January used to be a laid-back, lazy month in Australia, when people turned off the news and tried to avoid anything to do with politics. For the third successive year most of us have been denied that summer idyll, as first the 2019 bushfires and then successive waves of the pandemic have demanded our constant attention.
Illustration: Joe Benke Credit:The Age
There will be no escape from politics this summer, not only because of the constant updates to public health orders and seemingly ever-changing social restrictions. A federal election is no more than 16 weeks away. In reality, the campaign for the 2022 poll has been under way for some weeks, and is already shaping up to be one of the most fascinating in many years.
On the far right, the United Australia Party wants the election to be about “freedom”, based on a kind of magical thinking that the mutating virus could be stared down by a strong-man leader in the mould of Donald Trump. On the left, the Greens are again hoping for a referendum on climate change, but the issue is no longer theirs to control, with the rise of moderate independents putting it at the heart of their campaigns to unseat high-profile government MPs.
The teal independents represent a boiling-over of frustration among politically engaged voters, many of them former moderate Liberals, at the government’s recalcitrance on what most regard as fundamental truths: that climate change is real, that government must not be corrupt, that women must have equal rights.
When it comes to the major parties, Labor wants a fight focused on the perceived failures of Scott Morrison’s leadership over the rolling crises of the past three years, while the Prime Minister’s plan to go to the polls after a relaxed summer in which the economy roared back to life has been laid waste by the explosion of Omicron.
Unlike 2019, in which Bill Shorten’s Labor attempted to sell a reformist agenda to a nation not yet convinced of the need for change, neither side is offering anything too bold: Albanese’s platform is as small-target as he can get away with without alienating Labor’s true believers, while Morrison apparently wants government to get out of the way entirely in favour of “can-do capitalism”. These competing offerings, of course, are framed against the spectre of government debt at its highest levels since World War II, meaning that spending restraint is a key consideration for both sides.
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Yet this is likely to be the most consequential election in decades. We are now under extreme pressure to act urgently to reverse global heating, requiring the kind of large-scale industrial and economic reform not seen since the 1940s. At the same time, the pandemic has exposed huge cracks in the foundations of our social and economic infrastructure, resulting from years of failure to adapt to changing demographics or to invest appropriately in the essential services that keep us safe and well.
The truth is, our current economic system is simply not up to the task of reaching net zero emissions, supporting working people to make the transition to new jobs and industries, and providing the comprehensive health and social infrastructure needed to enable everyone to live safely and well. In a post-carbon economy that is likely to be hit with ongoing public health crises due to emerging viruses and widespread climate-change-induced ecological disasters, these are massive challenges.
Debt and tax: the unmentionables for both major parties vying for election
Source: Philippines Alive
