By Denis Bright
After an initial appeal to a limited national sovereignty, the Opposition Leader’s Address in Reply talks up a conventional policy route towards a stronger Australia. President Trump offers a similar style of populism in the old imperial style of William McKinley. In response, mythical representatives from Kansas tripped off to that Emerald City in Frank Baume’s epic novel at the turn of the last century.
The Opposition Leader’s main thrust is directed to struggling householders in outer metro and struggling regional areas which have been a main priority of Labor’s social spending.
The budget paper extract shows Australia is not choked in excessive government spending. By world standards, our public sector is too lean for a middle-sized developed economy:
Social democratic countries like Denmark can maintain Australian rates of economic growth with close to half of all resources in the public sector and higher levels of productive government debt.
Ironically, it is the US which deviates more from conventional orthodoxy. Here, the US economy cannot compete with more nifty global players in the maintenance of domestic stability in the post-1989 world when the Berlin Wall was penetrated by a commitment to potential peace and global inclusiveness. Undermining the achievements generated by economic flexibility with imposed tariffs is a somewhat Bochy agenda for a far-right administration in the White House as it exports the economic woes of the superpower to the global economy with potential great impact on Australia through its trading ties with China.
The inefficiencies of US health services at both GP and hospital levels are shown by the high costs of health delivery in the US where healthcare costs are 50 percent higher than in Australia and most EU countries. Peter Dutton does not specify just how the LNP’s magic wand will extend bulk-billing rates. That is for his new consultancy networks to define after they replace public sector employees.
Corporate control has already been embedded into the delivery of healthcare in Australia for half a century. This now contributes to the higher running costs of NDIS and public hospital services. The accommodation bonds charged by both charitable and commercial institutions for admission to nursing home facilities have few upper limits and require upfront payments of over one million dollars at many institutions. Employment of overseas staff in aged care facilities has helped to contain cost increases but this moderation will be contained by Peter Dutton’s controls on immigration levels.
The magic bullet of access to improved gas supplies by the end of 2025 under a Peter Dutton-led government is a questionable promise when the corporate sector is in control of public energy policies which require corporate cooperation with respect for existing export contracts as promised in the address in reply.
As the budget papers show, the Australian Government has a very limited role in the direct delivery of public sector investment priorities through its own investment initiatives which have been framed out to commercial investment in the post-1975 era. Net capital investment by the Australian government is a mere 0.3 percent of gdp in the current budget.
Voters rejected the Chifley Government’s commitment to greater government intervention at the 1949 election as the Cold War hotted up. There was enthusiastic support for nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s at Monte Bello Islands near Broome, in the Interior of South Australia as well as Britain’s Operational Grapple with thermonuclear weapons off PNG in 1957-58. Exhausted by the pretentions of being a superpower, Britain allowed the US to take the running in nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands in Micronesia until 1958. The resultant damage to the local environment and to the health of indigenous people in both British and US nuclear tests was accepted as a legitimate Cold War Hazard.
The Opposition always has a profound role in our representative system of government. Should the Albanese Government be returned to Office on 3 May 2025, future opposition leaders need to work more constructively at chipping away with downturns rates of private sector investment growth from both local and overseas capital. It was indeed Tony Abbott who welcomed President Xi of China to Australia in 2016.
ABS data on investment levels to the December Quarter of 2024 is not encouraging. Leadership from both sides of politics requires a more Team Australia commitment in the future.
Successive governments since the internal coup against Malcolm Turnbull within the LNP have moved Australia back to the Anglosphere in both overseas investment and the purchase of military equipment as shown by this latest but still outdated data from the ABS from May 2024:
Peter Dutton’s address in reply is good pre-election politics particularly in more disadvantaged outer metro and regional areas. This style might indeed still intrude on those better polling levels for Labor since February. His confrontational style is not needed in a cost-of-living crisis as the LNP tilts towards more reliance on fossil fuels for diversionary electoral advantage through welcome reductions in excise duties on essential fuels for struggling families to compensate for the additional costs of nuclear power plants that are largely in regional localities where mining investment has been in sharp decline.
In conclusion, do not underestimate the political craft which has been embedded into the Address-in-Reply. These diversions need to be handled carefully by Labor, the TEALS and the Greens who need to talk up a more progressive united front as in France at the 2024 national elections.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.
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The only ‘ads’ I have seen for the LNP – which keep cropping up on youtube – are all asking the same question: “Do you feel better off after three years of Labor Government , or are you worse off?” The “hip pocket” question, which the Trump campaign also used effectively.
Some of the effective economic expert criticism I have read so far would show that some of Dutton’s policies do not add up. He’s gone a bit quiet on nuclear energy – when it has been shown not only to be wildly expensive to build but not even logically possible in the areas he wanted to build. ( Not enough water available for such a large use of water.) Gas – well- big sounding ideas but new gas links and building of all the integrated infrastructure to make any difference couldn’t be built and completed for many years.
Many of Dutton’s points sounded just the same as Trump’s war on civil servants – in fact Dutton sounded rather like a diminutive Donald Trump. Quelle Horreur!
I’m far better off after three years of this government, because Mad Maggot Morrison has gone, unfortunately leaving debt, misery, criminality, and stupid colleagues behind. If you actually need an attack of carnivorous haemorrhoids, then vote for Dutton, the dopiest, shittiest, lowest conservative ever in the liberal party ranks. Dutton has a lower I Q. than a can of Pal, but talks incessantly to cover up the vacuum. POX. Dutton is a “paid tart”, a donor driven bludger, a front for gas profiteers, a puppet for greed, privatisation schemes, subsidies, handouts, tax breaks, any graft and grab going.
A timely reminder from Denis about Peter Dutton’s capacity to talk up prejudice for the benefit of the LNP .
Great article Denis!!! It’s going to be an interesting few months ahead for Australia.
Great article Denis , however I think Duttons response left a lot not said & left a fear in the community regard public service jobs & cuts generally