Mathias Cormann says economic socialism cost Labor the election

Mathias Cormann declared Labor’s election loss was due its ‘political march to the socialist left’.

Senator Mathias Cormann at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has declared that Labor’s shock election loss was the result of its “flawed socialist pursuit of equality of outcomes” and its false claim that Australian society was beset by a “growing inequality problem.”

Speaking at the Sydney Institute, Senator Cormann has this evening argued that the Coalition political agenda was based on the principle of “supporting equality of opportunity” — a goal which he said was previously shared by former Labor leaders Paul Keating and Bob Hawke in the 1980s and 1990s.

Senator Cormann warned that Labor had since shifted direction, warning that its retreat to the socialist objective of equality of outcomes via its class warfare rhetoric and embrace of a massive tax and redistribution agenda would have “made our country weaker and ultimately, over time, Australians and Australia poorer.”

“In the end, Labor’s political gamble that enough Australians had forgotten the historical failure of socialism failed. Because Australians, like our government, stand for opportunity and aspiration,” he said.

“Australians instinctively know that our country will be stronger if every individual Australian has the best possible opportunity to succeed. They know that their desire and ability to get ahead and succeed is not helped by demonising their fellow Australians or tearing down those who are economically successful.”

Senator Cormann argued that Labor’s “political march back towards the socialist left” began in earnest with the election of the Rudd government in 2007, warning that it had “cost them dearly at every federal election since — especially in 2019.”

“It is surely telling that some of the strongest swings towards the Coalition were in comparatively lower income areas across Australia. It was a clear rejection of Labor’s class warfare rhetoric and their high taxing policies,” he said.

He took aim at Labor’s new leadership team, saying the lesson of the election had not been comprehended by Anthony Albanese or his new treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers, noting that Labor had not yet jettisoned the policy platform championed by Bill Shorten ahead of the May 18 federal poll.

Unpopular policies, including Labor’s shake-up to negative gearing and the scrapping of cash refunds for excess franking credits, are under review and have not been officially junked.

“They may have banned the words ‘top end of town’ from their current rhetoric, but they have not as yet committed to dropping the punitive and divisive policy agenda which flowed from it,” Senator Cormann said.

The West Australian Senator warned that Labor had actively taken steps to entrench its socialist credentials, warning this would only serve to further isolate the party from the aspirational Australians he argued had helped deliver the Coalition its surprise election victory.

“In fact, in my home state of Western Australia over the weekend Anthony Albanese presided over a Labor Party Conference that took a massive step in the wrong direction,” he said.

“WA Labor this past weekend formally passed a motion to reassert its commitment to the socialist objective, reinserting it into its WA Labor Party Platform.

“It’s a commitment that had previously been removed back in 1999 in an effort to modernise the WA Labor Party and make them more electable.

“Nationally, while it’s supposedly ‘under review’, the Labor Party has never actually removed its ‘socialist objective’, which has remained enshrined in its Platform since 1921.”

Senator Cormann called on the party to remove the socialist objective from the platform, saying that people had been punished with economy weakening higher taxes in all countries where the “socialist experiment” had tried and failed.

“It is beyond belief that Labor in 2019 has not as yet learned this lesson. The last election demonstrates that this is an assessment shared by a majority of Australians.”