Albanese’s budget speech blues far from in the pink

Almost 50 years ago, the Whitlam government’s progressive policies of providing maternity leave, equal pay and removing discrimination against women in the federal public service left the Coalition looking out of touch and old-fashioned. The worm has turned. Women, Anthony Albanese said in his budget reply speech on Thursday night, were at the heart of Labor’s plan to “kickstart the economy and get Australians back to work”. Then followed the opposition’s extravagant childcare pitch, aimed at introducing a 90 per cent subsidy for all families. It would leave some up to $2900 a year better off. “In the worst recession for 100 years we have to make sure women aren’t forced to choose between their families and their jobs,” the Opposition Leader said. The plan would suit potential beneficiaries but leave most taxpayers shouldering a heavy burden. And its narrow focus is no strategy for rebuilding an economy ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. The days of pitching to women as an enfeebled, disadvantaged minority are long gone. Labor’s quaint critique of the Morrison government, that “we can’t have a pink recession and a blue recovery”, is an anachronism. Even more pathetic was Mr Albanese’s line in the budget reply speech: “Women have suffered most during the pandemic but are reduced to a footnote. The best the government can offer is they can drive on a road.”

Huh? As Scott Morrison “mansplained” in question time on Wednesday: “It may come as some surprise to the Leader of the Opposition but women run small businesses … Women pay tax. Women hire other Australians in their businesses.” As well as wanting safe roads, the Prime Minister said, women “want to go to university, and they want to study science and technology and engineering and maths, like the Industry Minister did. They want to get apprenticeships. They want to get traineeships. They want to get jobs”. Mr Albanese’s implicit suggestion that women have nothing to gain from Josh Frydenberg’s budget strategy of enhancing conditions for private sector investment, growth and job creation harks back to the working world of our grandparents.

While claiming, falsely, that “the only legacy of the budget is trillion-dollar debt”, Mr Albanese did not critique the Treasurer’s business strategy directly. And he shares the government’s concerns about the importance of skills training, pointing to the shortages of nurses, welders, bricklayers, engineers and hairdressers. With several years of negative net migration ahead, redressing those shortages will be vital to growth. Our nation has been built and strengthened on various waves of skilled immigration. Sooner rather than later the pattern will need to resume. A considered, updated strategy of Peter Costello’s “one for Mum, one for Dad and one for the country” might not go amiss either, given the challenges created by our ageing population.

The speech showed Mr Albanese would not be averse to venturing down the path of “picking winners” with taxpayers’ money and increasing government interference in the productive economy. In an ideal world, the $270bn worth of defence spending on the books should open the way for developing our sovereign industrial and research capabilities and build skills and building expertise within the Australian workforce, as Mr Albanese said. Improving the nation’s defence preparedness, however, must never be used as a “make-work scheme”. That error has been made before by both sides of politics.

Mr Albanese’s vision for a national rail manufacturing plan may or may not stand scrutiny. He wants a national audit of passenger train capacity and condition, to develop a rail procurement and manufacturing strategy and to assess how the sphere can go about fostering jobs, research and development and export opportunities. The starting point would need to be a thorough cost-benefit analysis. If Australia, under either side of politics, is to expand manufacturing, a modernised, flexible industrial relations system and an energy policy that allows companies access to cheap power will be fundamental to success. Mr Albanese’s lament over the demise of the car industry in Australia was conveniently selective. The price of propping it up was vast. The nation would venture down the old-fashioned protectionist path again at our peril.

Mr Albanese’s call for the repair of social housing, which is badly run down in many areas, is a good one. And the states, which are responsible for social housing, should get on with it, boosting tradies’ order books, demand for labourers and apprentices and new tools and equipment. The states would need to weigh up Mr Albanese’s call for 200,000 new public housing dwellings to be built, with a view to its impact on the property market. His pledge of an Australian Centre for Disease Control makes sense, provided it would not duplicate existing research efforts.

While attempting to deride the government’s projected debt levels, Mr Albanese’s alternative policies would increase, not diminish, public sector interference in the economy. He also was notably quiet on tax policy. Like Bill Shorten last year, his vision offered little reward for enterprise and effort but more “government knows best”. Labor needs to rediscover the power of aspiration and incentive.