On the cusp of parliament’s five-week winter break, Labor insiders are warmed by signs the government has One Nation’s measure, while the Coalition are floundering.
The beginning of the new financial year on Wednesday saw enacted what could be a cunning plan by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to swamp any bad news coming from the budget reforms with a slew of good, or at least better, news addressing the biggest concern for voters. Namely, their struggle to make ends meet.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Sunday that the government was using the power of incumbency to deliver cost-of-living help. He said the best antidote to voters’ anger is real change, and that is what Labor is delivering in the housing market and with the tax system.
It’s the government’s view that the warnings of dire consequences from vested interests will peter out, as the real-world experience of voters will not tally with the hysteria.
Not only will those already benefiting from the generous tax concessions not lose them but millions of Australians will directly benefit from boosts to their incomes in the months ahead.
The primary target of the capital gains tax and negative gearing changes is housing affordability. Even before those changes were announced the housing market was in decline, but according to Cotality research director Tim Lawless the reforms have “further impacted investor confidence”.
The dramatic drop in auction clearance rates is simply because sellers and buyers cannot agree on price, says economist Matt Grudnoff, of The Australia Institute.
Sellers’ expectations have not changed yet, but once the market stabilises and people get a clearer idea about how much homes are worth, he says, “auction clearance rates will go up again”.
Grudnoff expects that even if property prices were to drop 9 per cent, “that would take prices back to September 2024 and no further”.
That’s what helping to solve housing affordability looks like – politicians just aren’t game enough to admit it.
Even before the pay rises, modest tax cuts, business concessions and modified petrol and diesel cost relief kick in, opinion polls suggest the government is travelling much better than its critics would have people believe.
The prime minister said his government was focused “on delivering real change for Australians”, nominating hot-button issues identified by private and public research. He cited a full six months’ paid parental leave, making it easier for first-home buyers, and major investments in Medicare “including making Urgent Care Clinics permanent”.
Even before the pay rises, modest tax cuts, business concessions and modified petrol and diesel cost relief kick in, opinion polls suggest the government is travelling much better than its critics would have people believe.
The polls also appear to chime with the view of one of the prime minister’s most senior advisers, who says Pauline Hanson’s speech to the National Press Club was a watershed moment for One Nation’s credibility, and she failed badly.
The adviser agrees with the assessment of pollster Kos Samaras, who says the speech gave people a glimpse of what the real world would look like should Hanson have some control over government policy.
Her antipathy to paid parental leave, her siding with bosses against workers on wages and job security and her prioritising a “monoculture” over multiculturalism were, according to Samaras, “no longer moods or feelings”. They are positions that can be measured against the lives of people, and for which she can be held to account by her opponents.
The Labor adviser says many of the grievances Hanson emphasised were a long way from the concerns troubling people.
The Guardian Essential poll found support for One Nation dropping two points, four below Labor’s improved primary vote, and pollster Peter Lewis said One Nation’s support may be plateauing.
The survey found Australians resoundingly rejected many of One Nation’s key proposals. Only 10 per cent support shutting down the federal Health Department. Ending multiculturalism garnered 20 per cent support. Shutting down the public broadcasters was similarly unpopular, as was reviewing work laws to give employers more power, which garnered only 18 per cent support.
Hanson attempted in parliament to walk back her press club assertion that “Australians must live under the one cultural umbrella”, citing the Socceroos as an example of what she meant. She said the Australian team comprised people from different backgrounds, cultures and nations uniting under one set of rules.
This is what most people understand multiculturalism in Australia to mean. Hanson’s clarification became even more muddled when she said we should “bring back Paul Hogan and Norman Gunston” because “these are the essential features of Australian monoculture and there’s nothing remotely exclusionary about them”.
Gunston, a character invented by comedian Garry McDonald, was at the height of his popularity in 1975. Hogan was a star in the 1980s.
The Australian Financial Review tracked down the 86-year-old Hogan, now living in California with his son. The actor told them Hanson was obviously living in the past, that he was one type of Australian and it was ridiculous to suggest others need to look and sound like him.
Hogan says migration and different cultures and customs have made Australia what it is today. In a somewhat confusing statement, he said if Hanson wants a monoculture, “she’s a pelican”, before adding, “outrageous, so racist”.
“It sounds very much like this stupid boofhead over here, Trump.”
Five opinion polls were released during the week. Labor gained support in all of them. One Nation slipped in four and gained in one. The Coalition dipped in three, held steady in one and rose in one.
While the next election is not due for two years, the dire polling for the Liberals and Nationals saw another breakout from the Coalition front bench. South Australian MP Tony Pasin last month appeared to suggest a non-compete pact with One Nation in certain seats at the next election. This week, outer Sydney MP Melissa McIntosh told Sky News the Liberal Party should look at a rebrand.
She said the Liberals could not continue to shrug off their poll slump: “Some people think that we’re stuck in the past and our policies need to resonate with the Australia of today and the future.” Her public intervention infuriated many of her colleagues, with one describing it as an unhelpful “brain fart”.
The record low primary vote for the Coalition in Newspoll earnt Liberal leader Angus Taylor an uncharacteristically tough interview on Sydney’s Radio 2GB.
Taylor was reminded that the Liberals hitting 18 per cent under his predecessor Sussan Ley was the pretext for her removal. “Four months on, you’ve put policies out there, you’ve got the Coalition back together and you’re now on 17 per cent.”
He was asked how much time he thought his colleagues would give him. He did not directly answer but said it would take time to rebuild trust – especially in light of the Morrison government having betrayed the Liberal Party’s belief in small government during the pandemic.
Taylor’s putative rival, Andrew Hastie, appears to be giving the leader plenty of time – at least until the end of the year, when he hopes the Coalition’s policy development work under Taylor will be nearing completion.
Hastie parted company with McIntosh on rebranding, saying the party has 82 years of political capital and “we’re not going to vacate the space and give up as some people are suggesting we should”. He said people know who the Liberals are and it’s important to deliver policy people care about.
Albanese and his cabinet colleagues are convinced Hastie is the Liberal leader they will face at the next election. By one assessment, though, he must overcome significant internal obstacles, particularly over his principled stance on the Ben Roberts-Smith war crimes saga.
Hastie has fallen out with party president Tony Abbott and billionaire backers such as Kerry Stokes and Gina Rinehart, and it’s believed they would not stand idly by while the former SASR commander assumed the leadership.
As for the party’s identity, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young says the discussion about the Liberals rebranding is already settled and “it’s called One Nation”. She says the right is realigning and the question for individuals is whether they want to be part of this “new right” or stand for something else.
Hanson-Young’s view that the traditional Liberal Party no longer exists is not without considerable foundation. The demise of the “liberal” element has been a long time coming, with the targeting of moderates dating back to the 1980s.
The party’s current malaise, however, appears to be of a different degree to that endured by defeated parties in the past. Labor suffered a drubbing by the Liberals in John Howard’s 1996 landslide, and before that in the 1975 and 1977 capitulations to Malcolm Fraser, says one Labor veteran, “but we still knew what we stood for”.
Albanese homed in on the identity crisis in parliament this week, taunting the “three right-wing parties”.
“We have a Liberal Party that isn’t liberal,” he said, “a National Party that isn’t national and a One Nation Party that wants to divide the nation.”