Self-interest trumps fiscal reform at Election ‘19

SCOTT MORRISON declared he always believed in miracles. The Labor faithful were befuddled by the result not matching the polling and were vanquished in the ‘unlosable election’.

A sure thing does not seem to exist in politics anymore.

The election campaign of the Coalition was memorable for the loud Morrison inanities about getting a go and Bill Shorten taxing everybody in this world and the next. The default Liberal/national Party policy of tax cuts and rhetoric of trust with managing money were also heralded in press conferences and on supportive front pages across the land.

The Labor campaign appeared measured in contrast, more conversational, and importantly contained measures to close tax loopholes to reduce government largess. The societal benefits of increased health and education spending and tackling climate change also featured.

Opinion polls had Labor as the winner. The Coalition had not won a Newspoll in the last three years!

As election night played out, it soon became obvious there was going to be an upset result. Labor true believers were gutted, and Morrison proclaimed a miracle had occurred.

Come Sunday morning, the side effects of celebration and disappointment were evident. In the light of the next day, what had propelled the Coalition to victory? The reasons are several but combined to gift the Coalition the most unlikely victory.

During the election campaign the mainstream media were negligent with their inability to confront Morrison about his and his government’s runaway. Never was he asked why gross government debt has doubled in the last six years or asked to explain how a projected 2019-2020 budget surplus can be claimed as a surplus today. Or why the federal government borrowed $1.15 billion last month.

Even when he boasted of being an economist, he was never asked why the unemployment rate has been creeping upwards in 2019, and the number of people underemployed (those who have insufficient works hours) had risen from 66,500 to 1,151,200 in the last 12 months.

Stagnate wages, debilitating electricity prices, and the Australian Dollar under US70 cents, are not indicators of good economic management, yet Morrison was given a free pass.

The press corps regurgitated Morrison’s two-word slogans (retiree tax, death tax) until they could not be distinguished as fiction by the gullible public.

The mainstream media showed an absence of balanced coverage, and a wilful partisan support that robbed the public of informed choice. Journalism was conspicuous by its absence.

Clive Palmer supported the Coalition into power with a saturation anti-labor advertising campaign, and 400,000 voters ignored Palmer’s previous business transgressions and supported his current business ambitions with their vote. Palmer spent tens of millions of dollars and achieved nothing electorally, but his long game is expanding his mining interests in Central Queensland, and he will extract his pound of flesh from the new government – because Clive is about Clive, no-one else.

Labor suffered a swing against it in Queensland, attributed to preferences from Palmer’s party and One Nation flowing to the Coalition. Local support for the Adani coal mine in the Galilee Basin also worked in the Coalition’s favour, with the Coalition promising the Adani mine will generate thousands of jobs. This claim can’t be reconciled with Adani’s own claim that the mine will be automated ‘from pit to port’ revealing the Coalition’s electioneering at its worst. Yet Queenslander’s fell for it. Given the length of time needed to build a new coal mine, and financiers and insurers haven’t been falling over themselves to back the Adani project, this will still be an issue come next election.

The over-65-year-old age group swung away from Labor in high numbers. The Coalition attributes this swing to Labor’s policy to eliminate franking credit refunds, and the Morrison’s mantra of Bill wanting to ruin your retirement (conveniently forgetting the Coalition’s push to raise the pension age due to ‘pressure on the budget’.) The timeline for the introduction of franking credits shows Hawke/ Keating to be the instigators of a rebate against tax paid, and Howard/costello the instigators of turning that rebate into a cash refund.

A cynic like me could say the Baby Boomers who first benefitted from the Hawke/keating economic reforms (banking de-regulation, floating the dollar) then benefitted from the Howard/costello cash conversion (that now cost the budget over $6 billion annually) were the most earnest in their attacks on Labor’s proposed changes to franking credits. I could also say that eliminating a costly tax loophole which benefits a small number of people should be right in the wheelhouse of Coalition ideology.

But I’d be wrong, because the voters chose self-interest over big picture reform.

It has been said Labor were too ambitious in their policies for reform. But coming just days after the death of Bob Hawke (one of the greatest reformers in Australian politics), I thought the electorate’s appetite would have been stronger for Labor policies such as increased wages for childcare workers, funding for cancer treatment and a federal ICAC.

To the contrary, the voters stuck with the status quo.

My young adult children were perplexed and upset, worried about penalty rates and underemployment, and asking why cranky retirees who complained about giving up their franking credit bonanza were given so much media time.

And consider Indigenous Australians, who for the first time would have had an Indigenous leader as Aboriginal Affairs Minister, but who now face further delays in realising the promise of the 1967 referendum and more Canberra paternalism.

But the spoils go the victors, and congratulations to them. The pressure will be on delivering to those Australians who have a go (and I still have no idea what that means) and the stakes are high.

With the Reserve Bank likely to cut interest rates next month in an effort to stave off the recession which current economic numbers point to, the now three-timeselected Coalition government needs to own the current state of affairs. No more blaming Labor, no more hubris and theatrics. Time to grow up and govern, not rule.

z Greg Smart lives and works in Dubbo, and is keen observer of current affairs.