Daniel Wills: SA Liberals’ 2036 plan is just a flashy prop

MANY will assume substance and detail must lurk behind the Liberals’ vision for 2036 as they watch Steven Marshall lug it around until the state election. It’s a ploy stolen from Jay Weatherill — who pinched it from Tony Abbott.

Marshall Plan

• SA Liberals release their vision for SA in 2036

LIBERAL leader Steven Marshall called a press conference on Tuesday to tell the state what he and his party stand for.

The fact he felt that was an announcement at all should be seen as self-condemnation from an Opposition that’s drifted without direction for at least two decades.

It’s hard to find much to say about the 2036 vision Mr Marshall has handed down. Much of it is incontestable.

There wouldn’t be a single person that doesn’t believe in “a stable job in a growing economy”, “vibrant regional communities” or having “the best schools in Australia”.

Saying that you stand for “reducing bureaucracy and waste” only really means something if there is a political rival out who’s running on a ticket of promoting red tape and profligacy.

And Labor has already beaten the Liberals to the punch on reducing “the cost of transactions that discourage investment” when it moved to cut business stamp duties in the last State Budget.

There are some points of divergence from the State Government, most notably rolling back unpopular Emergency Services Levy increases, but none that haven’t been announced before.

Taken as a whole, it’s hard to see this vision for a distant moment two decades and five state elections away as more than the Liberals’ failed small-target strategy stretched to 80 pages.

But that may very well be the point.

That looks familiar ... then-Opposition Leader Tony Abbott with the Federal Liberals’ plan in 2013.

It was Jay Weatherill’s turn in 2014.

It’s less important in politics that an aspiring candidate actually have a real plan that it is for them to create the impression that one exists.

Virtually no one apart from insiders like political journalists, staffers and MPs will go to the effort of picking up and reading this document.

Yet Mr Marshall will pick it up daily, and have himself photographed and filmed carrying around what looks suspiciously like a plan.

By having said nothing controversial inside, the bearer is insulated from criticism. Labor has held back from blasting the document, saying it doesn’t contain a single policy to discuss.

But many people will simply assume that some substance and detail must lurk behind the cover as they watch Mr Marshall lugging it around from today until March 17, 2018.

It’s a ploy stolen from Premier Jay Weatherill’s successful 2014 re-election campaign, which was itself pinched from former prime minister Tony Abbott’s promise of real solutions in 2013.

On both occasions, it worked. Unable to beat Mr Weatherill, Mr Marshall has joined him.

Liberals know commentators will dismiss this document as fairy floss in the coming days. They hope and expect that sting will be forgotten in two years’ time as swinging voters enter polling stations and the impression swirls in their heads that the Liberals have a plan for change.

Mr Marshall also promises the coming months will bring detailed and costed policies for reform that will convince the more engaged and sceptical this is more than just a PR campaign.

Until then, the Liberals remain what they were but having added a flashy new prop.