Day 3 of the Australian election campaign, and … is it just me, or is the Liberal Party breaking the sound barrier by running away from its own long-held principles?
Historically, the Liberals have declared themselves the party of “small government” — by which they mean they play hands-off with the market as far as possible and let the laws of supply and demand work everything out. In other words, capitalism is king, baby.
(Socially, of course, they are anything but “small government”. The Liberal Party is notorious for wanting to exert political control over, for example, reproductive rights. Or whether someone should be allowed to criticise Israel’s genocide of Palestine.)
Now, whatever you happen to think about the merits of such a stance, the party’s been more or less consistent over the decades in espousing it. Of course it’s indisputable that its idea of small government includes propping up major fossil fuel industries with utterly unnecessary subsidies, but you can always rely on every Liberal spokesperson at any given time to wave the banner for lower taxes and less regulation.
But not, apparently, in this election.
Just before Parliament was prorogued, Labor rammed income tax cut legislation through the Parliament. Starting with the 2026-27 financial year, people can look forward to getting $268 more in their paypackets, and $536 every year after that. It’s not exactly a windfall, but it is ongoing. And it’s exactly the sort of policy that the Liberal Party would be likely to put up for any given election campaign. Yet not only did it not support the legislation, it’s promised to repeal it, should a Coalition government be in power after May 3rd.
Yeah, you read that right. The party of tax cuts hates this particular tax cut so much that it would actually take it away from the Australian people.
The stated reason for not supporting the tax cuts was that they don’t come into effect until around 15 months from now. Given that this bill was rammed through at the last minute, there was really no opportunity to propose amendments or negotiate, so the Liberals were basically wedged. Either support the tax cuts in this form and lose a potential point of attack during the campaign, or oppose them and give Labor a point of attack. Politically, then, Dutton was damned either way.
But to then double down, as Angus Taylor did, and vow to repeal the tax cuts? Not only does this make no sense politically, it’s a complete reversal of one of the major policy positions that underpins Liberal Party policy.
Then there’s Dutton’s energy policy. As part of his plan to keep Australia wedded to fossil fuels, he’s said he would force gas suppliers to sell more of their gas domestically — and to set the price at which they could do so.
This would be an extraordinary intervention, regulatory constraints so tight that it would effectively be nationalising the industry. It’s the very definition of “big government”, the kind of plan that the Liberal Party would ordinarily rail against. When the Victorian state government decided to re-establish the State Energy Commission, both state and federal Liberal MPs delivered thundering speeches of condemnation about “overreach”. The current Victorian Liberal leader, Brad Battin, has even vowed to do away with it should he gain power at the next state election. Yet now, the Liberal Party is backing an even greater exercise of governmental control.
Yesterday the Labor Party announced its plan to stop the supermarket duopoly, Coles and Woolworths, from price gouging. It involves increased monitoring by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and potential fines if the supermarket chains are found to be taking advantage of their domination of the sector by setting unreasonably high prices. Naturally, the Liberal Party immediately condemned this policy – but not because they thought it was governmental overreach.
You see, the Coalition have their own idea of how to deal with Coles and Woolies, and it is extremely heavy-handed. Last year, Nationals leader David Littleproud announced a policy to threaten Coles and Woolworths with forced divestiture if they engaged in price gouging. In other words, to break the companies up and destroy the duopoly. This kind of active interference in the private sector is the sort of thing you hear from very Left-leaning parties, and usually something the Liberal Party would scream about in tones of horrified outrage.
So what’s going on here? Has the party of small government abandoned its principles? Is it actually – gasp! – drifting Left?
That would be an exciting prospect, if only for the political turmoil that would cause. The truth, however, is far more prosaic.
It’s not about principles. It’s not about fundamental economic philosophy. It’s just political opportunism. Populism, at its most blatant.
By saying he’ll repeal the tax cuts, Dutton dangles the lure that a Coalition government might – emphasis on might – actually bring in bigger cuts of their own. After all, the Liberal Party is “the party of lower taxes”, isn’t it? He’s hoping Australians will conveniently ignore the fact that no such policy has even been hinted at.
It’s the same with his threat against the gas industry. These policies are extremely likely to be popular, but only if you don’t look too closely. Energy experts are unequivocal that strong-arming the gas industry in this way is likely to have extremely damaging consequences, and the industry itself has warned that it’s not going to just roll over and do what it’s told. At the very least, Dutton could look forward to serious legal challenges. That’s if he could get the legislation passed in the first place, which is by no means guaranteed. His Coalition partners, the Nationals, are already nervous about a potential backlash from their electorates.
As for supermarket divestiture – boy, it sounds good, doesn’t it? Talk about sticking it to “the man”! We’ll show those nasty corporations who’s boss and then they’ll have to bring down the price of eggs.
Here’s the thing. Even Dutton’s own party room doesn’t want it. They know that there is a high potential that such a move would potentially increase grocery prices, as Coles and Woolworths pass on the costs of inevitable legal fights to customers. It could also lead to more market concentration, not less. A rival chain could buy up divested stores, and even if legislation was brought in to prevent this, there is no guarantee that any smaller companies would have either the purchasing power or the willingness to acquire them. So, like the gas policy, the threat of both legal action and internal opposition is very high.
All of that is off in the future, though.1And, to be perfectly cynical, what are the chances that if he wins power, Dutton will find a way to get out of these proposed regulatory measures, and thus preserve the goodwill of big business? What Dutton’s counting on is that we, as voters struggling to pay the bills and feed our families, are so focused on our immediate situations that we are both unable and unwilling to take a step back and see what the real effects of these policies will be. That we will settle for the soundbite and be happy that we’re getting cheaper petrol for a while, rather than think about our ongoing needs.
He’s also banking on the idea that we don’t like to feel powerless, and will cheer on anyone who even appears to be taking the big bully corporations down a peg. That we’ll simply take his word for it that this proposed extreme regulation will not only happen, but that it will happen smoothly and then it’s unicorns and rainbows for everyone.
Basically, the Coalition is underestimating and insulting Australian voters.
It’s a very risky strategy, and could easily cause irreparable damage to the Coalition’s chances of winning government. If there’s one thing Australians hate more than being screwed over by big business, it’s someone attempting to play us for fools.
Dutton is no novice political operator. He should know this. That he’s throwing out these ideas so early in the campaign suggests that he’s launching test balloons. If it turns out that people don’t respond favourably, he has plenty of time to quietly walk them back and replace them with other, more moderate policies that the electorate are more likely to accept. It’s not the greatest strategy in the world, and it does leave room for speculation as to exactly how much actual policy development the Coalition has done while in Opposition.
The most recent polling (from YouGov) indicates that Labor would secure 75 seats, just short of a majority. The Coalition would have 60, and 15 would go to the Greens, minor parties, and Independents. In such a scenario, Labor would likely have multiple ways of forming government, even without seeking formal support from the Greens.
The Coalition desperately needs to pull that margin back. Of course its preferred result is to take government, but the fallback position is to gain enough seats to force Labor to walk back its declaration that it would not form any sort of alliance with the Greens. In order to do that, it needs to peel off voters from the centre Left. And in order to do that, it seems that the strategy – for now, at least – is to engage in short-term instant gratification promises that fall apart under the most basic scrutiny.
So let’s see if these policies last past the first week of the campaign. And if they don’t, well, let’s see if the Coalition will actually put up something that is both achievable and beneficial, and not just transparent populist vote-grabbers.
