This year’s election will be seen by future historians as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” poll, where our political leaders and the voting public conspired to ignore, rather than face, mounting threats to our way of life.
In Canada, which has borne the brunt of Donald Trump’s wrecking-ball approach to international relations, this collective denialism was not possible. In Australia, we cling to it for dear life, hoping desperately for a miracle reprieve. It is unlikely to come.
Anthony Albanese’s thumping victory was not a vote of confidence in his government’s economic record and competence. Nor was it an endorsement of its big-government, high-taxation, climate-austerity vision for the country.
Like Paul Keating after his “true believers” victory in 1993, Albanese and his colleagues will misread the election result.
New ways to deepen our welfare dependency will be dreamt up, starting with close to “free” childcare for all. Make no mistake, taxes will have to be raised much further, as Albanese has all but conceded.
Those who point to Labor’s proposed derisory income tax cut should remember that it will be extinguished by bracket creep in a few short years. And, owing to bracket creep, the average income tax rate faced by the community – younger, working-age Australians – is set to rise by close to 15 per cent over the next decade.
And we can expect a further tightening of our net-zero economic noose under a reappointed Chris Bowen, together with new initiatives to entrench union power in the nation’s workplaces.
To keep gullible business leaders and economic commentators happy, Jim Chalmers has been mouthing platitudes about the need to boost productivity.
Yet he plainly does not understand what this concept means.
In speech after speech, Chalmers claims that forcing cheap and reliable energy out of the electricity market and spending in the care economy are pillars of his productivity agenda; an inversion of economic truth.
He fatuously says he will focus on productivity while not forgetting inflation, failing to see that a more productive economy will be a less inflation-prone one.
Commentators express the pious hope that the Albanese government will see the error of its economic ways, but it has already proven incapable of this.
As the government embarks on its second term, no dissenting policy voices will be heard from within. Disregard the factional jockeying between the party’s Left and Right factions. As a distinctive intellectual force within the party – and check on the Left’s socialist delusions – the old Labor Right is dead and buried.
Modern Labor does not debate economic policy questions from first principles, as it did in the 1980s. It mindlessly adheres – Left and Right together in lock-step – to the dictates of progressive economic orthodoxy.
Nor will our bureaucratic oligarchs alert the government to its folly. The Treasury Department used to champion lower tax, spending restraint, limited government and undistorted markets. Its current leadership believes in permanent fiscal stimulus, praises bracket creep and protectionism, and is committed to net-zero deindustrialisation.
When faced with facts it does not want to acknowledge, the government’s reflexive response is to tell lies on a scale we have never before seen in our politics.
As the gap between economic reality and Labor’s confected parallel universe grows, at some point public confidence in the government is liable to collapse – like a house of cards or a Ponzi scheme.
I am not suggesting this is an inevitability. There are no certainties in politics or life.
But it is a clear risk. Indeed, as recently as November last year – judging by most published polls at the time – the alarm bells were sounding for the government in this regard. This is the opportunity that the opposition can seize, if it remains true to the best of its philosophical traditions – both liberal and conservative.
Sussan Ley and Ted O’Brien will be bombarded by advice in coming days, but I would suggest they keep three things in mind.
First, do not repeat Peter Dutton’s mistake of ignoring the policy and political merits of lower income taxation for all – not just those on lower incomes.
This is the key to strengthening incentives to work, invest and save in the economy; and it is the only sustainable way to boost growth and living standards – as both the Hawke and Howard governments recognised.
With both major parties treating our taxpayers with contempt for decades now, they are a largely untapped political constituency, encompassing all parts of Australian society.
Bracket creep is wrong in principle, just as not indexing the pension would be. And why do we tolerate our confiscatory 47 per cent top rate cutting in at less than twice the average wage?
Second, challenge modern Labor’s conception of fairness, which sorts the community into a hierarchy of identity groups, bestowing favours on the morally deserving and penalising everyone else. This has nothing to do with compassion or caring for the vulnerable, as Labor’s preparedness to subsidise the well-off – including high-income graduates and drivers of electric cars – attests. Argue that Labor’s idea of fairness is incompatible with the cherished Australian values of equality of opportunity and meritocracy, weakening not only our economic foundations, but also our civic ones.
And third, do not shy away from an internal party debate on net zero. This ideological fad is falling out of favour in the rest of the developed world, yet our elites remain in its thrall. Every Liberal wet should reflect on Tony Blair’s recent comments on the subject.
The new Liberal leadership should remember that Labor’s election victory was based on denial (of the more dangerous world we inhabit) and dishonesty.
The Australian public wanted a change, but were robbed of that possibility by an opposition that adopted a derivative, Labor-lite agenda. The worst thing the new Liberal leadership can do is to repeat that historic mistake.
David Pearl is a former Treasury assistant secretary.
To succeed, we must have strong ties with Indonesia
Our northern neighbour will be one of the world’s top five economies by 2040. This thriving nation is a sure thing in a time of great economic turbulence and uncertainty.
How China uses defence of its diaspora to silence criticism
The accusation about ‘Chinese spies’ was unfortunate, but in truth Chinese-Australians are not as easily offended as the Chinese Communist Party would have you believe.