Clearly, Peter Dutton isn’t going to turn the Liberals into the “party of the worker” in any meaningful way any time soon. His embrace of the big business line on wages growth (less of it) and industrial relations (reversing Labor’s reforms that have made the playing field slightly less tilted against workers) guarantees that. Dutton might insist he’s now cut loose from big business CEOs — the ones he urges to lobby for industrial relations reforms — but it doesn’t involve actually helping workers. Doing that simply isn’t in the DNA of the Liberals.
But is there a way to embrace workers that is in the DNA of the Liberals?
One is the opportunity Anthony Albanese has opened up with his eager dismissal of break-up powers for supermarkets — something the prime minister deems shameless Stalinism. When the Greens urged such powers and the Nationals expressed interest, Dutton rather stiffly responded that “it is a principle of our party not to look to the Greens for leadership on how to manage the economy.” Within days he — or more accurately his colleagues — realised that was a missed opportunity, and Dutton publicly charged current Nationals leader David Littleproud and shadow treasurer Angus “the invisible man” Taylor with developing “big stick” powers to use against Coles and Woolworths.
Dutton later clarified that the powers would likely be in relation to property acquisition by the two giants, but there’s clearly a constituency among his MPs, and certainly among the Nationals and LNP members, to break the power of the two companies. It’s enough to put the wind up the Financial Review which today warned Dutton against “dabbling with this populist slippery slope” (sic — who writes like that?).
The alarm at the AFR is a signal that Dutton, or at least his colleagues, are on the right track. And far from limiting some form of break-up power to supermarkets in order not to scare business in the wider economy, the Liberals should think hard about going where Labor refuses to go and embracing a general divestiture power — possibly along the lines of the European Union power which is limited to circumstances where large corporations abuse their market power, if not as wide-ranging a power as the US laws.
While it’s Labor that has made the running on competition with its Treasury taskforce, the Liberals are supposed to be the party of competition. But much like Labor, the Liberals have spent most of the past 20 years implementing and then maintaining a form of neoliberal economic management that has allowed large corporations to curb competition. In this regard, gobsmacking as it is to have to say, it is the Nationals who have been economically purer than the Liberals in their advocacy of competition in relation to supermarkets and banking.
A truly liberal party would elevate competition as its primary goal in its economic management and set about reintroducing it across the many Australian industries that are characterised by oligopolies and abuse of market power. While that would go against the Liberals’ history of acting as the puppets of their big business donors, it would provide some substance to being a party of workers, and reduce one of the key causes of diminishing living standards for Australians.
There’s another way in which Dutton can help make the Liberals more like a party of workers. It’s also long-term, like enabling greater competition. Currently the Liberals don’t resemble the Australian workforce in any way, shape or form. Fewer than 25% of Liberal MPs are women; around 48% of the workforce is female. Just five Liberal MPs were born overseas compared to nearly 30% of the Australian population and a much higher proportion of the workforce; only 20% of Liberal MPs have non-English speaking ancestry. Nearly half come from backgrounds in politics as former staffers, rather than the real world of employment (in Labor that figure is even higher). Again, if the Liberals are the party of competition, why isn’t this reflected in a much greater diversity of Liberal MPs?
It’s hard to be a party of people whose life experience is entirely alien to you. Currently, the Liberals claiming to be a party of the worker is more an act of noblesse oblige rather than genuine representation. But looking more like Australians, and less like happy hour at the yacht club, might be more effective at convincing voters.
Do the Liberals have any shot of becoming the party of the worker? And does Labor need to step up in this arena too? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
If they tell the right lies they can fool the average Australian no problem. We only have to look at the Franking credits scare from the 2019 election. The lie then was that Labor was going to take away all our franking credits. No one even knew what franking credits were, or had even heard of them, but many of us crapped our dacks and immediately voted LNP as a result, handing the LNP a miracle win in the process.
Australians don’t know much or think much so if the lie is right you can get them to respond any way you like.
Sad but true,the lack of knowledge of the average Australian is frightening.However they are still way ahead of the Septics.
The “miracle” win was a repeat as near as damn it to 2016. Cherry-picking which single issue/policy ’caused” the result is a bit pointless. But here goes: I’d put the role played by Bill Shorten in the results of 2016 &2019 a bit higher. I know there are people in the Labor Party who blame the 2004 loss on the school funding policy (the minor windback of some toff schools’ funding) and not Mark latham. In 2016 &2019 the electorate was persuadable.
Interesting point
Shorten started off in politics with a lot of fanfare. He was compared with Hawke (he followed a similar path into political life) but something happened after his sterling media performances at Beaconsfield. He suddenly became very self aware, and in doing so, lost his media shine. He was cowed by his political opponents, particularly Turnbull. He sometimes seemed stumped for words, and the infamous zingers popularised by Shaun Micaleff became his bywords. His performance in the 2016 election campaign was ordinary; he seemed to have learned nothing in 2019. He could have been a great politician. I don’t know why he wasn’t.
Because he came across as shifty and disingenuous. He came with a lot of baggage and had been divorced and recently re-married when he took over the leadership. He likes and prefers the company of the big end of town to ordinary workers who might pull him up. He is from the Labor Right – a dreadful machine. He is from the AWU despite never having shorn a sheep or laboured on a roadside. The AWU are a right wing scab union like our friends the SDA. His policies at several elections were not bad overall but a bit puerile and he came across as just that. He can’t think on his feet. Witness the hash he made talking to those high paid miners in QLD in the 2019 election. I could have done a better job. He can’t dance. He’s totally scripted. That’s why he never looked a chance. Albanese should have been Opposition leader in 2013 and Labor would have won in 2016 and we would all have been better off. But the dills in the Labor Party and the union movement knew better and gave us a bit of a sleazebag in Bill.
Agree totally
Yes, that’s a horribly mangled metaphor from the AFR. But really, Crikey, remember that people in glass houses are standing on thin ice.
And remember, that the people in glass houses who are standing on thin ice, are prone to be stampeded into walking away from the problems.
The concept of the Liberals as a party of the workers is ludicrous. I’m much more interested in whether Labor could become a party of the workers – which currently seems no less ludicrous
So who is for the workers? The Greens? Teals? Independents?
The Greens come closest, I think – at least they have socialist policies, which is more or less the same thing. They care about ordinary people, Labor can’t even be bothered pretending to care any more
Socialist policies are distinctly anti worker, anti individual, anti progress. The green do not care about ordinary people. Green policies would ramp up the cost of living by an order of magnitude. They care about their own totalitarian ideology and not much else.
Weird. Just very, very weird.
An interesting perspective, but I’d like to know where you get your opinions from? What evidence are they based on? (Facebook doesn’t count as evidence)
USSR, Vietnam, PNG, Cuba, Czech republic all have socialist Labor policies. Sure, plenty of people have jobs, but not with a liveable wage.
The Greens have never believed in compromise. Remember the fiasco over Rudd’s carbon scheme? How much did that cost the taxpayer. They have come back to the centre in recent times and some actions are commendable, eg the pulp mill thingy in taswegia. My bias is from the short time I was a member of the greens, well I would have been if they processed my application. I paid the money, filled in the form. Then heard nothing.. not to mention the horrendous internal politics.
Anyway, for my mind, the green priority ATM is to devalue coast front property to zero and go with a 100 metre set back as a minimum. That will save billions in insurance and natural disaster clean ups. Not so good for current residents and would be as popular as leprosy. Sounds like a perfect green party policy.
As always, an easy flag to know when someone isn’t worth listening to.
I don’t think so. Look at the practices of the Greens. They spend most of their time in NSW doing 2 things. Protesting Airport noise and trying to prevent the unions from funding the ALP. There is no worker in the NSW Greens and most of the AG too. Max Chandler-Mather is an exception but he is a retail worker. Not exactly from the hard core of full blooded radical unionists. Most retail employees are not members of unions. Only 10% of them are I think. As for socialist policies I agree but with qualifications. Anyone can call themselves a socialist. I do and I look aghast at others who I vehemently disagree with calling themselves that too. Socialism is hard to define as well. I prefer the term social democrat as they are more successful and their countries who have had them are very wealthy. I like that. I don’t think the Greens care about ordinary people. They don’t want to share the wealth like the social democrats of Europe. I see the Greens policy platform and it reads all sweetness and light but if they did care about ordinary people, why are they trying to shut down an airport providing direct and indirect jobs for 27,000 people and not saying where they want to build a new airport. I don’t think they care about ordinary people at all. In Balmain all they care about is their peace and quiet and not having either high end or housing commission apartments close to them. They don’t want the plebs who tutor their little Skye and Marmaduke in their elocution lessons they will need to succeed (read suck up) later in life. They don’t want the gig worker delivering their food to their place, because neither partner could be stuffed cooking dinner, to live close by as well. They certainly don’t want the guy who drives the light rail which takes them from their multi-million dollar home to their multi-million dollar job to live close to them either. Hell they wouldn’t put him up for a minute let alone a night. These are the Greens. Hypocrites all. I’ve seen ’em. I knows ’em.
As an ex-member of the NSW Greens (now in the NT), that’s not my experience. I don’t know any of them, but I can only assume you’re talking about the Sydney Greens, as anything touched by Sydney turns to shit and I doubt the Greens are an exception. The branch I was in (a long way from Shitney) was not like that at all. And the NT Greens are nothing like that either.
Yes but buddy the NT Greens are a breed rarer than the Tasmanian Tiger. Good luck in building your vote but I was sick and tired of silly well off individuals who play with their toys, break them and get the Greens party to buy them more.
Apparently the European green party is quite rational and realistic.
That’s Europe. Not eastern suburbs and inner west Sydney who are full of over-superannuated and well off old comms.
No one is. The NSW Greens spend most of their time fighting NSW based unions – usually over electoral funding. They really can’t be stuffed trying to take union members over to the Greens’ side. They would rather do the unions over through legislation. I rly Cate Faehrrman but a friend of the workers and unions she is not. So no to the Greens and Adam Bandt is not a worker either. None of them are. They have never walked in the shoes of ordinary people trying to get by and who are also doing it tough. The teals are disgruntled Liberals with a bit of a social conscience and a lot of an environmental conscience. Same with the Independents who invariably emanate from one of the major parties.
Well, you’re wrong. I used to work with Sue Higginson and she was a worker – and worked hard too. I don’t know if you’re talking about the Greens as a party or about Greens MPs, but as an ex-member of the NSW Greens (a branch a long way from Shitney), I know that party members do not fit your dismissive stereotype. I am now a member of the NT Greens and they’re not like that here either.
Nostalgia? Fact is working life and industries have changed from the 20thC i.e. low or semi-skilled assembly line work can be done anywhere more economically, while automation and innovation have lowered required headcounts and our working age cohort (although inflated by int’l students via the NOM), is in demographic decline vs. more retirees and above median age voters who may describe themselves as ‘working class’, but now post employment.
See Brexit and Trump targeting ‘working class’ but retired…..
“…low or semi-skilled assembly line work can be done anywhere more economically…”
No it cain’t. That is a neo-Liberal pipe dream. Solar panels agreed but not cars, furniture, tools, washing powder, sandpaper, weapons (have you seen Chinese made automatic knives? They’re rubbish compare to those from the US). And the same goes for extendable batons. These places you reference mentally can certainly make clothes and footwear cheaper but better it ain’t either. What is it with you Crikey readers and contributors? Do you all wear rags and drive bombs while washing your clothes only rarely?
As a “Crikey reader” I feel compelled to respond that I have driven many bombs over the years, but my current car isn’t one. As for clothes, I probably do wash mine less often than most, as I live in the tropics and I never wear clothes at home, so they don’t get dirty so quickly. (And my washing powder is made in NZ) 😀
Brilliant comment. Funny too.
The purpose of the AFR is to prep middle management for short-form small talk with their bosses in the lift or the car park. These are lower order people who talk about “game-changers”, “getting traction”, “our DNA” and “populist slippery slopes”. They can be safely ignored by Crikey, honest.
I imagine the Mekon (“Dutton”) has sufficient cred with our joint rulers Gina and Rupert that he will be allowed to use whatever populist rhetoric he sees fit. If Albo was happy to turn his back on his people, and he was, I’m sure Dutton will be happy to do the same.
That first paragraph is pure gold. Maybe Crikey should hire you.
In a general sense, the LNP have always courted a certain percentage of the ‘workers’ vote but usually via culture war policies like immigration. Certainly in terms of economic policy, they have nothing to offer, with their ideological intransigence not allowing them to practical policies. Pragmatism and a bit of desperation might start forcing Duttons hand.
“In a general sense, the LNP have always courted a certain percentage of the ‘workers’ vote but usually via culture war policies like immigration. “
No they haven’t courted the workers’ vote through culture war policies like immigration. They have courted their vote through racism. Immigration and racism are separate issues believe it or not. Both major parties support high levels of immigration. Sometimes for the same reasons and other times for completely different reasons but every change, and I mean, every change in immigration policy is short lived. There may be other culture war issues of which you speak broadly, and I would say these revolve around, culture itself, education (manual workers like tradies but not exclusively tradies, versus uni students). Year 10 educated versus Degree and even post-grad educated. Suburbanites versus the inner-city, woke elite. The Shire versus the rest of Sydney. Country people versus city people. Those with land versus townies. Developers or those with a development mentality versus the heritage mafia. Primary industry workers versus ‘greenies’. You should use your imagination more than running to the easy but false clarion call of immigration, as though workers are not immigrants themselves, particularly the most poorly paid, and workers are more easily fooled that they will answer to dog-whistle. This is what the Australian Communists thought about the Australian working class from the late 60s till now. The Left no longer eulogises or valorises the Australian working class. They hate the Australian working class because they think they are racist and bourgeois at heart, as they weren’t born into bourgeois homes and aspire to property rights or call their home their own.
Exactly, one struggles with some ALP voting people who tend to be low info, less educated and skip, with much (RW MSM talking point influenced) selective antipathy towards the ‘other’ &/or ‘immigrants’.
Inc. indigenous, refugees, immigrants, population growth, international students etc. blamed for various issues or crises and EVs, renewables, solar, wind, climate/environmental science etc. plus ALP = LNP; doesn’t take much for our nativist and foss fueled RW MSM, commentators and (permanent) negative social media campaigns (e.g. linked to Advance) to influence voters, especially above median age voters.
If polling suggests not enough traction for the LNP, then RW MSM adapts its messaging to assist, while maintaining anti-ALP and anti-centrist noise…..