I've been thinking a lot lately about how shit Australia's politics is right now. The capture of our politicians and institutions by interest groups (energy policy in this country...), the vacuity of public debate (Q&A...) and our response to longstanding and thoroughly debated policy challenges (tax reform in the last budget...) are leave me feeling a bit depressed.
One thought that has come up during this time is whether we might have ended up in a different sort of politics if Hewson had beaten Keating way back in the 1993 federal election.
Before I go any further, I have to first note that I am biased towards Hewson, and I didn't know him in 1993. I have never read Fightback. Hewson wrote a chapter for an edited volume Robert Breunig and I just put out with Routledge on Hybrid Policies. Hewson is a professor at my school and I've been to a bunch of his lectures and other appearances. His politics nowdays is very similar to my politics. Centrist, liberal, technocratic but with a strong emphasis on democratic accountability. The liberal party's platform in 1993 (namely Fightback) wasn't strictly similar. However, it was a 400+ page document outlining a comprehensive and coherent policy agenda. It was the last such document. Australia barely even has policy agenda's before elections.
Let me get to the thesis: if Hewson had won the 1993 election, it would have been seen as an election based on having better policies. This would have meant an entire political cycle between Labor and Liberal governments was driven by policy debate. Hawke and Keating came to power with a firmly policy-driven campaign and mandate. They remained in power by promoting good policy and convincing the public that their policy ideas were better than those of the opposition. If Hewson had won, both the Liberal and Labor parties might have shifted, semi-permanently, to a view that policy is what wins elections.
Instead, Howard won basically by default because people were sick of Labor and Keating knew it so he overstepped and focused on traditional left-wing cultural issues in his final term. Howard was old and old-school. He did very little policy and did a lot of cultural warfare, empowering Abbott and groups like Pauline Hanson's One Nation. The Labor party's attempt to return to a policy-driven politics with the Rudd and Gillard governments was severely undermined by these individuals. And now Shorten as opposition leader and Turnbull as PM have us locked in a deeply banal politics that is all about media management, small targets and culture wars.
One thought that has come up during this time is whether we might have ended up in a different sort of politics if Hewson had beaten Keating way back in the 1993 federal election.
Before I go any further, I have to first note that I am biased towards Hewson, and I didn't know him in 1993. I have never read Fightback. Hewson wrote a chapter for an edited volume Robert Breunig and I just put out with Routledge on Hybrid Policies. Hewson is a professor at my school and I've been to a bunch of his lectures and other appearances. His politics nowdays is very similar to my politics. Centrist, liberal, technocratic but with a strong emphasis on democratic accountability. The liberal party's platform in 1993 (namely Fightback) wasn't strictly similar. However, it was a 400+ page document outlining a comprehensive and coherent policy agenda. It was the last such document. Australia barely even has policy agenda's before elections.
Let me get to the thesis: if Hewson had won the 1993 election, it would have been seen as an election based on having better policies. This would have meant an entire political cycle between Labor and Liberal governments was driven by policy debate. Hawke and Keating came to power with a firmly policy-driven campaign and mandate. They remained in power by promoting good policy and convincing the public that their policy ideas were better than those of the opposition. If Hewson had won, both the Liberal and Labor parties might have shifted, semi-permanently, to a view that policy is what wins elections.
Instead, Howard won basically by default because people were sick of Labor and Keating knew it so he overstepped and focused on traditional left-wing cultural issues in his final term. Howard was old and old-school. He did very little policy and did a lot of cultural warfare, empowering Abbott and groups like Pauline Hanson's One Nation. The Labor party's attempt to return to a policy-driven politics with the Rudd and Gillard governments was severely undermined by these individuals. And now Shorten as opposition leader and Turnbull as PM have us locked in a deeply banal politics that is all about media management, small targets and culture wars.
Comments
Post a Comment