle is being tested as events conspire to knock his government off course.
Opinion
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Events, dear boy. Premier Steven Marshall is starting what some allies are calling a “make-or-break year”, as he strives to run up some real results before launching into a re-election campaign in early 2022 that will arrive faster than anyone expects.
For the first time in the almost two years that he’s held the job, Mr Marshall and his Government are now being seriously battered by external forces that are forcing him to revisit their best-laid plans.
The bushfire crisis recovery, coronavirus response and uncertainty over the future of Defence maintenance and manufacturing jobs are gale-force headwinds that threaten to undermine his ambitions, from jobs to a Budget balance. Some come with direct financial impacts, such as cash that’s being pumped into the post-bushfire rebuild. Others are a direct threat to existing jobs in education or hospitality as Chinese nationals are turned away from South Australia amid the epidemic panic.
And anything that hits the national economy will also starve SA of GST money, which has already sunk by about $3 billion since Mr Marshall won the state election and is the single most important component in the Budget surplus equation. All will hit business and consumer confidence, as uncertainty leads to purse strings closing and concern about which unknown comes next.
When Mr Marshall was elected in 2018, the outlook was rosier.
Big local infrastructure projects were tailing off but, nonetheless, were keeping a lot of blue-collar workers in jobs, the Holden factory closure hadn’t been the unmitigated catastrophe most had anticipated and there was high expectation about a new boom after the long-awaited confirmation of $90 billion in new shipbuilding to be based in Adelaide.
The global economy was surging – supercharged by tax cuts in the US – and Australians were beginning to feel a little more relaxed as falling interest rates gave them a few more dollars to play with. It seemed a very good election for the Libs to win, with the winds at their back.
Mr Marshall has sought to provide a stark contrast to the man he beat to the job, Jay Weatherill. Believing his predecessor had been all talk and no action, Mr Marshall has repeatedly said his approach would be to get down to business on reshaping the state and then let the results speak for themselves come election time.
It was a strategy right for the time because the public was so sick of political brawling after the Canberra leadership mayhem and a siege mentality manufactured in SA about the eastern states being out to screw us over.
But the strategy to “under-promise and over-deliver” was built on a dangerous assumption. That is that the new Government would deliver.
Heading into Christmas, after six months of internal and external brawling over land tax, Mr Marshall had lost significant paint as well as effectively forfeiting six months that should have been devoted to talking about a confidence-inspiring agenda.
Then there was the Sam Duluk saga, which also became a major distraction for the Government ahead of and upon Parliament’s return for the year. Mr Marshall starts this year with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, plus economic and population growth results that haven’t yet met the targets the Government set itself.
And that’s before adding the weights of a natural disaster, uncertainty in key industries, financial challenges and coronavirus. First-term governments, historically, get a fair bit of tolerance from the public when seeking their first re-election.
If life feels better than it was when the new guy got elected, he gets another go. If he’s trying hard and making some gains – even if they’re not quite as much as what was promised – people who believe in a fair go often buy in for one more.
If things are seen to have worsened, key voters in the mortgage belt start getting buyer’s remorse. There is a view among some in the Government that it’s better to have bad luck with external events now, at the halfway point of the cycle, than closer to the election. But the old maxim that you can’t fatten a pig on market day still stands, and that’s why this year is essential for the Government as it readies for that run.
Labor, under new leadership since the election, is positioning itself to capitalise on any stumbles. With Weatherill gone, Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas is able to deflect attacks over Labor’s modest economic record in office while focusing on Marshall’s performance in the present and, eventually, his own plans for the future.
With a reasonable electoral buffer, and all the resources of Government, Marshall has advantages in trying to deal with all the factors now conspiring to knock him off balance. The Government seems to still be convinced that its long-term plans are solid and will reap them benefits. But calm seas have become choppy, and the captain’s mettle is being tested as he charts the course.