Australia Loves a Re-Run
The Liberal Party will win the next federal election.
The next election will be fought on the same grounds as the last one: with Labor proposing increased taxes to support the re-building of Australia’s fraying safety net, while the Libs will offer up more of the same enchanting mix of lower taxes, nationalistic jingoism, and fear driven attacks on any progressive policies.
The intersection of two complimentary forces will shape Australia’s economy and it’s politics: forces already at play in other countries so their impact can be predicted. A decrease in equality, with the living standards of the bottom income tiers continuing to decline, and an increasing parochialism driven hard by conservatives and a supportive media. The interplay of these forces will influence the next two elections, with each party staking out familiar territory.
The next two elections will follow the same pattern as the last one: a Liberal victory that could see the Labor party lose it’s ability to ever govern in it’s own right. The election after that, in 7-9 years, is anyone’s guess. The possibility of there being a hung parliament, with a new party led by a populist leader surprising the major parties, is just as likely as it is of being won by Labor.
Australia has shifted from an egalitarian society composed of co-ops, mutual societies, centralised wage fixing and a strong welfare state to a far more stratified society underpinned by a mercantile economy with poorly enforced regulations, impermanent staffing arrangements and a miserly approach to supporting the less well off.
There is now a tendency to blame the less fortunate for their situation, rather than understanding that in some cases it is due to market failure, in others due to mental health issues, and for others simply bad luck. Therefore there is an unwillingness to fund programs that support people in need.
Our society is not so much divided as fractured, which means the cohesion required to accept the taxes required to support a strong safety net doesn’t exist. A marked difference between Labor and Liberal at the last election was the role for government in disability support, aged care, health care and environmental protection, each of which require an increase in the tax take to deliver. The spectre of higher taxes was a powerful weapon wielded by the Liberal party to undermine support for Labor.
The fear of big government is so pervasive, in-spite of people embracing big technology, that any attempt to re-shape the debate to include a role for government in addressing social issues will continue to be howled down, blowing away any chance of Labor taking to an election the policies that are in keeping with it’s beliefs.
The previous cultural mind-set that supported a larger role for government has dissipated. There has been a large reduction in the level of union membership and discussion on the impact of this reduction on the Labor party typically focuses on the reduction in funds that flow from the unions to the political party. What is less frequently discussed but is equally or even more important, is that people who are members of a union have explicitly accepted that collective action is a reasonable approach for resolving issues
The current increase in parochialism experienced across many countries will benefit the Libs because at the macro level they are winning the culture wars. They are redefining what it means to be Australian: less collectivist, more individualist. Interestingly, at the individual level they are losing some cultural battles, evidenced by the support for gay marriage, for example. But at the national level the image of who we are as a people is shaped more strongly by the Liberal party and it drives the view of which policies will be considered acceptable: low taxes for higher income earners, a continually balanced budget and low wages. So every reference back to nationalism is a view of the nation that suits the Libs.
Our brand won’t change, we’ll still be known to others as Australia, but what the brand stands for will continue to shift away from the workers paradise extolled by Donald Horne in his book Lucky Country, which was savagely critical of the management class that now finds itself embedded within the Liberal Party.
Where does this leave the Labor party?
Trapped.
Not stuck in the past, as some might suggest, being as it is the party most comfortable with progressive policies, but trapped. Trapped between the lie that is the allure of the gig economy, the riches promised by individualism, the spectre of higher taxes and a shifting view of who we are as a nation.
