This was not only Labor’s claim throughout the election but remains a criticism now. Morrison stood and still stands for nothing, and has no message because he lacks an agenda. Apparently he won the election on a pledge to do nothing.
On May 19, the day after the election, The Conversation website reported: “It is not clear what the government’s agenda is beyond their tax plan.”
If it’s not clear it’s because people weren’t and still aren’t listening. Last week, Morrison delivered two speeches. The first was domestic, the second a sharp assessment of the regional strategic situation and what Australia’s foreign policy response will be to the threats and opportunities. Both outlined exactly what the government’s intentions were.
Governor-General David Hurley’s address to parliament yesterday outlined the Morrison government’s entire agenda in lengthy point form. Contrary to claims of emptiness, Morrison’s program is extensive and, perhaps more importantly, has an underlying principle guiding it.
As Morrison has said in the past: “People just want to be left alone to get on with their lives and not be lectured to.”
It should hardly be a surprise or an offence that income tax cuts took top billing in the election. If passed this week by the parliament, they alone would be the single biggest economic achievement of a government for a decade.
But Morrison has also outlined significant industrial relations reform, fixing the National Disability Insurance Scheme, constitutional recognition for indigenous Australia, reform of the public service, productivity-based deregulation, a $100 billion infrastructure package, housing policy changes and laws to protect religious freedoms.
On foreign policy, his strategic and economic intention is to project Australian soft power into the region while pursuing free-trade deals in Europe and elsewhere to broaden economic partnerships beyond the China-US nexus that still threatens to undermine growth.
The reason his critics continue to deny Morrison an agenda, and consequently a mandate, is because they wrongly confuse agenda with government activism.
Morrison’s view is that reform is pointless unless it is singularly designed to make people’s lives better or at least less encumbered by government. It is a view that says an agenda doesn’t have to be ideological to qualify.
Morrison has a substantial program ahead of him. However, he will want to approach it calmly and without fanfare. He won the election by, among other things, not scaring the horses.
In seeking to project the image of a prime minister with little interest in grandstanding, he claims to be interested only in being judged on outcomes. Success for Morrison will be measured when people look back and say it was a government that actually got quite a bit done. That starts tomorrow when the Senate will decide whether Morrison can begin to deliver on his agenda by passing the $158bn in income tax cuts — or not.
Packed government bench seeks an effective agenda
The August productivity roundtable has potential to open the way to greater prosperity. After much neo-Keynesian government intervention, redistribution and regulation in Labor’s first term, some supply-side thinking would enhance our future.
Japanese election harms region
‘Japan First’ isolationism is on the march, just as the country’s role in helping deter China in the East and South China seas has never been as important.
Scott Morrison has answered his critics and defied the charge that he is a one-trick pony with little to offer beyond income tax cuts.