The No victory has put the wind in the sails of Peter Dutton and got commentators talking about the possibility of him winning government in 2025 without needing teal seats. And Dutton’s willingness to embrace division, grievance and victimhood and make politics about who you are against and how strongly you can be against them, may well prove a more effective political tactic than it did in 2022 when economic conditions were more benign. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, the United States is serving up a giant asterisk to all that in the form of the dysfunctionality of the congressional Republicans, who are so bitterly divided as to be unable to agree on a House speaker, after MAGA Republicans booted the last one — who was one of their own — out of the job.
The details are less important than the outcome, which has been the shutdown of one-half of the legislative branch of the US government. The fact that it was sparked by the willingness of the last speaker to do a deal with the Biden administration to keep the government from shutting down entirely illustrates that what is at stake here are two differing views of government.
One, a traditional conception of government as something that is necessary, and the utility of which can be maximised; the other, that the institutions of government are so debauched and corrupted by sinister elites that their being shut down is not collateral damage in a political battle with ideological opponents, but the point of the exercise.
The latter, nihilistic view of government emerges from the continuing impacts of neoliberalism — when governments operate in the interests of powerful corporate elites, trust in government, in their institutions, falls, and resentment of them rises. The conception of government as a vehicle for the public interest, not special interests, weakens. Moreover, the predominant ethos of neoliberalism is of government as the problem, always to be solved by disempowering it in the name of freedom.
Thus even the corporate elites, in whose interests government operates, insist publicly that government is the problem. That the alienated, the disgruntled, those who are struggling economically, take this to the extreme of conspiracies about global elites secretly controlling everything is inevitable.
But if you reject the idea of the possibility of good government, either because you’ve come to see all governments as a conspiracy, or you’ve drunk the corporate Kool-Aid about government always being the problem, the past decade has shown that it means you can’t govern. The Trump administration, and its continuing echoes in the GOP. The Johnson-Truss-Sunak rolling Tory disaster in the UK. The corrupt, incompetent Morrison government here, which operated essentially as a protection racket for Coalition donors and stumbled from stuff-up to stuff-up. And let’s not forget the disaster of the Abbott years.
Dutton’s own incompetence as a senior minister is the stuff of record now, especially his loss of control of our borders and his undermining of national security through the maladministration of the Home Affairs portfolio, the most bungling, error-prone department in the Commonwealth. As with Morrison and Abbott, Dutton was comfortable prosecuting culture wars and aggressively denouncing enemies, but the difficult stuff of governing well proved beyond him. Home Affairs was for looking after au pairs of former colleagues, not hard policy yakka.
What would be different now? As Abbott and Morrison have shown — indeed, most of our recent PMs have — you don’t get upgraded in your managerial and leadership abilities when you achieve high office. To suggest otherwise is to suggest MAGA Republicans will suddenly develop policy acumen and legislative brilliance, or that the Tories will fix the economic decline they have engineered in Britain.
This doesn’t make life easier for Anthony Albanese, however. Successful oppositions don’t have to be positive, as Abbott showed. Albanese has Clare O’Neil in Home Affairs and she has clearly rattled Dutton by unmasking his incompetence. But the prime minister’s longer-term goal is to convince people that government can work in the public interest, that competent government is not merely possible but should be expected.
While the Voice referendum was the fulfilment of an election promise and thus part of that agenda of reliable, trustworthy government, it’s also given the nihilists the opportunity to attack the very idea of competent government as a chimera. At the core of the No campaign — perhaps its most successful message — was that the nuance and detail and evidence that lies behind more effective Indigenous policies were not wrong, or flawed, but irrelevant; that the very idea of governing better was just another progressive delusion, just another elite myth to be dismissed as a joke.
As recent history tells us, that becomes a grim, self-reinforcing reality.
Keane’s argument is exactly right as far as it goes. The Coalition here, the Tories in the UK, and the US Republicans, all gleefully govern very badly, with fraud, waste and incompetence behind a facade of puerile stunts and lies, because that reinforces their key dogma about government being bad. However, it would have been useful to add something about way the alternative governing parties – Labor, Labour and Democrats – have all chosen not to even attempt to be substantially different, but instead try to provide the same while dialling down the incompetence. Here, Labor is proud of its support for much of the Coalition’s program and is continuing it now Labor is in office. In the UK, Starmer is steadily moving right, refusing even to hint that Brexit might have been a poor decision, and he is methodically getting rid of any policies or reforms that might provide a point of difference between his party and the Tories. In the US, the Democrats have a more difficult problem because they don’t control the House (as Keane mentions, neither do the Republicans, despite having a majority there!) so what exactly they can do is not so obvious, but the Obama years provide no encouragement.
Scared and scarred witless of KRM?
I’m not convinced by that explanation, which would imply the leaders have some regret or resentment about being ‘forced’ rightwards into doing things they do not really support. It seems to me that both Starmer and Albanese are comfortable going centre-right and abandoning progressive policies or reforms. They want to win elections (of course) and they see moving right as good politics. They are modern professional politicians to the core; they do not have core beliefs or principles, they always adapt to the current circumstances and do whatever they see as necessary. You could say they are Marxists, tendency Groucho: ‘Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them…well I have others.’
The argument is always that going ‘small target’ is justified by the necessity of winning power. But if these parties really do have any commitment to being progressive, they must take those policies to an election so there is some chance they win and can implement the policies. By going to an election without those policies they have already lost. The defeat of progressive policies is certain no matter what the result of the election.
As in ‘I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General’. That works, but I still believe KRM has them biting their fingernails in the night. All two or three or four could be correct concurrently, they are politicians.
The narrow victory of Labor at the last election, and the many intervening victories of the conservatives since Howard (indeed, arguably the latter round of the Keating government) suggest that a significant chunk of the Australian population are right there behind the small-government-good/neoliberal position. It’s the only thing they’ve known for a generation, it’s taught in schools, its echoed in all of the media.
To go progressive over the long term is going to involve bringing the Australian population with them, and they can’t change course any faster than they can turn that ship. As you say: progressivism is already lost. The only way to gain, IMO, is slowly, by demonstrating competence and the benefits of that. It’s a sad and sorry state, but it really is true that when you change the government you change the country: there’s no going back.
Come mid-November, when the US government stops again, and can’t pick itself back up, perhaps we’ll get an object lesson. Hope we survive it…
Unfortunately, pretending that you’re doing something substantial and much needed while not doing very much at all and continue to uphold the status quo is not exactly “demonstrating competence”. It’s more like demonstrating how risk averse you are, how scared for your own fortunes, your career, your future. It’s all a game. It’s about winning elections, getting into office, staying in power. And what’s that good for if what needs doing isn’t done? What’s the point? Ah, right – generously remunerate post-politics careers are await. Or at the very least sweet retirement arrangements mere mortals can only dream of.
Well said. And in addition, the experience of winning power with no progressive agenda ‘just to build public confidence’ provides a powerful incentive to keep repeating the winning formula of never attempting anything (until it fails). Why take any risks by getting ambitious? Tony Blair’s New Labour provides a good example. Despite winning a huge landslide majority in 1997, and having immense public goodwill and backing to reverse the horrors of Thatcher’s era, he immediately back-pedalled on even the few decent policies he brought to the election, and after that never attempted any serious reforms, despite winning two more elections. (He does however deserve credit for following through on the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland, a genuine achievement by all parties involved.) But he’s had a very well-remunerated post-politics career since then.
The narrow victory of Labor at the last election, and the many intervening victories of the conservatives since Howard (indeed, arguably the latter round of the Keating government) suggest that a significant chunk of the Australian population are right there behind the small-government-good/neoliberal position.
But if you ask them outside of a “which team do you vote for” context, they absolutely don’t want any more of it.
The steadily declining primary vote of the two majors also suggests their largely bipartisan economic policies are increasingly less popular – but when probably 1/2 – 2/3 of the voting public simply vote blindly for their team (or against the other one), it will take a while for the non-partisans to be able to wield influence.
Hopefully the next election will turn up a minority Labor Gov with Greens in BoP. That will at least present a chance to get some more progressive policies into play.
Labor’s wa not a narrow win. They achieved a majority in their own right, 77 to 58 against their main opponents, the coalition. While the new phenomenon of the Teals and Independents knocked some paint off both sides, mainly the cons, the result, while not large, was never close, because none of the Teals and very few of the Independents would have backed the cons or obstructed Labor.
Because of Greens’ neither intransigence, Labor nor the coalition would ever be in coalition with the Greens, but Labor may in the future have to accomodate them in some policies in return for guarantee of supply.
The cons ? Not in a pink fit.
Over the long term it has run concurrently with ageing electoral demographics catering to the above median age voters, running down our media that has become more a PR delivery system for messaging, shouting at centre/left, dog whistling and intimidating LNP types ‘not following orders’; we’ve become a very low information society i.e. not well informed by our ‘medium’, nor thinking too much of younger generations.
They did take good policies to the electorate under Bill Shorten in 2019. And they lost, badly, an unloseable election.
What is really needed is a complete stop to the dumbing-down that is one of the modus operandi of all reactionary governments, and putting far more into the education systems,
No. They no longer victims, they are accomplices.
The traditional “left” side of the various two-party systems have been completely ideologically captured to Centrism (right-wing neoliberal economics combine with some left(ish)-wing social liberalism).
“Centrism”?
The ‘left’ is so far to the right of the centre – they can barely see it any more from where they stand nowadays.
The capital C is there because that’s what it’s often (self-)labelled as, not because that’s where it is.
Also known as “Third Way” politics.
Tend to agree, many of the old ‘left’ in Australia, no longer working, but now too many share talking points with the ‘hard right’ on sociocultural issues; while above median age dominates.
That dolts like Marles is a very senior figure is an embarrassment. Shoppies union Farrell has replaced warlord De Bruyn and has just appointed another unqualified Shoppie as a trade commissioner. Did Albo not learn from the Pork Barrillarro debacle. Cronyism and factional deals writ large.
More who he is joined at the hip with transnationally in UK, US, Oz and indirectly in Central Europe to promote policy talking points; being compromised by Atlas or Koch Network think tanks, lobbyists and proverbial molotovs.
What we obviously need more than anything, is a substantial fraction of the populace to wake up to the ongoing neoliberal sell-out by the alleged left, and to recognise the MSM/LNP/ALP cartel for the cynical pantomime it is.
Our only hope is a Greens & Indies insurgency to break up the duopoly, but I’m not holding my breath for the trend of the electorate disappointing me beyond measure for my whole life turning around anytime soon.
Clinging to the status quo in a fog of insular denial, heeding only the propaganda of the greatest villains, is what we do around here.
This dreadful danger has, naturally, been recognised by the major parties, and they are united in fear and loathing against the menacing insurgents you describe as ‘hope’. The duopolists see a choice between either becoming better political parties that attract more support, or else barring the gates of parliament against the intruders so they can carry on undisturbed. Tricky decision, eh? Last week The Saturday Paper reported the great progress being made by Labor and the Coalition parties on developing bipartisan electoral reforms that will cripple any substantial funding for any future campaigns for minor party and independent candidates. This will also make it much more difficult for Clive Palmer to bung many millions of dollars into spoiling campaigns during each election, so not entirely bad, but the final result will cement the duopoly parties into power for the foreseeable by keeping nearly all the riff-raff out of parliament. Phew!
A choice between the lesser of two evils is still an evil!
Agree Kimmo, but with a concern. Would the Teals really have their hearts in it when it comes to the crunch?
The Teals are a nothingburger; an oxymor0n: pro capitalism AND pro environment? Pfffff…
The only thing they’re good for is diminishing the LNP.
Too harsh. The Teals are also genuinely good on opposing corruption and they want nothing to do with the overt theatre-of-cruelty that the Coalition loves so much. On these matters, as well as the environment, they are either equal or better than Labor.
Which at this stage, and in 2025 is pretty darn good!
It’s not just about “dogma” but a very clear strategy of encouraging us all to fiddle whilst the world literally burns.
Correct point on the social democrat parties…as Maggie Thatcher indicated when asked ‘What was your greatest legacy?’ and her reply?……”Tony Blair and New Labour”….ouch
It’s intentional across US, UK & Oz right, not just ‘The Wrecking Crew’ but if the hard right cannot pass policies they want or avoid policies they don’t want, then jam up the works; McCain on the Senate ‘Freedom Caucus’* (Koch linked) blocking up the works, described them as ‘lemmings in suicide vests, they don’t care, they simply don’t care’. *local equivalent ‘Wolverines’ and in UK Tories Brexit ‘ERG European Research Group’.
But worse, many of the top players wish to make it permanent to preclude anything centrist by design, this has been signalled by The Daily Signal, media outlet of Koch’s Heritage Foundation explains ‘Project 2025’ to knock out institutional threats that Trump has encountered:
‘Here’s How You Can Help a Future Conservative President Take Down the Deep State. Pillar 1: Mandate for Leadership, Pillar 2: People Are Policy (only recruit conservative personnel), Pillar 3: Training & Pillar 4: Executive Orders’
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/20/4-pillars-project-2025-conservative-plan-undermine-liberal-behemoth-washington/
The current breed of populists which includes the Coalition are specifically seeking to undermine “good government” to protect vested interests.
Once neo-liberalism had dismantled government and shifted wealth and power to the private sector there was no longer any more role for “good government”.
And indeed specific industries like fossil fuels relied on the absence of government policies (but not funding or policing) to continue causing social harms.
We’re now in the age of oligarchism where the governments primary purpose so to protect vested interests as they compound their social harms.
And the role of populists is primarily to keep communities in a constant state of division lest anyone notices they’re living in an oligarchy.
All very true BK but you’re constantly writing diagnoses when what’s needed are solutions and treatments. Diagnostications & rehashing the old Lib/Lab, LvR are boring. Write something that points to a better future – getting rid of the 2party has to be a start. More Teals/Independents. You yourself wrote about the Albanese/Wong/Marles/L Murodch meeting in Aug last year. Labor takes it orders from News Corp. Flip flopping Lib/Lab Lab/Lib is just Ground Hog Day all over again & again & again & again. Cheers
Why the assumption that no 2 party rule will lead to something more optimal; like obsessions in the UK for PR elections?
What if the normies of the centre right through left had their niche parties but then found the hard right never went away, but resorted to seemingly independent or different parties i.e. ‘fronts’ who would actually vote the same way?
Libertarian trap….. that could simply lead to chaos for centre parties, and hard right still ruling, even by proxy if out of power.
The only solution at this point is for huge numbers of us to secede from capitalism, which is all but impossible.
But if it was possible, I think it would have to begin as a Sims-like MMORPG implementing something like LETS (Local Exchange Trading System), expanded to include all the aspects of society.
It could perhaps be sold by drawing people’s attention to the vast list of horrors which occur because there’s a buck in it, and the vast list of essential things left undone because there isn’t.
It would also need to exist in a bubble of capital, to pay the participant’s rent etc
Government as the problem is very selectively applied. It certainly does not apply to policing the people they dislike. Best quote about these libertarian approaches to government is that from Kim Stanley Robinson …”libertarians – anarchists who want the police to protect them from their slaves”.
Libertarians are like house cats. Completely convinced of their own ferocious independence, yet utterly reliant on a system they barely acknowledge and do not understand.
The issue is that modern government is both too big and too small.
As governments stopped providing essential services and utilities they started to encroach more in our lives.
This has left most people dissatisfied – people who think they’re ‘right wing’ think government is too big and they’re probably right, and people think they’re ‘left wing’ think it’s too small, and they too are probably right.
If you asked most people they’d probably support publicly funded and owned health, education, and infrastructure, and want governments to be less involved in their lives.
Another thing that gets conflated is the regulation of corporations and individuals. It is more important to regulate corporations because they can do far more damage than individuals. One smoker is far less harmful than the tobacco industry, one driver less harmful than the fossil fuel industry, small family farms far less harmful than corporates.
So it’s less about ‘libertarianism’ v (whatever the opposite of that is) – and more about what precisely government is doing, and more importantly, for whom….
The sheer hopelessness of Dutton and his predecessor are Albo’s main attributes.
From this distance he just looks another neoliberal sellout.
Big Australia on steroids, endless drivel about the supply side housing crisis, defanged corruption commission, idiotic nuclear subs that will be obsolete on arrival etc etc.
Sure, governance in the US may be utterly shambolic but things here ain’t great.
Yes, the memory of the last 10 years and Dutton as the ‘leader’ of the ‘opposition’ are his main assets.
He looks another neoliberal sellout because he is. I guess it’s the ‘pragmatic approach’, the ‘small target strategy’. To hell with principles.
Last one turn out the lights plz