Behind the heavy sugar coating hides hard left policies: Robert Gottliebsen

The Albanese government is emerging as the most left wing administration in our history on domestic policy. Picture: Firdia Lisnawati /AFP

The ALP Albanese government is emerging as the most left wing administration in our history on domestic policy. And very few of the radical agendas being put through parliament were canvassed at the election earlier this year.

I emphasise that in foreign and defence policy, Penny Wong and Richard Marles plus the prime minister and other ministers, have operated in the region at a standard that has probably never been matched in recent history. There are no left or right wing agendas, just tireless work to advance the Australian nation.

But on the domestic front we are seeing hard left policies foisted on the business and investment communities and each one is given a sugar coating which diverts the media and provides popular appeal in the community.

Each of the measures has been targeted at the capital-providing communities with family business, selected as a special target in some of the areas. The industry bodies and corporations have been completely outmanoeuvred and caught flat footed by the ferocity and careful planning of the attacks.

Among legislative and non-legislative blows are the quasi nationalisation of energy; the complete rewrite of industrial relations legislation involving industry-wide bargaining; the looming attack on casual work; the Australian Taxation Office attack on family business and the franking credits debacle.

While the ATO and franking credits thrusts will raise money, the measures are totally separate from the budgetary measures that will be introduced next May in an attempt to balance the budget and reduce the deficit.

Australians have elected a government that is motivated by a hard left domestic agenda. This will delight a significant portion of the population, but it leaves the business and investment communities with a growing sense of anger and alarm.

Nothing illustrates that better than the capital strike that is being canvassed in the oil and gas industry as a result of the quasi nationalisation of gas without compensation.

But the companies are being outmanoeuvred by public opinion because Energy Minister Chris Bowen, backed by the prime minister, cleverly used the temporary gas price clamp as a decoy for the radical nationalisation agenda. As I explained yesterday, the legislation enables the government to control the production, marketing and pricing of gas.

Local and international companies invested billions to develop Australian gas resources on the basis of a set of rules which gave them independence in long-term production, marketing and pricing. Western countries around the world attract capital to develop their resources on the basis of these clear rules.

While companies don’t like modifications, there are global precedents for properly set out short-term price measures, which was the signature policy that masked the Australian quasi nationalisation.

Poorer countries with political instability, particularly in Africa are seen as high risk places to invest because the governments keep changing the rules. The entire global minerals industry is now in a state of shock that a country with the presumed reliability of Australia should embrace a traditional African style of unpredictability, especially as many African countries now realise that such policies are a disaster and have embraced former Australian-style certainty.

Sadly, the popular media do not alert their audiences that this dramatic change in Australian policy and how the likely capital strike will impact their standard of living.

But the government itself is being entirely consistent. And so when it moved to introduce industry-wide industrial bargaining so that unions would gain more power and family businesses would have to embrace arrangements set by highly-profitable companies, the sugar coating was higher wages.

A vast number of Australian families now rely on the gig economy to supplement their incomes because of mortgage and cost of living burdens. They want money in their pocket (not long service leave and superannuation) so they can pay their mortgage and at the same time it provides flexibility in a world of labour shortages.

We don’t know what the ALP are going to do in this area, but the signs are bad.

In the case of the ATO attacks on family business, the public signature policy is a welcome attack on crooks. But behind the scenes many genuine and honest tax paying family businesses are being attacked with fictitious bills, interest rates and penalties with no easy recourse.

The government is even canvassing destroying the Inspector General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman to make the ATO machine-gunning more efficient.

The franking credit legislation sets out a whole raft of new uncertainties in this area.

It might be too early to pass judgement, but Anthony Albanese does not seem to be a driver of policies, but rather an endorser and marketer of ministerial direction.

That works brilliantly when he’s dealing with ministers like Wong and Marles, but a very different pattern emerges when ministers adopt hard left policies which may be popular in large areas of the population but disastrous for the capital and job creating community.

A balance is required in governments, whether they be right or left wing.