Albanese should consider what he might come to regret

Former Northern Territory chief minister Shane Stone last week told  The Australian Financial Review that the number of poker machines had grown when he was in charge. He wished it had been different. “If I’d had the courage of my convictions, I would have wound back the numbers, but I didn’t do that,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should be thinking ahead to 2028 and even 2031. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The precise terms of Stone’s admission are fascinating – in two ways. First, political mistakes are usually expressed in terms of things done that should not have been. This has normally been made obvious to the politician through community outrage. Stone is talking about something he hadn’t done.

Second, he expressed it in terms of courage.

Stone was in the rare position of knowing what should happen and having the power to do it. He was not brave enough. His four years of power came and went and they will not come again.

Right now, we are in the phase of election aftermath when the focus is on pure politics. When policies are discussed, it is in political terms. Did they help the campaign or hinder it?

Valid questions. But on the Liberal side, this risks missing the broader view. What about the nine years of governing leading up to its past two campaigns? What was done that shouldn’t have been – not in terms of politics but principles? And what should have been done that wasn’t? An entire generation of Liberal and National politicians spent almost a decade in government; for many, it will be their one shot. What do they regret not doing?

Early Coalition reactions to defeat suggest many of its MPs are a long way from thinking deeply about such questions.

On the right, the immediate reaction has been to suggest the party is not right-wing enough – a stance exemplified by the Nationals’ tantrum, with its insistence that nuclear power is important and murmurings about dragging the Liberals even further right by abandoning net zero.

On the moderate side, too, there has already been movement. The apparently victorious candidate for Goldstein Tim Wilson – seemingly the only Liberal to wrest a seat back from the teals – is already on the attack against Labor’s increase to the rate at which earnings on superannuation balances over $3 million are taxed.

This is remarkable. After a defeat of historic size and import, one part of the Coalition reacted by insisting it keep one of its disastrous (and in substantive terms ridiculous) policies. Another part immediately went on the warpath against a minor change to taxation on a small group of the richest people in the country.

The even more remarkable fact is the speed with which these positions were adopted. Strictly speaking, the Nationals broke from the Coalition not because the Liberal Party wouldn’t sign up to their policies but because it wouldn’t sign up to them right away. Surely, now is a time for considered reflection, not snap judgments.

Unfortunately, the Coalition is not the only part of the political class guilty of unreflective haste. The amount of attention being given to Labor’s superannuation changes by some parts of the media is astounding given how small its impact is. The attempts to make this an important question of principle are frankly embarrassing. The tax isn’t indexed? Income tax isn’t indexed. We should never tax unrealised gains? We already do. This isn’t to say it can’t be calmly discussed or even changed. Just that the arguments are wildly, pompously overblown.

Again, this affects a tiny group of people. The best argument the scaremongers have is that in three decades, one in 10 taxpayers will be affected.

This is important, because governments should be able to do things based on a reasonable discussion of how many people will lose out, not based on scare campaigns by self-interested parties trying to convince everybody they will lose out one day.

But we shouldn’t spend too much time worrying about the fearmongers. The really important issue is how Labor responds to the fearmongering.

In its last term, Labor would sometimes point to the hostile coverage it faced over the stage 3 tax cuts and its super changes. There are two potential lessons to take. The first, which often seemed to be the one Labor had learnt, is that change attracts criticism. The second, though, is that in each case, Labor ultimately triumphed. It delivered its tax cuts; then it won an election.

This points to another lesson to take from what occurred on May 3. The Murdoch press in particular still has plenty of power – just not to swing elections. Labor should be further reassured by a sweep of interviews Treasurer Jim Chalmers did after last week’s interest rate cut. In most, he was barely asked about the super changes.

Tax changes are some of the hardest to prosecute. It is possible, though, that we have exaggerated their difficulty, and of reform more broadly, by relying on an unrepresentative set of examples. The three most damaging recent campaigns against taxes took place in particular conditions: Bill Shorten’s tax changes were attempted from opposition, which is always tough; Julia Gillard’s carbon price was enacted in minority government, in a national atmosphere of unexamined misogyny and with Kevin Rudd undermining her; and despite the intense campaign against Rudd’s mining tax, Labor still led Newspoll when Gillard replaced him.

When politicians consider the question of what they should do with their time in power, the question is always clouded by politics: what is possible and what will get them votes. This can’t be ignored. But it is worth trying to get at the question another way. The Liberals should think about what they wish they’d done with their last stint in power: it may be the best guide to what they should do next. Labor ministers – mindful of their recently deposed Cabinet colleagues – should be thinking ahead to 2028 and 2031, and asking themselves what they will regret not having done.

Sean Kelly is an author and a regular columnist. He’s a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.