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.
