Will Labor find its vision?

Crikey readers are a sympathetic lot when it comes to the trials of Labor, but they can’t ignore that the party needs to make some significant changes if it wants to move on. Will it find the vision it needs? Elsewhere, readers discussed the new normals of a drought-ridden country and stagnant economy.

On Labor’s vision

Rosemary Jacob writes: Without a clear and exciting vision and a way to show how to embrace — not fear — change, Labor is going nowhere.

Hugh McColl writes: The central Queensland coalfield workforce has another albatross hanging over it: fly in flyout. FIFO is shithouse for working families but no one will talk about it. It’s a valid point you make, Guy, about the Labor leadership having little connection to the “blue collar” workers who apparently vote for them, or used to before Pauline and Clive and Katter gave them something else to look at. If Labor isn’t very, very careful it will lose touch with its greenish base. Although I suppose there is an element of FIFO in the parliamentary workforce — politicians have some idea but they won’t be going there.

On drought

Jim Sykes writes: To my mind drought implies a temporary situation where there is little rain but in time the normal levels of rain will return. A drought can last months, seasons or years and depending on where you are have similar effects. What if our current drought is not a temporary thing and the relative low levels of rain fall are the new normal? What if the occasional good fall every year or so is the new normal? But climate change doesn’t really exist.

On stagnation

Joe Boswell writes: You quote Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe saying “we will require an extended period of low interest rates to reach full employment and for inflation to be consistent with the target”. That tells us interest rates are going to be kept below inflation for as long as it takes. In consequence all savings such as term deposits will erode and be made worthless while we wait for years or decades to see if the economy might eventually show some signs of life. The government is not only suppressing wages, it is slowly and remorselessly seizing the wealth of ordinary Australians, and at the same time wondering why we aren’t brimming with economic confidence.

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