Since the founding of MB, the Australian political economy has reverted to form. When we first started the site in 2010 there were lingering political economy normatives about the role and function of public policy. Since then, it has reverted fully to Rum Corps values or lack thereof.
This makes the question of policy process an interesting one. In what we might call a healthy polity, any government or opposition will argue the case for reform over an extended period of public debate. Having secured public support, it can then move forward down its chosen path and not fear the squealing of vested interests.
However, these days, that does not work. Ever since the collapse of Kevin07 in the RSPT debate of 2010, vested interests have understood that mastery of the media narrative can topple not just policy propositions but entire governments.
That mastery is some whack combination of internet fragmentation, political populism, and corporate sophistication. These days it is the defining political process of the nation.
This is where the question of honesty in politics becomes rather murky.
If a clear-thinking political reformer with the national interest at heart wants to undertake change then s/he faces a difficult choice. The old-school transparent approach of winning consensus no longer works. Indeed, any attempt at it is borderline fatal, as the minority of reform losers overruns a gormless media narrative.
Conversely, if the reformer lies, or at minimum, omits, his intentions, then s/he can deliver the national interest change at, bizarrely, lower political cost than telling the truth. The vested interests are left eating dust in the wake of the change and the media moves on.
In short, it is logical and rational for the reformer to lie. The end justifies the means so on, and so forth.
However, this only stretches so far. If the same tactics are used by the unscrupulous populist. Say, in the case of Donald Trump, then s/he can threaten to bring down the entire system.
This is the values paradox that now lies at the heart of government of every liberal democracy. I don’t know what the answer is, nor where it might lead. It just is, and will probably culminate in all manner of messes in different states.
Anyways, for the purposes of Australia, it is a lesson that the Albanese Government has learned quickly.
We first saw it with the arrival of the new ADGSM, which came unannounced and with only a short time for consultation. That has worked well. It is clear national interest policy and the pushback from the gas cartel has been minor in political capital terms.
Now, the same approach has appeared in super reform:
Anthony Albanese has set up a class war fight with Peter Dutton over superannuation after breaking an election promise and doubling tax rates for 80,000 Australians with nest eggs above $3m.
The $2bn-a-year tax hit was rushed through cabinet on Tuesday despite the Prime Minister and Jim Chalmers ruling out increases to super taxes and caps during last year’s election campaign.
The superannuation crackdown was announced 30 minutes after the Treasurer used new Treasury figures to warn that the 10 largest annual concessions, credits and deductions for super, family trusts, housing, franking credits and GST had blown out to more than $150bn.
This is a good, if very limited, policy change. It is progressive and begins the process of removing Australia’s world-beating distortionary tax concessions, many of which were spawned under Howard/Costello.
The idea that it sets up an election fight is a classic example of the gaslighting of the Rum Corps political economy. As if the notion that 80k of the richest Australians no longer being subsidised by young workers is the basis of an election fight! Though we can’t put it past Dutton’s dumbarses to give it a try. They do love a rich political loser that is abusing fellow Aussies.
The idea that the commitment of no new taxes of this nature pre-election is equally flimsy. It is the only way to get anything done these days.
Nor do I fear Australia spiraling into some Trumpian dystopia. The one upside of Australian lassitude is that nobody is evangelical enough to change much.
It is the context of the Rum Corps political economy and it is what it is.
