Joyce may backfire

QUEENSLAND senator Barnaby Joyce is what political scientists like to call a maverick politician, somebody independent of thought who refuses to abide by the dictates of the group; in short, a dissenter.

But mavericks are not messiahs. If they are promoted beyond their competence, which usually involves any promotion at all, their rants go from being the words of a political outsider to party policy-making on the run.

Tony Abbott's first mistake as leader was to promote Joyce into the shadow finance portfolio, giving him a licence to speak across policy areas, and when he does so he puts his colleagues on the back foot because he speaks with the authority that comes from being one of the most senior members of the opposition front bench.

Joyce's recent comments raising concerns about Chinese investment in Australia and the build-up of US debt show why he is popular with mainstream voters but also dangerous to the opposition's credibility as an alternative government.

Joyce's reputation as a maverick was made during the final term of the Howard government, when he was elected as the fourth senator in Queensland, giving the Coalition a majority in the national upper house for the first time since the 1977 election.

The new senator quickly made it clear that his vote couldn't be taken for granted.

At the time Joyce's brand of "retail politics", as Abbott now glowingly describes it, was seen in Coalition circles as damaging.

It was hard enough after more than a decade in power for the Coalition to repel attacks from the Labor side without having to also address fear and loathing from Joyce over issues such as the privatisation of Telstra.

I was reminded last week by a senior Liberal that Joyce wasn't exactly part of the Coalition during its dominant days. He was around only (and, arguably, partly responsible) for the decline of Rome, the downfall of the once united Howard government after its stunning 2004 election victory. Since the Coalition was shunted off the treasury benches in late 2007, the maverick rants from Joyce have been seen as one of the few positives to come out of a dysfunctional opposition.

Sure, occasionally Joyce's commentary has done his own side harm. But what he has come to be best known for is his assault on the government's emissions trading scheme, and on that score he can take much of the credit for raising fears about what it would do to the economy and Australia's agricultural industry.

But the role of the maverick has its limitations and putting one in charge of the opposition's costings for the next election, even one who has worked as an accountant at a bank, is risky.

The opposition finance spokesman traditionally plays a backroom role. Abbott felt he could justify the Joyce appointment on the grounds that he had a background in accounting. Fair enough. But the main reason Abbott put Joyce in the job was because the Opposition Leader saw an opportunity to allow Joyce to speak on policy across the board, hopefully lending his populism to improve the Coalition's standing in the polls. Come the end of January and we will see if that has eventuated. But the promotion already appears to be backfiring.

Joyce's concerns about Chinese investment in Australia and US debt levels are fair points. Many Australians worry about such things. But the difference between raising such concerns as a backbencher and as a frontbencher is that the frontbencher's message needs to be more nuanced than simple scaremongering.

Chinese investment in Australia is no different from British, Japanese or US investment. Australians haven't raised many concerns about investments by our Anglo-Saxon friends through the years, but in the 1970s and 80s Japanese investment caused a stir similar to the one Joyce is trying to cause now over Chinese investment. A few decades on and fear about Japanese investment has subsided. It hasn't done Australia any harm; quite the contrary.

Without Chinese investment Australia's economy would be a pale imitation of what it is now.

If Joyce wants to raise concerns about Chinese investment in any Western nation he should do so in the context of the fact China is not a democracy. : by allowing it to be capitalist without being democratic, we are letting it continue to rise without embracing the freedoms Australians hold dear.

That is the sort of nuanced message the public would expect from a senior shadow minister.

As for Joyce's comments on risks attached to US debt default, they can be dismissed in an instant. As former ANZ bank economist and now academic Saul Eslake points out, debt is carried in US dollars, which means the US will never default as it can simply print more money if need be. That it would devalue the US dollar and cause untold damage to the global economy are good reasons for a politician to raise concerns about US debt levels, but not for fear of default. When concerns about US debt are raised by political leaders, those concerns need to be nuanced, but that is not Joyce's forte.

The words of a maverick can be cast into the public domain and the media can pick what it finds newsworthy. That made Joyce more of a help than a hindrance to his colleagues when he was on the back bench. But unless he curbs his enthusiasm now that his comments can be interpreted as Coalition policy, what he says is going to keep his colleaguesbusier than his opponents.

Given that the government is building up national debt without much to show for it, the Coalition would be better off with Joyce throwing hand grenades from the back bench while seasoned former ministers and rising stars were left to be put forward as the alternative administration.

SINCE Malcolm Turnbull lost the Liberal leadership he and his staff have come out condemning a few hardliners for overruling most of the partyroom on climate change. On his blog, Turnbull has poured bile over his party and the new leader. His former chief of staff Chris Kenny wrote last weekend that a minority of the party in the Senate got its way over the majority of house MPs. This week Turnbull's former media adviser Mark Westfield has predicted a heavy defeat for the Coalition at the next election because of the leadership change.

What Turnbull and his former staff need to understand is that the iLberal Party wasn't riding high in the polls with Turnbull, who had the worst personal ratings in Newspoll's history. Moreover, the claims a few hardliners are running the show belie the fact Turnbull convincingly lost a vote of confidence on his leadership, narrowly lost a leadership showdown and overwhelmingly lost a secret ballot in the partyroom on whether to pass the ETS ahead of Copenhagen. Case closed, other than for the vanquished's spiteful hissing.