I applied for any job that even remotely looked like journalism, my claim to fame being that I was rejected by every news outlet from Hobart to Darwin and in between. The highlight of that 10-month search for work? One news director cheerfully telling me I had no talent and would never get a job. After that interview, I went home, laid down in my darkened bedroom and listened to the Cure for a couple of hours before Dad knocked on my bedroom door and told me to snap out of it. Prove the bastards wrong, he said.
That was a tough but very formative time. I learned perseverance and resilience. I learned that when it comes to opinions, well, you know the saying. Everyone’s got one …
But was that experience fair? That’s not a question I’d ever have asked or considered but in light of recent weeks, the concept of fairness has become like the third person in a relationship. A niggling spectre in our national conversation. Oh, Aussies of all races, faiths and backgrounds have always been champions of the idea of a fair go. You know, the idea of reward for effort, that kind of thing; and I think we still are.
But as this government attempts to rewrite and redefine everything from basic economics to freedom of choice, it also seems to be trying to rewrite the book on fairness and it’s doing so with the language of envy and a divisive culture of meanness.
It started with Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ opus-to-self. I shall recreate capitalism, and I shall make it fair. Let’s discuss fairness for a second. Is it fair Chalmers has never spent a day working in the real economy he seems to despise and wants to rebirth? Is it fair that during Covid, he never lost a day’s wage, never had to face his staff like I did (and hundreds of thousands of others like me) to answer questions like – will I still have a job? Is it fair Chalmers has zero experience outside academia and party politics, but is in charge of Australia’s financial future? I don’t think that’s fair.
This isn’t intended as a political statement. Rather, it’s born out of frustration and disbelief. I’ve watched the Treasurer lurch from one disaster to another, all the while wrapping his words in this concept of “fairness”, which now involves coming after our superannuation and unrealised gains. It’s not just about the broken promise, it’s the culture of meanness underpinning the conversation. The envy of those who have a super balance more than $3m. I can confirm that after 11 months of living in Sydney, that’s no promise of an easy retirement. I also have a friend with more than $3m in super. That mate didn’t take a holiday for 30 years. Fair? I think so. If all of this wasn’t enough, Chalmers let Labor’s intentions slip when he refused to rule out coming after the family home. The Prime Minister rushed to deny it but who would believe them now?
Chalmers famously wrote his PhD on Paul Keating but has missed what made the Hawke-Keating years so impacting and formative for Australia.Keating himself said after Labor’s election loss in 2019 that Labor didn’t understand the middle-class economy that he and Hawke had created. In a 2016 interview, Keating observed Labor had lost the ability to formulate policy and speak to aspirational Australians. It has not learned.
I wonder if the savage backlash we’re seeing is as much about the sentiment of meanness and envy. About the government narrative that assumes anyone who has achieved or acquired anything of value somehow didn’t earn it.
A concept that anyone who has a home (mortgaged or otherwise) is somehow lucky. I mean, sure, I was lucky enough to work three jobs to put myself through university. Lucky enough to budget, save and delay many things my peers were enjoying, prioritising saving for a deposit. I was lucky enough to start all over again after a marriage breakdown. I was so lucky to risk everything to start a company from my spare room with a $500 computer and a mobile phone, and keep that company growing through a recession, a GFC and a pandemic. Gosh, what extraordinary luck I’ve had!
I’m not alone. So many of you, whether you’re in business or employed or retired, understand what I’m talking about. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer, both career political staffers, do not. Slow clap to the party of envy and low ambition and disincentive.
One of the things I’ve always admired about America is its culture of aspiration that is respected and admired.
Nobody does the tall poppy syndrome like Australians. Nobody sneers at the successful like we do, and I loathe that. I think most Australians do too, and that’s something this government would do well to understand.
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When I graduated from university in 1994 it was smack in the middle of the Keating recession, the one we had to have. My search for work had me armed with a HECS debt and a vague sense of ambition (as clear as it can be as a 21-year-old), both of which were underpinned by a solid migrant work ethic.