{"id":523064,"date":"2026-03-06T19:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T19:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523064\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T19:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T19:03:14","slug":"to-remain-one-and-free-australia-must-confront-three-key-systemic-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523064\/","title":{"rendered":"To remain one and free, Australia must confront three key systemic challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opinion<\/p>\n

\"PeterPeter Hartcher<\/a>Political and international editor<\/p>\n

March 7, 2026 \u2014 5:00am<\/p>\n

March 7, 2026 \u2014 5:00am<\/p>\n

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Reading the Liberal Party\u2019s review of its election performance reminds you of catching a Qantas flight. The endless bungles make you wonder if they\u2019ve ever done this before. The main difference is that Qantas hasn\u2019t crashed. And it seems to understand which business it\u2019s in.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to say the same about the Liberals. They\u2019ve not only crashed twice in succession, they don\u2019t seem to know which business they\u2019re in.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationIllustration by Joe Benke <\/p>\n

The Liberal review<\/a> concluded that the \u201cworst campaign the party has ever fought\u201d chiefly was \u201cthe result of an extraordinary combination of internal errors\u201d.<\/p>\n

It places an over-emphasis on the breakdown in relations between then-leader Peter Dutton and the head of the party\u2019s organisational wing, Andrew Hirst. If that were the main problem, then all is well. Dutton campaigned himself out of parliament.<\/p>\n

But, of course, it\u2019s not. The review, leaked this week, does acknowledge that the very existence of the party is now on the brink. After 80 years. But the report\u2019s treatment of the existential problems is almost cursory.<\/p>\n

At core, the Liberal Party not only fails to represent most of the population, it has stopped trying. This is the path to extinction. Put starkly, the Liberals last year were competitive only among old people, men, and people who live outside the main population centres. They couldn\u2019t have hoped to win power with this constellation of support.<\/p>\n

While the review notes this, it makes no effort to suggest solutions. Perhaps because the authors \u2013 Liberal troopers Pru Goward and Nick Minchin \u2013 know the futility of efforts to reform the party.<\/p>\n

Every election review points to the party\u2019s failure to appeal to women and young people. Yet every election it gets a smaller share of each.<\/p>\n

The truth is that the Liberals have purged themselves of most of their moderates and are happy to be more authentically a faction than a party. Then vice-president Teena McQueen<\/a> spoke for the conservative majority when she celebrated in 2022 that \u201cthe good thing about the last federal election is a lot of those lefties are gone \u2013 we should rejoice in that\u201d. She was talking about Liberal members of parliament.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Variable\u2018Variable geometry\u2019: Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra this week.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

It\u2019s supposed to be a catch-all party to govern from the centre, but its revealed preference is to be a club. And, since last year\u2019s election, it seems the Liberals have lost their competitive advantage with even their remaining catchments. They spent years systematically losing city voters to Labor and the teals, and now they\u2019re losing their regional and rural support to One Nation.<\/p>\n

The dominant conservative faction is seizing on this as an opportunity to move yet further to the right. The pretext? That they must recover voters lost to the xenophobic populist One Nation. Like a snake swallowing its tail, it\u2019s a formula for continuous contraction.<\/p>\n

Yet the Liberal woes are a subset of a larger phenomenon. Australia continues to lose its interest in either of the once-major parties. The Coalition won a mere 31.8 per cent of the primary vote last year. Yet Labor won 34.6, only 2.8 percentage points more than the Coalition. It was Labor\u2019s superior approach to tactical voting that magnified this small margin of votes into a huge majority of seats.<\/p>\n

Combined, Labor and the Coalition garnered 66.4 per cent, a record low. Labor is vulnerable, too. Which helps to explain Anthony Albanese\u2019s signature cautiousness.<\/p>\n

But this loss of faith in the long-dominant parties is, in turn, a part of a fading national faith in democracy itself. As the Australian Election Study<\/a> reports, one in three Australian adults do not agree that democracy is always preferable to other forms of government. Wariness of democracy is strongest among young voters.<\/p>\n

Former US president Joe Biden used to say that \u201cwe have to prove democracy still works and we can deliver for our people\u201d. Americans responded to his efforts by voting for a man who does not believe in democracy.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cThe\u201cThe Liberal woes are a subset of a larger phenomenon.\u201d Will new Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and his deputy Jane Hume take their lead from the 2025 election review?Dominic Lorrimer<\/p>\n

Worldwide, democracy has been in retreat since around the time of the global financial crisis, according to the various annual measures published by Freedom House, the Economist Intelligence Unit and V-Dem.<\/p>\n

Autocracy is on the rise. Only 25 of the world\u2019s 200 countries are still classed as full democracies, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit<\/a>\u2019s annual list, encompassing just 6.6 per cent of the global population. The US is not among us.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the Liberal Party that seems to be a busted franchise; the two-party system is in retreat. Democracy itself appears to be an exhausted creed. The Liberal Party review was a moment to reflect on this, but it was only one pointer to the three exhausted systems that manifested in Australia this week.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Those of us who remain in countries enjoying full democracy carry a large responsibility to see if it can be renewed. As Biden said, that will turn largely on whether democracy can deliver. With inflation resurgent, this gets harder. Inflation erodes living standards and destroys governments.<\/p>\n

In Australia\u2019s case, we\u2019ve discovered in the past year that the economy has developed a lower speed limit than we\u2019d thought. It turns out that Australia\u2019s economy can grow only something like 1.5 to 2 per cent a year in real GDP terms without heating up inflation.<\/p>\n

This is unwelcome news. It means Australia is now straitjacketed as a low-growth economy. In simple terms, this means what we have today is as good as it will get. Low growth limits income gains and constrains living standards.<\/p>\n

Politicians keep telling us that we\u2019re doing it tough. But, realistically, it won\u2019t get any better. If governments spend more or try to increase growth, inflation will rise, and the Reserve Bank will be obliged to slow it again with higher interest rates. Indeed, this is exactly the current outlook. Not for a month or a year but permanently.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s economic model, as it stands, is exhausted. This was the second exhausted system confirmed this week when the publication of the national accounts showing annual growth<\/a> of 2.6 per cent was taken as confirmation that interest rates must continue to rise.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Canada<\/a><\/p>\n

The high-growth, high-productivity model that Bob Hawke and Paul Keating gifted Australia a generation and a half ago has run its course. Unless the federal government can snap the economy out of its newly discovered speed limit. The onus is on Treasurer Jim Chalmers to deliver a budget that raises productivity. That\u2019s the key to extracting more growth from existing inputs of labour and capital. And raising the speed limit.<\/p>\n

Chalmers tells us that\u2019s precisely his intention. We\u2019ll see what his prime minister will allow. Memories have faded, but the Hawke-Keating reforms were wrenching and deeply unpopular at the time. They dared to overturn Australian complacency and mediocrity.<\/p>\n

Can Albanese-Chalmers do the same? It\u2019s more than growth at stake; democracy itself is on probation with a generation feeling betrayed. The consolation of Australia\u2019s current economic circumstance is that unemployment remains low<\/a> by historical standards at 4.1 per cent. But that, too, is vulnerable as AI begins to stalk the ranks of professional and service industries.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s evidence of a third exhausted system arrived in Australia in the tidy form of Mark Carney. It was only the second bilateral visit of a Canadian prime minister in 20 years. And he was here solely because of what he has diagnosed as the \u201crupture\u201d of the world order.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Illustration<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada was thought to have one of the most secure positions on the planet as it sheltered under the wing of its mighty southern neighbour. That reversed at the speed of a Truth Social post.<\/p>\n

When Donald Trump laid claim to Canada as a new US state, Canada suddenly was trapped between two global predators \u2013 Russia to its north and an imperial US to its south. Carney, in an urgent quest for new sources of national strength, is scouring the globe.<\/p>\n

His address to the Australian parliament pitched \u201cvariable geometry\u201d, awkward jargon for new coalitions of countries to achieve particular aims.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unlikely that history will record that the era of Pax Americana was followed by the age of \u201cvariable geometry\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat powers can compel,\u201d said Carney, but \u201cmiddle powers can convene.\u201d This is his core prescription, but it reveals the feebleness of middle powers in a world dominated by the three great predators of the US, China and Russia. These great powers can compel while the middle powers can hold meetings. Even as he seeks a new system, Canada remains beholden to the US for its nuclear shield and for its North American Aerospace Defence Command airborne protection. Canada\u2019s defence spending is smaller than Australia\u2019s and one-20th that of the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo remain free,\u201d France\u2019s Emmanuel Macron said this week, \u201cone must be feared, and to be feared, one must be powerful.\u201d Who\u2019s afraid of Canada? Or Australia? Exhausted systems fail. It takes creative, energetic leadership to develop new ones. Best to start yesterday. Failing that, today.<\/p>\n

Peter Hartcher is political and international editor.<\/p>\n

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\"PeterPeter Hartcher<\/a> is political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opinion Peter HartcherPolitical and international editor March 7, 2026 \u2014 5:00am March 7, 2026 \u2014 5:00am Save You…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-523064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}