20/04/2024
Labor’s Policy Drift
20 April 2024
Albanese won the Federal election 2 years ago, but he has been very disappointing.
Australia wanted real change after a decade of Liberals doing nothing except giving money to their mates, offending China and pursuing the dubious AUKUS strategy, (a $360 billion photo op for Scott Morrison).
Labor was very dejected after a bold policy platform from Bill Shorten fell to a characteristic Liberal scare campaign from Scott Morrison in the 2019 Federal election, so they pursued a ‘small target’ strategy (i.e. minimal policies) in the 2022 election.
But when they won the 2022 election, they have still been scared to do anything, behaving like Liberal-lite, as if they are still scared of any Liberal criticism. It seems that they believe that negative political campaigning is so much more successful than actual policies that they are best served by giving the Liberal little to criticise, i.e doing very little. The Liberals are ruling from beyond the grave.
Labor did not undo the Liberal follies of the AUKUS pact, the kow-towing to the US with their bases here and silly behaviour in the South China sea. (How would the US feel if China took a few aircraft carriers for trips around the Caribbean just to emphasise freedom of navigation?) They even kept the Stage 3 tax cuts, which were a desperate Liberal measure; a future promise to win a present election. Labor promised no tax increases, so Medicare remains doomed, and the long-term privatisation contracts that the Liberal installed in Centrelink remain, with our welfare system behaving like a suspicious private insurer as jobs and job security become more tenuous. They were petty with the Teals, taking their staff when they should have supported them both because they are more aligned to Labor in many policy areas, and because they are all from Liberal seats and it is in Labor’s interest that the Teals have them rather than the Liberals.
Now we have dubious rumblings about subsidies to Australian manufacturing with lots of patriotic tub-thumping.
My own view is that Albanese is quite safe in his job until at least after the 2025 election, but Labor may lose seats to Greens or independents if he does not do more of what is needed.