Sanity and superficiality to the fore as campaign kicks off. That can’t last

In spite of the madness elsewhere in the world, Australia’s federal election begins in the realm of sanity. But also superficiality.

It’s sane because neither Anthony Albanese nor Peter Dutton is promising to invade New Zealand or ban vaccinations. No one is proposing to outlaw all gender reassignments. Or make them compulsory. Instead, we have earnest debates about taxes, housing affordability, immigration, childcare, the disability insurance scheme. So far, so good.

Graphic by Marija Ercegovac

But the headline policy offerings of the two major parties are as thin as an excuse. The contest between Labor’s tax cut and the Coalition’s petrol excise relief is so superficial that Redbridge political consultant Kos Samaras calls it a “battle of the Band-Aids”.

Fresh from focus groups of uncommitted voters under the age of 45, Samaras says that they see these offerings as Band-Aids when they’re “looking for far more structural changes in how the country is governed – and they’re not seeing it”.

“No one gives a shit about Peter Dutton’s culture wars – about which flag he’s going to stand in front of, or deporting dual citizens who’ve committed a major crime,” he adds. “They want to know ‘how can you help my kids buy a home?’, or ‘how you can help my generation enjoy the standards of living that my parents have?’”

And sentiment towards Albanese? “Similar to Dutton. They don’t see anything that gives them confidence he has a plan for the country. ‘Nice guy, but hasn’t done anything.’” Which, he allows, is unfair, “but it’s the comms [communication] challenge they’ve had”.

How are tax changes superficial? They needn’t be; when taxes change in a big way, they change incentives, and that can transform behaviour. But this week’s announcements won’t change much at all.

The government immediately legislated its plan to cut the lowest tax rate from 16 per cent to 15 next year and to 14 per cent the year after. So all taxpayers are due to get a $5-a-week tax cut next year and a further $10-a-week the following year for a cumulative total $15 per week.

Albanese calls it “help with cost of living”. Dutton calls it a “bribe”. He must think Aussies are exceptionally cheap.

In any case, Dutton quickly whipped out a “bribe” of his own of about the same size – a 12-month halving of petrol excise, which would save a typical one-car family $14 a week and a two-car family twice as much, before the excise returned to its current level.

Illustration by Joe Benke

These are not serious policy changes. They’re marginal and will feel ephemeral. The electorate might hope for corrective surgery but is being offered only Band-Aids.

These offerings are merely talking points for an election campaign. But talking points and campaign promises are critical for the next 35 days. Because this election is wide open. The published polling shows that a two-year trend against Labor went into reverse late last year and the two parties are converging on 50:50 voter support.

At the same time, an enormous proportion of the electorate – four voters in 10 – is uncommitted. So the campaign will be unusually consequential.

It’s remarkable that the government should be in so competitive a position – because living standards have been falling. Mostly due to inflation rising and mortgage repayments increasing. Disposable household income in Australia, after taking inflation into account, has fallen by 8 per cent over the past two years, the worst performance among developed nations. That hurts.

It’s a bitter tonic for Australians to swallow. For most of the past 40 years Australia has outperformed the rest of the planet. Now it’s lagging.

That should give the opposition a powerful lead. And while it’s certainly competitive, it’s no longer ahead. Why not?

Dutton has done a masterful job of channelling the people’s pain and disappointment, making himself into their avenging avatar waging jihad on Labor. But it’s not enough. Dutton promises to get us “back on track”, while Albanese tells us that “we’re turning the corner”. Apart from the fact they sound like a couple of budding bushwalking guides, the evidence for the two propositions is quite different.

The government has just enough proof points to sustain hikers’ hopes. It’s true, as Albanese tells us, that “inflation is down, real wages are up, unemployment is low, interest rates are falling, and we’re cutting tax rates for every taxpayer again”.

And the government’s new measures add to the case. It intends to cut student debt by 20 per cent, increase payments for bulk-billing of doctors’ fees, make medicines under the PBS cheaper, build another 50 emergency Medicare clinics, pay a further electricity rebate of $150 for the second half of this year.

Dutton’s nuclear plan calls for seven full-scale reactors to be built by the government, owned by the government, financed by the government and operated by the government. Credit: Monique Westermann

Most of these are not surgery but mere Band-Aids, but if you have enough Band-Aids you can cover a multitude of sins.

Whereas Dutton’s Coalition doesn’t have enough solid footholds to offer the weary walker. Surprisingly, it, so far, has scant few policy offerings after three years’ preparation time.

Its marquee policy this term is its nuclear power plan. The electorate gave Dutton a good deal of credit for the boldness of this idea. But the longer people have had to think about it, the less convincing it looks. Even on the Coalition’s most optimistic scenario, the first nuclear reactor wouldn’t be up and running for a decade. That means it’s irrelevant to the years of greatest vulnerability to power failure.

It’s telling that Dutton this week announced another electricity policy to address the more immediate problem: his plan to force gas companies to reserve a portion of production for the local market instead of shipping unrestricted volumes abroad for higher prices. Western Australia, sensibly, has operated a 15 per cent domestic reservation on gas for many years. And this is the policy that Dutton is emphasising; the nuclear policy is eclipsed.

Most striking about the Coalition nuclear policy, however, is what it reveals about the character of Dutton’s Liberals. The plan calls for seven full-scale reactors to be built by the government, owned by the government, financed by the government and operated by the government. At a cost in the hundreds of billions. Could this be the party of private business, the market, smaller government?

Labor’s energy policy, while government-subsidised, is mostly financed, built, owned and operated by the private sector. Just a bit of casual policy cross-dressing? It’s more than a one-off.

Look at the parties’ positions on the Albanese tax cuts announced this week. The government has legislated the tax cuts; the Liberals promised to repeal them should they win. Hold on.

That’s the first time the Liberal Party has opposed a cut to income taxes. Once again, Labor is upholding principles that always have been Liberal. The Liberals are abandoning the claim to be the party of lower taxes.

True, the Coalition is promising to cut about 41,000 jobs from the federal public service at a saving of $7 billion a year. And workplace relations remain a fundamental divide. So it’s not a total identity transplant.

But the Dutton positions on nationalisation and taxation highlight the Coalition’s evolution into a right-wing populist party, operating a policy flag of convenience rather than hewing to the values of the party of Menzies and Howard.

Dutton has little else by way of policy offerings, and not enough to make a compelling case for economic rejuvenation. He also suffers from a weak frontbench team. The opposition relies increasingly on the relatively new frontbencher James Paterson to present a credible public front.

These are some of the reasons that, while the polls are 50:50, the betting markets favour Labor’s chances. Another is that while Albanese need lose only three seats to lose his majority in the House, Dutton needs to gain a net extra 20 or so. Albanese is close to the cliff edge, but Dutton is far from the top.

The most glaring superficiality of the parties’ efforts so far, however, is the larger setting. Both intone gravely about the dangerous storms of a world destabilised by Trump, Xi and Putin, but then retreat into complacency. Neither is pursuing policies that would brace Australia for the great upheavals to come.

Both continue to run up the national debt, neither has a plan for economic revival, and no one is explaining credibly how Australia can defend itself against predators when its great ally, America, has joined the slavering pack.

Australia’s economic and security vulnerabilities are greater than at any time since World War II. One or both of the parties may yet address these problems; the campaign has only just begun. And, until they do, Australia is sailing in an unprotected tinnie into the teeth of a tempest.

Peter Hartcher is political editor.