The 92-page report written by Labor’s Craig Emerson and Jay Weatherill is an exercise in navel-gazing and what-iffery. It may also have been a huge waste of time. The two men prepared a set of 26 recommendations to offset what they saw as problems Labor created for itself in the May election.
Those problems from 1 to 26 may just as well have read ‘Bill Shorten’ with the only exception being number 22 ‘Shill Borten’ which is probably a typo.
That’s a cheap shot but the view from within marginal seats was that Bill Shorten was neither admired nor trusted. He performed above expectations in 2016 but three years later the weight of those expectations had changed. People could not see him as a prime minister.
READ MORE: ‘Dud combination’ sank voter appeal | Labor’s election epiphany | Keating warns Labor over worker security | Economic credentials scared voters | Muddle scared blue-collar voters | Costly mistakes on religion and Chinese | Stumbles on costs let Coalition in | Election message ‘drowned out’ | Party had no plan to attack new PM | 26 ways to fix broken Labor
If a party loses an unlosable election there is bound to be criticism and pain. Political careers should come to an end. Shorten firstly, with Chris Bowen second cab off the rank. That’s unfortunate for Bowen at least who has a solid grasp of economic policy, but he made so many mistakes and was so inflexible that one wonders what credibility he has left in the electorate.
We all know the stats. In modern political history, Labor has won one election in the last 12 years and just nine from 29 federal elections since the end of World War II, five of those coming in the Hawke-Keating years.
The Coalition under John Hewson also lost the unlosable in 1993 and the sequel to that was an election win in 1996 under John Howard. But if history repeated, Phar Lap would have started favourite in last Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup. Labor can’t fall into the trap of hoping the Coalition is going to deliver it victory. Waiting for your opponent to fall over is not a strategy. It’s an empty hope.
Of graver concern is the party’s low primary vote, currently at historic lows at least within the post-war time frame. At 31 per cent Labor can’t expect to win government and faces pressures from the left and right from minor parties who, for different reasons and purposes, have captured a lot of Labor’s rusted on support base. A chunk of the progressive vote has been lost to the Greens and much of the blue collar, working class vote has shuffled off either to the Coalition or to One Nation.
When Whitlam won in 1972, Labor had almost 50 per cent of the primary vote. Changing political conditions, best described as disillusionment with both major parties and the rise of minor parties replacing the traditional red versus blue political contests account for much of the shift in the last 55 years.
Therein lies the party’s existential crisis. Is it a progressive party pandering to the morass of inner-city grievances or is it a party that represents the battlers in the suburbs and rural and regional Australia? It cannot do both. And the answer broadly lies in the party’s name, albeit with a ‘u’ conspicuously missing. It must be the party of labour and workers and carry with it the aspirations for working Australians.
What Bowen proposed in general terms was right. Labor must be a low-income tax party because a worker taking home $80,000 per annum is being taxed on income and consumption and this is proportionately higher to taxes on capital and retirement savings.
Where Bowen got it wrong was to approach capital gains and franking credits by way of blanket abolition.
I doubt most Australians would have much issue with cutting franking credits to high wealth individuals who enjoy a pump to their bank balances courtesy of the taxpayer of a quarter a million dollars a year or more due to the way they had set themselves up in retirement. But then there were people facing the loss of say, $10,000 who relied on the small amount to stay off the old age pension.
Bowen refused to countenance an asset test on franking credits and this, combined with the abolition of negative gearing on new home investments – due to be implemented in just two months from now had Labor won government – created a tax and spend agenda which left it wide open to attack from its political opponents. Middle Australia would be paying for much of Labor’s spending.
Labor’s problems in the future may well be insurmountable. The challenges are Himalayan. The party will survive. The question is, in what form?
If Labor is the party of working Australians, it should launch a national forum on work in Australia while in opposition. It should listen to people tell their stories of how they work now, where they want to be in five and ten years and what hopes they have for their children. Skill and training deficits need to be identified and strategies developed to overcome them.
It might sound like a stunt, but I guarantee the nature of work in contemporary Australia is barely understood by our politicians. The process would be edifying and ultimately inclusive. Labor should welcome the discussion from all sectors and not be hamstrung by its ACTU colleagues.
It is often said politics is a sport but a glance at the scoreboard sees Labor needs an injection of fresh blood.
There need to be personnel changes. Shorten and Bowen must go. They might think that’s unfair and they might be right but continuing to bat the two in the middle order looks a lot like the national cricket team’s selectors’ fixations with the Marsh brothers. In politics and sport, a run out of outs should mean a loss of faith and If you’ve been around long enough, that’s it. Time to take the pads off and trundle off into the sun set.
Albanese deserves time as leader but with every day, one wonders if he has a foot in both the progressive and working-class camps. All things to all people and persuasive to no one. Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers is a future leader. His development and profile need to be accelerated. He’s a Queenslander, too, and that will do him no harm. Andrew Leigh is arguably the most capable economic spokesperson Labor has yet for reasons that are incomprehensible to outsiders, sits in the cheap seats as Shadow Assistant for Treasury.
Messaging is an ugly term and I hate using it, but it is a mainstay of a party’s daily communications. Labor’s messages are currently all over the shop. On climate policy it has at least three positions, on immigration and refugee policy two, while its economic messages to the public are almost non-existent.
Labor can’t communicate effectively without a central narrative that drives all of its communications to the electorate. Albanese has failed to create one as yet but the statement should reflect ambitions of a higher wage, lower income tax agenda, reflecting the aspirations of working Australians. When it comes to progressive issues, if they’ve got nothing but a confusing and ill-conceived set of motherhood statements to utter, then it is best to say nothing.
No political party is owed a future in Australian politics. Labor is the oldest of the lot, but history does not extend guarantees. If Labor makes the wrong moves over the next three years, it’s future as a major party must be in doubt. Another loss in or before 2022 would be catastrophic and may well usher in Labor’s end as a political force in this country.
Big Blue: Meet the CEO who’s thinking laterally
A small buyout of a Perth operator has big global implications for Cleanaway, a company better known for collecting household waste for councils.
The hatchet is buried but still no fast-track to peace
The fact that Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky are talking again after their Oval Office dust-up is something. As these fraught negotiations move forward, small wins are better than no wins.
Labor has been taking a long, hard look at itself. This is incredibly boring to most Australians. The business of political self-reflection does not sit well with voters. It is seen as indulgent from politicians who should be looking outward and busily representing their electorates.