The contrast this week couldn’t be starker between a backwards-facing Coalition apparently neither willing nor able to learn the lessons of why it is facing oblivion in mainland Australia and a federal Labor government aggressively implementing its agenda.
For the government, it passed legislation establishing the National Anti-Corruption Commission, introduced a bill to strengthen whistleblower protections, passed legislation removing the shameful curtailment of the rights of Australians living in territories to pass their own laws, and secured a deal to pass its industrial relations reforms.
For the Coalition, it backed Scott Morrison, who again misled Parliament over his multiple ministries, watched the Victorian opposition go down in flames for another four years, split over opposition to an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, again refused to countenance serious action to address the absence of women in its ranks, and saw serious revelations about the role of Stuart Robert in corporate lobbying.
The throughline of all this is Morrison: the Coalition remains wedded to the Morrison-era model of hostility to integrity and accountability, a tolerance of, even enthusiasm for mendacity, an embrace of extremism and the prosecution of culture wars rather than genuine engagement on policy.
John Howard was once rather harshly dismissed by Mungo MacCallum as the “unflushable turd” of Australian politics. But it is now Morrison who has that status of the unwelcome presence in the political swimming pool, a lingering reminder of a sordid era of Australian politics — and one characterised by inability and unwillingness to actually govern, to use the levers of power in a positive and effective way.
Labor has no such qualms. It believes in governing. Power is to be used, and a progressive/centrist majority in the Senate exploited for that purpose.
The re-establishment of multi-employer bargaining — the first pro-worker shift in industrial relations since the abolition of WorkChoices — has been done rapidly and deftly, while the business lobby, the Coalition and the deep well of loathing of workers that is The Australian Financial Review impotently screams.
It only remains for Labor to unveil its response to price gouging by energy producers, possibly via a windfall profits tax or via a price cap, or both. There’ll be the same screaming; the fossil fuel lobby is already warning such measures will curb investment in new gas projects which, funnily enough, is exactly what the government should be doing via regulation, but refuses to. The reality is, even a big windfall profits tax wouldn’t deter a dollar of investment, which is why dozens of governments around the world already have them or are introducing them.
The wheel will turn. Anthony Albanese might be seeing them like a beachball, and politics looks easy, but a harder 2023 awaits, and voters will be less forgiving. What remains in his favour is that the Coalition is entirely divorced from the reality of what most of the electorate wants on climate action, gender and workplace issues, integrity and Indigenous recognition. And its former leader remains in Parliament, reminding everyone of how things used to be, the sub-basement level standards that used to apply, the grim truth of the most corrupt government in federal history.
The first priority of the summer break for the Coalition should be planning for an early 2023 byelection in the seat of Cook. Then everyone can get on with their political lives.
In replying to Dutton’s censure motion yesterday Albanese listed a very long list of achievements while excoriating Dutton and his ‘no-policy’ rabble who have nothing and who have learned nothing. Particularly satisfying was Albanese’s reference to a former Treasurer who had “dared” the motor vehicle industry to abandon Australia – that industry did. Imagine the support that it could have given during COVID and Defence manufacturing etc.- not to mention the loss of all of those skills. Not so long ago Australia was one of only ten countries that could take a piece of paper and turn it in to a motor vehicle – surprisingly (joking!!) all those countries subsidise these industries. Abbott will be remembered as the most destructive Prime Minister we have ever had and Hockey will be remembered as – well he won’t be
Hockey is a sport isn’t it?
No, he CERTAINLY isn’t!
I don’t see folks reminding each other how those scumbags killed the car industry, nearly enough.
No doubt yet another example of their vaunted ‘economic management credentials’
Good example would be the batch of cheery young faces analysing politics on ABC TV (is it just me or do they all look like private school Young Lib types?) who did not mention when Libs were whining about “nasty retribution” over the Morrison censure the Abbott-era royal commishes into Rudd and Gillard. Gold standard nastiness.
Ninety thousand workers thrown on the scrap heap by a bloated wanker propped up financially by his merchant banker wife.
There is no good reason why the industry can’t do a phoenix ,retro fitting elecric motors, developing batteries and purpose built cars etc for our conditions, that are easy to repair and long lasting.
It’s amazing that manufacturing was not subsidised because of ideology and a convenient way to bust unions (if it was not wholly motivated by this. And the price Australia paid was it lost jobs and skills in the process that could have been applied to this and so many other industries. Yet,the fossil fuel industry continues to be subsidised by the billions without being taxed on their windfall profits. This is both hypocritical and outrageous. The Liberals have no credibility for ordinary folk while they continue to support the richest and most climate destructive industries on the planet. They back the rich at the expense of everyone else, every single time. I cannot understand why so many ordinary wage and salary earners who do not benefit from Liberal economic policy continue to vote for them.
Perhaps remembered as a heavyweight leaner!
Usually it is the Coalition which wedges the hapless Labor but this time they are well and truly snookered by their own actions. By defending the indefensible it ensures that come the next election Scott Morrison’s Prime Ministership, and those who defended him on the record, will still be on the agenda.
Now that gas profits are high, it is time to install a carbon tax on all gas extracted. With the public angry and all beneficiaries bloated, they would be unable to resist a comprehensive tax. With the tax overwhelming every potential exemption, we would be spared time-consuming delays with Parliament bickering over concessions to dear little old ladies and the tax dodgers hiding behind them.
Similarly, it is a good moment to announce a death watch on the extraction of gas. More than reaffirming a target of zero gas by 2050, providing a death watch would announce a calendar of milestones between now and its extinction.
That assumes Labor is willing to leave corruption behind, but they don’t actually walk the talk we’re all so impressed with.
A welcome break in the hagiography.
I’ve also wondered by making fossil fuel companies liable for the suits re: damage from climate change as it was their product that caused it.
‘about making’ not by making
Is there a way to edit our posts?
One way to prosecute an emitter would open if the Commonwealth declared CO2 a pollutant. Then it would be easy to show a court that they had polluted. That wouldn’t open a deep pocket for victims of the pollution. However it would put the writing on the wall for all emitters that they must find alternative means of generating power.
It would be incentive for change as it seems with more things the bottom line motivates decision making!
After the Morrison era, and 9 years of the COALition, the revelation of the second paragraph is that the current Government can actually do more than one thing at a time. I seem to recall Morrison explaining that he wasn’t proceeding with integrity legislation because he was intent on passing religious freedom legislation. In the end, he achieved neither.
I know people who still do not understand that Morrison’s religious freedom legislation was not to protect religious freedom but to protect those that wanted to attack other people they disagree with while hiding behind religion..
The vile mendacity and vicious insistence on picking undeserving winners and losers of those coalition filth just doesn’t occur to many folks as a possibility.
Well put.
I’ve never been able to understand the “religious freedom” bs. There is religious freedom in this country. Nobody is denied the right to follow their religion of choice
There’s two things at play here:
Luckily for us, neither of those delusions are appealing to the electorate.
Very lucky. I sigh relief every time the public votes for sanity instead of Trumpism.
There’s a lesson for voters in point two. A government full of people unwilling to govern have a lot of time to get up to mischief.