Opposition Undermines the Government

A disturbing element of our political culture in Australia is that oppositions typically work to undermine government rather than offer constructive criticism. I hazard to say that this is not in the best interests of Australia, or democracy in general.

The Carbon Tax issue is replete with examples. Rather than slam dunking that Labour is now following the suggestion of his own party, Abbott prefers instead to undermine voter confidence in the tax. He does this not with insightful, reasonable criticism of aspects of the tax, but with oft-repeated, overly simplistic slogans like ‘The Big New Tax on Everything’ and scare campaigns.

A particular striking example of undermining the government rather than holding it accountable is the Liberal party’s recent attack on an advertising campaign featuring Cate Blanchet spruiking the Tax. They claimed the advertisements were insensitive to Australian Families given that Blanchet is mega-rich.

Leaving aside the fact that Australian households are among the richest in the world, the nauseating problem with this attack is that it is not constructive. It says nothing about the tax itself; implies that households will take huge financial hits even though Garnaut has underlined the tax will be neutral to households; and focuses attention away from a policy debate. The attack’s sole purpose is to vilify the government.

In a country as educated, affluent and laid back as ours, respectful, reasoned, non-sensationalist debate should be the norm. I am thus appalled at the frequency and intensity of juvenile character assassination in our political arena.

A big part of the problem is that both parties and their supporters seem to be under the impression that what is best for the country is uninterrupted governance by their own party. This is ludicrous given the similarity between the parties, and Australia’s historical record of increasing toxicity and corruption the longer parties remain in power. Two recent examples are Howard with work choices (toxic) and NSW Labour’s complete breakdown (corruption).

A related issue is the fact that our parties now care almost entirely about being in power, and not so much about what they are going to do with it.

A democracy without debate is non-functional. To say that we have no debate is a gross exaggeration, but by the same token, to say that we have a poor policy discourse is an understatement. An easy remedy would be for our politicians to respect each other and each other’s policy, and thereby foster well-intentioned, constructive criticism by opposition, of government policy.

A wonderful role model for this is David Cameron, the current leader of the UK conservatives, who during opposition, regularly said things like: “we largely agree with the government’s policy on this matter, though we have some issues with x, y, and z.”

Given that it was his policy not so long ago, I can’t see why Abbott could not engage in similar commentary on the Carbon Tax, thereby increasing the number of informed individuals in our polity, and helping shape a truly efficacious policy.