Albanese Government Need To Lift Their Game
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Let me make one thing clear at the outset of this post, the ALP federal government may be lukewarm in my opinion but the Opposition is no alternative. The Albanese government need to lift their game, as the timidity and treading water approach are beginning to smell of self-preservation. We do not want a government, which is more interested in not offending folk than getting anything progressive done. The Voice rejection was a very disappointing failure for Australia but it is no excuse for ducking the difficult issues facing the nation. Anthony Albanese needs to go watch some footage of former PM Paul Keating and find some backbone real fast.
Albo Must Find His Mettle Along With His Governing Team
Australia requires a progressive leader with the passion and fortitude to tackle the big issues. Albo has been the beneficiary of right timing. If I know one thing in life it is that timing is everything. Bill Shorten knows this too from the underbelly side of the wheel of fortune. If you get the opportunity you need to take your chances because in all likelihood they will not come again. Politics is a brutal game and rarely do leaders hang around for long in the recent renditions of parliament downunder style. One must be up for the fight whether you like it or not.
Stop Talking & Do Something PM!
I have been looking at how the Democrats in government in the US have been tackling ‘greedflation’ within their economy by going after businesses colluding in antitrust activities. I have not seen anything similar here in Australia by the ALP federal government and its agencies. There have been plenty of impotent handwringing and statements by the Treasurer about ‘how tough some Aussies are doing it’ during this cost of living crisis. No actual action to remedy the lack of competition in our sectors, which have stymied consumer power and fostered price gouging. Capitalism does not work if there is no competition and duopolies exist, which favour collusion by the corporate businesses operating to the detriment of the market.
Zombie Neoliberalism Infecting Our Governments
Zombie neoliberalism haunts the halls of power, here in Australia. What is that? It is a rigid belief by governments and civil servants in an economic approach now proven to be outdated and a failure. This approach is based on ‘the market knowing best’ and a limited or non-existent role for government. The privatisation of utilities and services once run directly by government has left gaping holes like the current housing crisis unfilled. The insane residential property price inflation making homes unaffordable for millions of Australians. This is a direct result of market forces unchecked by governments over decades. Governments have become ‘talkfests’ relying on the interests of private companies to actually do something about these existential problems in our cities.
Homeless people living in tents dotted all around our cities because they cannot afford the inflated rents and property prices. How is this a good outcome for all Australians?
The Shrinking Of The Public Good
Neoliberalism has delivered wealth enriching outcomes for some Australians at the expense of the public good. Indeed, the public good has been stripped of assets and shrunk over the recent decades, according to the data. It is a case of the fattest pigs at the trough getting in first and taking all the feed with bugger all left over for the rest of us. Our governments have overseen this from the Howard years on in all their manifestations. Labor and Liberal have embraced the neoliberalism chalice enthusiastically because they don’t actually do anything anymore but make empty speeches and facilitate cosy deals with business to plunder our public good for their private wealth.
Australian Governments Lack Moral Courage
Australians have lost respect for their politicians over this period and a direct correlation may well exist. The ‘user pays’ mentality has taken over our nation, where shared wealth once existed. Everyone is out for their own private aggrandisement. Houses are massively expensive and overpriced in every Australian city. Internationally this is being commented on and seen as what not to do within a nation’s domestic economy. We have created a 2 speed economy; we have gone backwards in terms of equitable living standards for all Australians. An underclass is being fast tracked and the uncivil consequences of this are starting to be felt. Australians have been told for decades to look out economically for number one and their overpriced homes are their castles. Those who have been shafted by neoliberalism and marginalised will take matters into their own hands. History tells us this always happen when societies become grossly unfair and inequitable.
21C Requires Courageous Leadership
The Albanese government need to lift their game. Australians require courageous leadership to take positive action to arrest the imbalance within our domestic economy. It is not enough to sit on your hands and wait the cost of living crisis out. We have far too many duopolies controlling our markets to the detriment of consumers. Businesses have been given open slather by the ACCC and ASIC for too long to build their empires. Some hard pruning is called for immediately because the market will not fix itself. Capitalism does not function properly if there is no competition between businesses servicing markets. The government seems to be ignoring this, as is the RBA. We have neoliberalism celebrated when things are flourishing and socialism when these large corporations fail – and tax payers get to foot the bill as governments bail out Qantas and the players in the airline sector.
These companies never pay back this public money. Qantas turned things around and is now declaring billion dollar plus profits but nothing has been paid back – not a razoo. JobKeeper saw tens of billions of government money pumped into the private sector and very little returned.
“Fresh analysis by the federal Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) found at least $38b went to companies where turnover did not fall below thresholds during the quarter for which they claimed support.”
Slippery Scott Morrison Was A Low Water Mark In Our History
Of course, the previous Morrison federal government was responsible for huge amounts of excess spending to the private sector during the pandemic. The neoliberal mantra is constantly – go private! We saw this with the gutting of the public service and the syphoning off of more tens of billions to PwC and the rest of the ‘consultancy giants’. Apart from the damage done to the public service this substantially reduces transparency in government. Slippery Scott and his cronies pumped up these private partnerships and used them for things like planning Robodebt. Robodebt was the LNP’s ideological attack on half a million Australians – wrongly accusing them of welfare cheating via Centrelink payments. This cost tax payers $1.8 billion in a settled class action on behalf of some of these wronged Aussies. We are still awaiting on any person to be prosecuted for this illegal and morally abhorrent government scheme which ran for 6 years.
Politicians downunder invariably ensure that none of their ilk ever actually bears ultimate responsibility for their actions – even when it costs lives, as it did with Robodebt victims killing themselves in despair.
“Robodebts are debts that were raised between July 2015 and November 2019 under the Income Compliance Program. They were raised using averaged Australian Taxation Office (ATO) income information.
We stopped raising debts using averaged ATO income information as the only evidence from November 2019.”
Anthony Albanese is a good person and has been a healing PM after slippery Scott. However, now is not the time for self-preservation. Get back up on the horse after the Voice fall and ride out hard into much needed progressive new territory. Tackle the domestic economy and reinvigorate our sectors with renewed competition. Cut down a few tall poppies. Take a leaf out of Paul Keating’s book. Fight the Dutton fire with fire. Are you up for the fight Albo?
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
©MidasWord
