Notice how no-one’s talking about the stage three tax cuts anymore? Even before the Dunkley by-election loss by the Liberals, the press gallery had unsubtly shifted from predicting Labor’s change would be damaging to Anthony Albanese, to pointing out how it hadn’t benefited him in polling. But Dunkley seemed to end up being a referendum on Labor’s tax changes and, unlike the real referendum last year, Labor won it easily. The Liberals had everything possible going for them in that by-election, and could barely manage an average swing.
The failure to effectively prosecute the case against Labor over the tax cuts had a number of authors. The opposition leadership group was clearly wrongfooted by Labor’s decision — despite the Coalition’s incessant warnings Labor couldn’t be trusted. Sussan Ley’s early commitment to reverse the changes moved the spotlight onto the opposition rather than the government. And Peter Dutton was missing from the early, formative stages of the debate. Indeed, it’s a bit of a recurring theme that Peter Dutton disappears when his team needs him on deck.
Which as it turns out is quite a lot. The dearth of talent in the current Coalition line-up is alarming, and a testament to both the toxic effect of Scott Morrison and the damage he caused to the NSW Liberal Party. Tony Abbott went into the 2010 election with a frontbench containing the likes of Julie Bishop, Joe Hockey, Andrew Robb, Tony Smith, Dutton himself and, later, Malcolm Turnbull. In comparison, Dutton’s cupboard looks painfully bare. And barest of all is the shadow Treasury spot.
The first term of the Albanese government has been one simply made for an aggressive shadow treasurer: high inflation, rising interest rates, changes to legislated tax cuts. But Angus Taylor has failed to achieve any cut-through at all; that the debate over the stage three tax cuts is now done and dusted in Labor’s favour less than two months after they were announced amid a storm of controversy, is in itself sufficient indictment of Taylor’s performance. What should have been a crown of thorns worn every day to the election by Labor has instead become the basis for a recovery from mid-term blues for a government that has the tiniest of majorities — with the Coalition meekly waving the changes through amid vague promises it would develop another tax policy later.
Dutton has focused on tribalism and xenophobia as his main tactics — blaming immigrants and Labor’s “big Australia” secret agenda for housing problems and inflation, warning of foreign criminals recklessly released by Labor — but in the end, most voters vote on the economy, jobs and health. Having an effective shadow treasurer who can at least assure voters they’re a safe pair of hands — let alone effectively exploit opportunities presented by the party in office — is the kind of building block you need before you can win office with a scare campaign.
But Angus Taylor seems to be a graduate of the Marise Payne School of Public Relations. Search parties have to be dispatched to learn which undisclosed locations are harbouring him. And when he does emerge from hiding, he offers such insights as “you’ve got to get the economy working. And only Liberals understand that. That’s about mobilising workplaces, mobilising businesses, getting people out there aspiring,” then noting that he can’t yet say how the Coalition will actually do that.
The only real problem with replacing Angus Taylor is finding someone from within the Liberal ranks who won’t be even worse. The dearth of talent in Liberal lower house ranks keeps him in place. There were multiple contenders for shadow treasurer when Julie Bishop’s fortunately brief time in the role came to an end in 2009. Who would fill Angus Taylor’s size eight RM Williams? Only Dan Tehan comes to mind — the Victorian Liberal (now there’s an unusual moniker) has led the opposition’s conspiracy theory charge about Labor’s “big Australia” agenda and at the very least could combine the treasury portfolio with some insight into migration, which has been central to the way successive governments have propped up economic growth.
More to the point, Tehan actually looks like he’s up for a blue with his opponents, unlike the McLeod’s Daughters villain of the week, whose main contribution to public life while senior minister in the Morrison government was yelling at clouds about the closure of coal-fired power stations and the dodgy doctored document about Clover Moore.
Taylor, of course, fancies himself as next in line when Dutton, if he conforms to the pattern of every opposition leader since Federation, fails to become PM after a government’s first term. At least he has a selling point to the Liberals on that score: Taylor as leader would be a double win, since he’d no longer be treasurer.
