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Australian Politics

Australia could do with another John Curtin

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John Curtin is best remembered as a war-time Prime Minister. He is routinely described as Australia’s greatest Prime Minister. His policy work, alongside that of his Treasurer, Ben Chifley, was crucial in establishing a Welfare State, on Australian lines, designed for Australian conditions. Curtin was influenced by the economic theories of Keynes, and he had long wanted to transform life for Australians.

He had seen the damage caused by the Great Depression of the 1930s, and took the opportunity offered by wartime conditions to transform the nation. In 1942 he imposed uniform taxation on the states, which changed the financial relationship between the two levels of government forever. It also allowed him to increase revenue. The removal of the states’ right to levy their own income taxes was to be compensated by the Commonwealth ‘picking up’ their liability for social programs.

With a uniform income tax he was then in a position to expand his vision of a socially activist Commonwealth Government. The states, especially New South Wales and Victoria, had been adding elements of a social safety net since the beginning of the century. He and Chifley, between them, completed it. Early examples were the Widow’s Pension Act, and the Unemployment and Sickness Benefits Act.

By the end of that same year (1942) he had set up a Department of Postwar Reconstruction, which laid the groundwork for establishing a Commonwealth Housing Commission, the postwar Rural Reconstruction Commission, the Secondary Industries Commission and the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. Many of these programs were designed to assist in re-building Australia, after the war ended.

In 1944 he set up the Department of Immigration which was to be responsible for organising postwar immigration to Australia. These changes were the basis for the enormous growth of the Australian economy in the postwar years.

John Curtin was a believer and a doer. He was lucky to be succeeded in the Prime Mininstership by Chifley, who carried on the commitment. The aim was nothing less than the dynamic re-construction of Australia, post-war. Curtin and Chifley both maintained that the key principle of a successful re-construction was full employment.

Robert Menzies was of a similar mind. He defeated Chifley in the election of 1949, and won seven elections in a row, on a platform which included full employment. In 1961, he was lucky to be re-elected, because the unemployment rate had ‘blown out’ to 2.1%. He won that election by just one seat.

The Welfare State in Australia is under constant threat, by both sides of parliament. This is counter to the wishes of a great proportion of the population, and it is driven by a political class who look after only themselves. They rely on the apathy of the people, who do not inspect governments closely, and who are disengaged from the political process. Politics and society are of no interest to most voters-a sad fact of life.

The Liberal Party has been infiltrated by many IPA-type neoliberals, whose political mantra can be simplified to a “survival of the fittest” trope. The Labor Party, although not yet as badly infested with IPA ideas, is slightly less crass, paying lip service to an egalitarian ethic, while rubber-stamping much neo-liberal legislation. It leaves voters stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Where to from here?

In the Age of Coronavirus, with widespread economic devastation, we need action similar to that which re-constructed Australia in the period immediately after World War 2. We need to accept that we need massive stimulation, and we need to spend our way out of the coming economic disruption. We need Australians to be protected from hardship, because it is the corrective thing to do, but also because the people demand it.

Scott Morrison is a man shackled to his party, by his own ideology, and his limitless ambition. He could form a National Government, which included at least the Opposition Leader, and he could govern for the whole country, and all the people.

You can see that he is torn between being a small-time political hack, and a real leader. He could really lean into the task of re-building the country, from the ground up, after the laying waste of the economy, caused by the pandemic.

It just takes character, and a commitment to Australia’s real needs. That is why we call it the Commonwealth of Australia. Could this be his moment? Let’s see.

Australian Politics

Homeless? Bad luck, this Government won’t help

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When I was growing up there were almost no homeless people in Australia. If you were homeless then, you were probably an ageing male who drank too much, and you had been caught out between shelters, or in some cases, you chose sleeping rough over the sometimes stifling rules in those shelters. They were often run by ‘Christian’ organisations.

Seven years of this Coalition Government has exacerbated the problem. Greatly. There has always been an economic argument for ending homelessness, but really it would take this Government a collective brain-transplant to recognise the benefits. As we have come to know, they all seem to have been infected by the neoliberal virus, which deadens the mind.

Would ending homelessness be good for us?

Recent reports into homelessness by the McKell Institute concluded that ending homelessness delivers on several fronts. Some of the benefits would be improved health and employment outcomes, and a greater sense of safety, independence and social connectedness. “However, the economic co-benefit of the investment is sizeable.” PwC

In many cases support services are required, the most expensive of which is crisis housing, in hotels, motels, caravan parks etc. The McKell Institute cites modelling by PwC that “moving each person from crisis accommodation will save $11,935 per year, per person, through reduced use of government services including health services, welfare, police and prisons”. So, it is not only beneficial to society, but it saves money.

What causes homelessness?

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) is an independent statutory agency. This is a part of their latest report on homelessness in Australia:

“On Census night in 2016, more than 116,000 people were estimated to be homeless in Australia-58% were male, 21% were aged 25–34 and 20% identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians (ABS 2018). Around 51,000 (44%) were living in severely crowded dwellings. Over 21,000 (18%) were living in supported accommodation for the homeless and 8,200 (7%) were rough sleepers.”

That is a roll-call of the neediest Australians. There are a number of reasons why the numbers are going up: women and children fleeing family violence, young people unemployed and unable to afford rent, debt, disability, the scourge of methamphetamine use. Add the casualties of the Covid-19 recession and those numbers have swelled.

As noted, the Coalition continues to reduce funding for many support services. One wonders if it is a sneaky way to further punish those who are not thriving. Not worthy enough?

How do we fix it? Let’s dream for a moment.

There is a solution. And the Federal Governments is wilfully ignoring it. Build public, low-cost housing, and most of the problem will go away. Public housing provision, by state and federal governments, both Labor and Liberal, has fallen to its lowest level in 40 years. However, the issue of cost has always seemed to be an insurmountable issue.

Things are different now. The Government has signalled that it is ready, and keen to provide substantial stimulus. And there is a perfect destination for all that stimulus. Additional to the social benefits of alleviating homelessness, there is the opportunity to build something, to re-build self-esteem and social cohesion, to undo the decades of neglect. There is an opportunity to re-build Australia as a fair place, where the strong make sure the weak are looked after. You know, the reason we pride ourselves on being Australians.

Imagine employing small suburban construction companies, with all the under-employed builders standing by, the timber and brick manufacturers aglow with anticipation, apprentices saved by the promise of work, how good is a building-led recovery?

Allied to the fact that building is so local, there is no need to employ the mega-builders, or multi-nationals. The local shopping strips will reap the benefit of the tradies buying their lunches. They might even need a new ute, with all the work … Go hard, go local!

How did Morrison use the stimulus?

Of course you would be wrong if you thought Morrison and his Government chose the humane and intelligent solution. They would rather give the stimulus in tax cuts, which may, or may not, be used. Companies might buy another piece of capital equipment, but why should they? They are not sure they will have customers on the other side.

The wealthy, who will also enjoy the benefits of very generous tax cuts, will pocket the cash. Their lives are already fully upholstered, and so their consuming will not achieve anything at all. How many yachts can one boatshed hold?

In a country of such wealth it is an absolute disgrace that children are living in cars and under bridges, while we provide million dollar tax-cuts to billionaires and their ilk. Throw in a billion or two to fossil fuel companies, and you have a recipe for a future disaster. The Coalition will never learn. They talk the Keynesian talk, but they can’t manage the walk.

It also knows that those less well off spend their stimulus the minute they receive it; so by going quickly, to those who need it most, they would have helped those most in need of it – small businesses, and their customers. So cutting benefits to those most in need is not only miserable and cruel – it is dumb economics. When will we all wake up to this crooked Government, and throw them out of office?

Australian Politics, History essays

Catastrophes need drastic remedies and lots of cash

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Australia has been through four natural disasters this year; the drought, the bushfires, the pandemic and the global climate catastrophe . Each of them has provided us with varying degrees of physical exposure, but if you were not directly and personally exposed to any of them, your mental health was probably affected.

Big government is an idea which allows governments the capacity to respond to natural phenomena such as economic depressions, recessions, wars, cyclones, fires, floods and pandemics. It utilises elements of Keynes’ theory that governments have a role to play when markets are not enough, such as times when catastrophes occur. It generally means government investment replaces private investment, if the market is unable, or unwilling, to invest. 

Notable examples of governmental intervention are Roosevelt’s New Deal, which helped to end the Great Depression, and the Marshall Plan, which re-constructed Europe after World War 11. The rebuilding of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy is a notable local example.   

At times like this we are often sustained by our families and friends, by our communities, and even by the kindness of strangers. But there is a level of assistance that we are unable to provide for ourselves. That is provided by the mechanisms and the solidity of our governments. 

We often speak disparagingly of our being over-governed. We complain about paying taxes, about regulations, about the nanny state. In Australia we have so many layers of officialdom it can feel stifling. But during such times as these, that infrastructure can be comforting. It is why we all quietly blubber when we see the kids singing “We are Australian”. 

We survived the bushfires 

The bushfires of 2019 were devastating and terrifying. Although it impacted mostly in regional areas we all had some form of connection. It might have been through a visit to Mallacoota, or Broadford’s near-miss in 2009, or as a survivor of the Ash Wednesday fires … You might be a volunteer firefighter, or your niece is. We were all affected, because Australians are way too familiar with bushfires. 

We would not have come through so well if not for all of our governments acting on our behalf. Of course there were stuff-ups and mistakes, some of which are still causing people to be living in tents seven months later, but the governments responded, with the defence force, with firefighters, with evacuations and food drops. Our kindergartens and shire halls were available, and there was shelter provided. Our citizens are resourceful, but we can’t have a navy ship waiting off the coast, or supply helicopters. The hospitals were open and staffed, and no-one was counting the cost. We as a society would accept nothing less.

The drought is breaking (maybe) 

2019 was very dry. By July, a climatologist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology stated that the drought was now officially the worst on record in the Murray–Darling Basin, and “had now exceeded the Federation Drought, the WWII drought and the Millennium drought in terms of its severity through the MDB”. Drought in Australia

This year (2020) much of the drought stricken country has had, or expects, above average rainfall for the winter months. This is wonderful news. It will not immediately rescue those whose incomes have been slashed, or those whose mental health has suffered. It will not comfort those whose loved ones have taken their own lives, because of the stress and the perceived hopelessness of their situation. Many farmers have had to sell or shoot stock, or go into more debt to buy feed, or lost the opportunity to sow crops because of the intense drought. 

During the worst of it the public has participated in charity drives to buy and send hay for livestock. Many have donated funds to struggling rural families. Food parcels have been delivered to farmers who have thus far lived proudly independent lives. All of us know where our food comes from, and many of us want to be a part of any push to help.

Thankfully we also have a Government which has had the wherewithal to assist. These were trying times, and once again federal and state governments stepped into the breach. Of course the situation is only going to repeat, as climate change continues its inexorable march. 

“Every federal budget and update since 2002-03, when the millennium drought was just starting to affect parts of the country, has been forced to set aside money for drought relief.” The cost of drought – and it’s just going to grow  This obviates the need for governments which do not allow markets to determine outcomes. Farmers, like their families, and the communities which service them, operate as crucial elements of our society; we prefer to stand as one. 

The pandemic rolls on

As Victoria teeters on the edge of a second wave, Australia is having to look seriously at a  second, perhaps total, lockdown. As we concentrate on the physical health of the nation, some are demanding a re-opening of the economy. As if the idiocy of the Trump response is not enough, we are debating if we can afford to continue the stimulus packages in place. It is not a matter of choice. We do not allow people to starve in a country brim full of food. We do not have people thrown out into the winter streets, when we have thousands of empty houses.

We have constructed a society which has withstood the worst that nature can bring, and we have stood united. We do not treat the national accounts like a grocery list, striking out what we think might be a luxury. We look after our own, and if the Government needs to go into debt, we should be fine with that.  

The continuing saga of climate change stupidity

Climate change underlies the bushfires and the drought’s severity. It continues to be an open wound in our society. If there is an issue which has unified our young people, this is it. It is also the Morrison Government’s most notable failure. This week, in the midst of the pandemic, we hear that Craig Kelly is ‘investigating’ whether the Bureau of Meteorology is fudging temperature data for nefarious, presumably ‘green’, propaganda purposes. 

Angus Taylor continues to assert that black is indeed white, and our renewables industry battles manfully, while facing the headwinds of Taylor’s bluster. 

Scott Morrison has managed to overturn his disdain for science by largely following medical scientists’ advice on the Covid-19 pandemic. We can only hope that he decides to put Australia’s needs before his own, by changing his course on climate change. Choosing his personnel better would send a message that he believes in a society which wants to pull together. He needs to lead.

We need to stick together

The continuing argument between the left and right in politics seems to be one which boils down to whether or not we believe in the power of big government to cushion the blows of nature, and to maintain our social fabric, in the face of steep odds. 

It is a moot point, as Morrison, through the power he holds, will eventually decide which way we jump. He needs to step away from his ideological straight jacket, and study some history. Great leaders, such as Clement Attlee of the U.K. and our own John Curtin, consciously set out to build inclusive societies in their respective countries, after the damage done by World War 11. 

We have been agreeably surprised with Morrison’s seeming acceptance of Keynes’ roadmap for recovery. Let us hope it continues. It is the only credible way forward. As the Nobel laureate Robert Lucas, an opponent of Keynes, admitted in 2008: “I guess everyone is a Keynesian in a foxhole.”

Australian Politics, COVID-19

Morrison handles the crisis – sort of

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Scott Morrison has had a reasonable month

Australia has also had a good month. There have been mis-steps, and mixed messages, and the occasional catastrophic blunder (the Ruby Princess springs to mind), but in a global pandemic we have, along with our cousins across the Tasman, apparently slowed the progress of the virus. It is not empty patriotism to be proud of our achievement.

Against many predictions, Scott Morrison not only turned up, but as the weeks unfolded, he began to seem empathetic. His confidence grew, and he stopped enumerating all the favours he had done for us, and understood that it was his job. His press conferences began to resemble real information sessions, and to look less like infomercials for the Liberals.

Of course he began by taking on the workload single handed, but he then gradually introduced us to Greg Hunt, the Health Minister. He was formerly known as The Minister for Announcing New Drugs on the PBS, but he has, similarly to Morrison, grown in this time.

The real change has been in his attitude to us

The Prime Minister, during his time in parliament, and presumably for his entire adult life, has shown a strange lack of compassion towards “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame”, as the Bible might describe those who struggle (Luke 14:21). I put this down to his religious faith, which is constrained by its pre-Enlightenment beliefs. This means that the very notion of any form of welfare goes against the grain. A loyal and grateful God will look after the Faithful should catastrophe happen, and supposedly charities will pick up the slack.

He seems to have been able to put aside his disdain for those who do not always ‘have a red-hot go’. Perhaps he has seen that occasionally life throws stuff at you which you can’t deal with, or even that some people are not so well equipped for a hyper-competitive world.

He doubled the unemployment benefit for those who were already unemployed, and included them in his stimulatory package. I still wonder that he did not make more political capital from his doubling of the Jobseeker Allowance, but perhaps he did not want to directly confront the IPA types.

He also, for once, listened to the Labor Party, and the ACTU, and broadly adopted their suggested wages subsidy, which is revolutionary for a neo-liberal Government. Boris Johnson had also done it, in the U.K. so there was a precedent. But he continued to elevate the good of the individual citizen above the needs of the budget.

In another break with ‘dry’ orthodoxy, he convened a ‘national cabinet’, made up of the leaders of the states and territories. This from a man not seen as naturally amenable to the idea of sharing power, but the Premiers have all been impressed with his growing spirit of co-operation. Of course good sense can only go so far, so he was unwilling to enlist the Opposition Leader’s assistance.

It seems that he is governing with compassion, for most of us, and that he has shrugged off the strait-jacket of ideology. Or maybe he just decided that there was no benefit in ignoring the obvious. People need to eat, whether they are in work, or not.

What did it cost?

Early estimates were around $300 billion, and counting. But it has saved many lives. As of today’s figures, there have been 102 deaths, which means a lot of grieving families, but it is many less than we might have expected. It is worth whatever it costs. And it is money from the communal pot. We can afford it, because we want to.

The shutdown of the economy will be difficult to recover from. But Australia has weathered many storms, and I have faith that the measures he has facilitated, from an immediate survival perspective, will at least soften the blow for those least fortunate. Many have slipped through the safety net, but he appears to be discovering the fact that it is part of his ‘job description’; to alleviate suffering wherever he sees his fellow citizens doing it hard. Compare that statement with our expectations of him after the bush-fires!

Where to from here?

He will most probably face internal revolt from the hard right within his party, sooner rather than later. His current spending is heavily reliant on Keynesian economics right now. Keynes’ ideas may be the only credible theory for times like this, and it has been instructive to see so many of the world’s governments recently reverted to the old orthodoxy.

This economic theory postulates that “the government should increase demand to boost growth,” amongst other similarly expansionary fiscal measures. It was seen to work through Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ package in the 1930s. This sort of stimulus is very unpopular with neo-liberals, who tend to be driven by their own ideology, concerning keeping government small, and spending minimal. Already we are hearing from libertarians and right wing think tanks such as the IPA that we need to re-open businesses, and to end the lock-down.

Interesting research from the period 1914 – 1919 shows that cities in the U.S. which maintained their social distancing and lock-downs during the Spanish Flu (1918-20) longer, bounced back more quickly, and more resoundingly. Read about this effect here https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/lockdowns-flatten-the-economic-curve-too/

Will he survive the challenge?

Scott Morrison has steered this country safely through the early stages of a profound crisis. He will see clamour for a return to the busy days, in an attempt to re-start the economy. He needs to hold his nerve, because the Spanish Flu pandemic taught us something else – if you take your foot off the brake, the second wave can be more devastating than the first. That happened in 1919, and there is no rule that says it will not happen again.

We have yet to see the worst of this particular crisis. India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil and the United States are all entering unknown terrain, and we are very, very lucky to live where we do. The last thing we need is to listen to populists and ideologues, whose concern for society is zero. Remember their leader, Maggie Thatcher, who in 1987 uttered these words: “They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. Not much of a belief system, if you ask me.

This article has been recently updated, to reflect some changes in relevant facts. The tally of deaths in Australia from COVID19 was revised from 62 to 102.