AUSTRALIA – POLITICS 2021

AT THE SYDNEY INSTITUTE, ON WEDNESDAY 27 JANUARY 2021, FOLLOWING TALKS BY AARON PATRICK AND PARNELL MCGUINNESS ON “AUSTRALIAN POLITICS – 2021” –  SYDNEY INSTITUTE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR GERARD HENDERSON LED THEM IN DISCUSSION OF THE ISSUES RAISED.

Gerard Henderson: Thanks for two very informative papers. Now, I follow Parnell’s position, which I think is yours as well, Aaron, that you’re not into making predictions. But what are the options for an early election, apart from the timing? Let’s start with Parnell – what would be the advantages for going earlier than might be expected? Because, as Aaron points out, the government could go as late as September next year. What would be the advantages of going earlier? What are the disadvantages? And what do you think, Patrick?

Parnell McGuinness: Obviously, the advantage of going earlier is that they’d still have the popularity boost that they have now, that Morrison has gained from managing the COVID pandemic. They would be aware that at some point, as JobKeeper and all of the funding tails off, that popularity is going to take a hit. If they were planning to do that, I would expect to see some subsidies extended in March and a much softer tapering off and, therefore, a much better run up to an early election. This is not a prediction, just a gut feeling that they won’t do it, that there is too much baggage associated with going early. There are too many recent examples of that not turning out well, from Theresa May onwards.

All of the strategists working with Morrison, have seen a number of ways that early elections aren’t successful elections. My feeling is that they will wait until next year. Of course, there is so much that can happen in between that could change everything. As I said, there are so many fights brewing which is why they’re keeping their options open so that they don’t need to make that call. I doubt, frankly, that there is a definite idea of what’s going to happen even within the Coalition at the moment. I think they would be keeping their fingers on the pulse and keeping everything ready, preparing for it, with the assumption that they might press go at any time

Gerard Henderson: Aaron, do advantages outweigh disadvantages in any area here? Or we just don’t know?

Aaron Patrick: They could Gerard. Clearly Morrison is a complete opportunist. And if he sees that there’s a significant change in the political environment, that he’s got a chance he can exploit, I don’t think he would rule it out. I definitely agree with Parnell that we should take Morrison at his word that he wants to go full term and that has the great effect of helping stave off election speculation, which is a distraction to him and the party room.

At the same time, you can see a scenario where, eventually, the Labor Party gets sick of Albanese, decides to overrule its own rules, replace him without the vote of the membership, puts in a young team, and then something goes wrong or pretty quickly the honeymoon doesn’t last. A Chalmers/Plibersek, leadership combination, which I think would be particularly weak, and I assume the Prime Minister’s office has war gamed this already.

I’m not sure who would be in the number one spot, presumably Chalmers, being from the right. But let’s say Labor does that, they get a honeymoon period, the government switches gears in terms of political attack, it finds a point of weakness there to go them and starts running ads saying, “Do you want this left winger and this untested bloke running the country? We’ve given you 10 years of solid leadership?”

Everything changes at this point – the political environment – and the government thinks, okay, we’ll win this easily. There’s no point holding off. Let’s pull the trigger. I can imagine a scenario like that.

Look, I have a different take to Parnell on how COVID will play out, obviously. She’s more sanguine about the political implications of the closed borders than I am. I was really interested to hear her view on that. And that plays into it too. If Parnell’s scenario is right, the political pressure of closed borders is much less acute than the way I’m seeing it. And that really depends upon when do Australians get sick of not being able to travel overseas? Do you have stories about splitting families? I know a family where father is in London and the mother is in Sydney. The father is desperate to see his two daughters. Stories like that could change things. Although, Parnell makes a very strong point that a majority of Australians don’t need to travel overseas. That could prolong the appetite for a border closure.

Gerard Henderson: So you’ve got this issue about the virus, COVID-19, and then divisions within both Labor and the Coalition. By the Coalition I’m talking about the Nationals and the Liberals divisions broadly over climate change. You’ve seen this issue divide the Coalition over what their attitude should be to coal, for example. In the Labor Party there is the different position taken by Joel Fitzgibbon, who as you know is a regional based, prominent Labor figure who used to be a front bencher and is now a backbencher but a very prominent one who is opposed to the mainly city based Labor activists, political activists. How’s that going to work out?

Aaron Patrick: My perception, Gerard, is that the division is more acute in the Labor Party, on the left side of politics. Mainly because the government won the election, in part, because of Labor’s climate policies. And the right of the Labor Party know this, and Joel Fitzgibbon knows this, and he wants to pull back their policy. So, the political problem is much more serious for Labor and they still haven’t reconciled that point.

For me, this is one of the greatest weaknesses in Albanese’s leadership. He’s been unable to bring them to a politically advantageous position on this. It’s incredibly difficult to do. And more difficult for a left winger than a right winger. I remember on election night in 2019, after the polls closed, Penny Wong was saying on television, “This is great. This just shows how the issue of climate change is coming our way.” And she was so wrong.

The really strong pro-coal lobby in the National Party, (Matt Canavan as opposed to Trent Zimmerman) has done a better job at managing the internal debate. He gets a lot of criticism in the media, but Angus Taylor seems to have helped steer the party to a kind of compromise where they say all the right things for a lot of people, which is to accept climate change. The critics have not been able to make the climate skeptic labels stick on them. They’ve neutralised the perception, largely, that they are climate skeptics, which Tony Abbott could never do. At the same time, they’re saying all the right things about we’ve have to go with hydrogen and gas as the transition fuel. They don’t talk about coal, and no one is taking coal into parliament anymore. But they’re not really doing anything. We’re still the world’s second biggest coal exporter, we’re still the world’s largest LNG exporter, and so we should be. I think environment and climate is one of the best examples of why Morrison’s such a successful leader in the way that Abbott and Turnbull weren’t.

Gerard Henderson: So, you’re saying this is about management. Because the division between Mr. Zimmerman and Senator Canavan wouldn’t be any greater than the division between Joel Fitzgibbon and Mark Butler would it, on the Labor side? Except it’s better managed and it’s not so much out in the public.

Parnell McGuinness: Well, as Aaron says, it’s better managed because they’re in government. There’s much more incentive to keep your head down and behave. But, of course, what we saw this morning with Barnaby Joyce writing an op ed in the Australian arguing for building new coal power stations and essentially putting the Coalition, the Nationals Liberal alliance, on the line for it, That could change everything. If Joyce can get enough support in the National Party to carry that through. Clearly, the National Party feels like it’s not being listened to, it’s not being taken along for a ride. They could go back to the Abbott/Turnbull wars which clearly used climate as a weapon to achieve a political end within the party.

Gerard Henderson: But this was said before the last election, wasn’t it? That McCormack, as the Nationals leader and the deputy prime minister was floundering. But, in effect, the Nationals did reasonably well in that election. McCormack did okay. And it wasn’t as bad as his critics thought. The Nationals can’t leave the government because they’ll lose all their ministerial seats. Joyce can say that as a backbencher. But McCormack seems to be holding them together reasonably well.

Aaron Patrick: I don’t see any evidence that the Nationals are imploding under Michael McCormack. What you’ve got here is an ex leader who’s very charismatic and entertaining, versus a current leader who is probably a bit boring. But there’s also something to be said for a boring leader of the National Party, someone who can work well in government, who gets along with the Prime Minister, has a good working relationship with them and is doing most of his work out there in regional Australia as opposed to appearing on 7:30 every second night because he said something that outrages the ABC.

Parnell McGuinness: McCormack isn’t working the media terribly effectively. All of the farmers I’ve spoken to can’t stand him – sorry Michael. And part of the reason is that he doesn’t use Sky very effectively. He doesn’t use those platforms that reach out into the bush terribly effectively. Barnaby still does. Barnaby sort of hits some notes that get those constituents excited. He can get quite a few people interested.  It might not translate into votes because television doesn’t segment by electorates neatly. But he gets a bit of a head of steam on. For some reason or another, McCormack hasn’t quite understood or managed to work out the position that he’s in and use the media available to him to look like an active National Party leader. Because, you’re right, he is effective. In person, he’s incredibly engaging. He is just not very good at the media side of things.

Gerard Henderson: But he held the vote; last time he held the vote.

Parnell McGuinness: That’s right.

Gerard Henderson: So even if all the farmers don’t like him, some of them must be voting for him.

Parnell McGuinness: That’s absolutely right. The farmers, the ones who watch Sky, don’t like him very much. But, sure, his electorate seems to like him just fine. And a lot of women in the National Party like Barnaby Joyce even less.

Aaron Patrick: It’s worth bearing in mind that this government has been pretty good to farmers. This government has thrown money at them through the drought. And they have a very privileged place in the economy. Farming in Australia today is a really lucrative business.

Gerard Henderson: And rural prices are high.

Aaron Patrick: Rural prices are high. There’s about five and a half billion dollars in tax shelters with farm management deposits. They’ve done very well financially during a pandemic. Country Australia is not struggling despite what you might read in the Telegraph.

Parnell McGuinness: It’s struggling to get their money out at a tax rate that they find manageable enough.

Gerard Henderson: But they have nowhere much to go, if they’re alienated. I mean, even if, as you say, many farmers oppose Mr. McCormack, they’ve got nowhere to go, have they? Where would they go?

Aaron Patrick: The Shooters, Farmers and Fishers Party or One Nation, in New South Wales, have made big encroachments. I think the Shooters, Farmers and Fishers have got three seats and One Nation’s got one in the lower house of New South Wales.

Gerard Henderson: And a high profile Mark Latham in the upper house, who’s now moved to Newcastle.

Aaron Patrick: Mark Latham has moved to Newcastle from Camden?

Gerard Henderson: I understand so. Well, that’s where he got a strong vote, in the Hunter Valley, that’s where One Nation got a strong vote in the New South Wales election. So, I understand he’s moved there. He was certainly talking from there last night on Sky News.

Parnell McGuinness: I think Latham’s got the opposite problem. Latham’s too much of a media personality to make an effect with the farmers because there is a large part of the vote, which really just wants people who deal with water or make a difference on very specific issues. They don’t even know what the classifications of the parties are. They don’t know One Nation, or Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, from Nationals. They know the name of the person who helps them out with local issues.

Gerard Henderson: One Nation is strong and Mark Latham is strong, much more in the Hunter Valley with the miners and the families of the miners and related small businesses. Whereas the Farmers, Fishers and Shooters are stronger in the more rural areas. So yes, the Nationals have a problem in New South Wales, but not so much outside of New South Wales. It always is a problem for the main rural party to have someone coming at it from the side with a kind of rural interest. And what about One Nation? That’s making some impact still in Queensland, but not much outside of Queensland?

Aaron Patrick: Well, in New South Wales, Mark Latham has, I think, developed a new model for One Nation. Perhaps we should call it the sensible redneck. He understands how government works and he’s got a good policy brain, and he’s able to engage at quite a sophisticated level on all of the policy issues. He’s also been able to establish some credibility for taking One Nation into areas like education. And he’s been relentless at attacking the Liberal government. He conducted a great publicity stunt recently, where he forced the Legislative Council to go all night debating the energy plan to increase renewable energy significantly in New South Wales, perhaps the most ambitious energy plan at the state level all of Australia. In a sense, Mark Latham has shown just how an individual, charismatic and politically savvy leader can be really important for minor parties. But those people are so few and far between. Clearly, in its federal leadership, One Nation doesn’t have that level of sophistication and hasn’t been able to develop at the state level, either.

Gerard Henderson: Looking at One Nation, it seems likely, both in Queensland with Pauline Hanson and in New South Wales with Mark Latham as the most influential figure, that more of their preferences would go to the Coalition than perhaps was the case with Pauline Hanson twenty years ago. They’re probably more hostile to Labor than they are to Morrison. Does that make sense?

Parnell McGuinness: Theoretically, it does, but it doesn’t always play out like that, from what I’ve seen. I haven’t delved into it deeply. Labor in Queensland is a bit different from Labor in New South Wales. They’re more in tune with providing that alternative. People voting One Nation more and more aren’t just people who are disaffected by Liberals and looking for an alternative. They’re looking for something else entirely. The flip side of that is what we saw around the world before COVID with minor parties picking up votes on the basis that people were looking for an alternative. Today, there’s been a shift away from that, actually even a bit before COVID, there was a move towards the centre again. You see it in Germany, you see it in Australia and certainly in the UK. Though, with Boris Johnson that might reverse again.

Gerard Henderson: Aaron, as you know, the usual focus about the last election and winning the next election turns a lot on Queensland. But in your speech you pointed to northern Tasmania, which a lot of people overlook. Morrison won two seats in northern Tasmania in the last election from Labor. The Liberals probably would have won a third, Lyons, as well as Bass and Braddon, except for a problem with a candidate withdrawing just before the election. Morrison may well hold that base in northern Tasmania. So Labor’s got to win seats in Queensland and in northern Tasmania as well to break through.

Aaron Patrick: This raises a really interesting point, Gerard. Could the next election lead to an increased majority for the government? They would have to hold Queensland, and you could argue they’re at a high watermark there, so that might be more challenging for them. Okay. The other one is, could they pick up an extra seat in northern Tasmania and hold the others. One of the interesting scenarios could be they try and win back Warringah by putting up a far left Liberal candidate, maybe Matt Kean, the state Energy minister. Then you would have a very interesting dynamic where you’re using a combination from the right and from the left to increase your majority. But I agree with you, we shouldn’t make predictions. But you’ve got to consider that as a possible scenario.

Gerard Henderson: Which has Joel Fitzgibbon worried as well, in relation to central New South Wales, that Labor could lose seats there as well.

Aaron Patrick: Then there is Gilmore on the south coast of New South Wales, which Labor won. You had a very messy Coalition campaign with Warren Mundine running there.

Gerard Henderson: And, also, those who ran against him, because you had the Liberals split. You had the Nationals running against Warren Mundine, so you had a complete internal mess, which won’t be there next time.

Aaron Patrick: You did. So, you look at all these different minor regional variances. And if you accept that there isn’t a major political disturbance in terms of the party’s level of support, you can easily see a scenario where Morrison increases his majority, which is what I think the Hawke Government did in its third election victory.

Gerard Henderson: Third election, yes they did. Now, we’re going to finish up fairly soon. Parnell, the Greens have done okay but they haven’t progressed much beyond about 10 per cent of the national vote. They have done okay in the Senate and they’ve got one seat in the Reps. But they probably haven’t done as well as some people would have thought say 10 years ago. How do you see the Greens? Are they stabilising? Can they move forward?

Parnell McGuinness: They’re an absolute disaster. Australian Greens are a joke. In Germany, the Green Party is actually in contention to put up the next Chancellor. There’s talk that they might win enough votes, once Angela Merkel steps down, to achieve some form of coalition and be powerful enough to have the Chancellor candidate. Now, compare that to the Australian Greens who have consistently failed to behave like a party who might at some point win government. They’ve actually moved further away from power, it seems to me, over the last decade, certainly since Bob Brown stepped down. For all Bob Brown’s faults, he was a very dynamic person who knew where the party was going and where he wanted to take it; at least he gave it direction. I don’t believe there’s anybody in the Greens at the moment who has that sort of intellectual heft, let alone that sort of drive or, even, plenty of ambition.

Gerard Henderson: You want to add to that?

Aaron Patrick: I completely agree with Parnell. The Greens are a bit of a threat to Labor’s left in the inner city, particularly in Melbourne. That is probably their greatest political opportunity. If Albanese, or whoever replaces him, can solidify the Labor Party on the right, that creates an open door for the Greens to exploit.

Gerard Henderson: So that would mean a couple of extra seats in the lower house sort of tops?

Aaron Patrick: At best.

Gerard Henderson: At best. So just to conclude on China, not that there’s any answers. The Australian relationship with China. How bad is it? Can it get better? Can it get worse? Let’s start with Parnell.

Parnell McGuinness: It’s a really interesting one at the moment. The Xi Jinping speech to the World Economic Forum yesterday or the day before was a really interesting sort of back down from the strong China approach that he’d been taking. All of a sudden he is casting China as the victim with the West bullying them, the bullying of the strong on the weak and so on.

Of course, there’s a different message internally. But the fact that he has decided to change tack, I found interesting. There might be a small realisation that they’re being pushed hard at the moment, and that if they push back too hard on the West, right now, it won’t come to their advantage, especially if they keep up their bullying act. Mind you, they haven’t changed anything on trade policy with Australia, which is one of the chief ways the relationship manifests itself. But the change in language might be a precursor to some sort of shift in that area. But how long it might last, whether anyone would believe it, who knows. Of course, everybody at the World Economic Forum believes it’s 100 per cent. Whether Australia or any other country would believe China anymore, given its behaviour, is another question entirely.

Gerard Henderson: Aaron?

Aaron Patrick: It strikes me that Australia’s challenge in dealing with China is marrying up its interests versus its values. Clearly, our interest is to have no conflict with China, which requires dealing with an upcoming superpower entailing a degree of putting aside our values as a democratic nation. And democracies like ourselves, struggle, I think, to deal with autocratic countries which don’t respect the rule of law or human rights. And it’s an incredibly challenging relationship to manage because of that. It’s very hard because we have such an important economic relationship with a country which imprisons its own people on a mass scale. I think it’s one for the ethicists more than the political commentators.

Gerard Henderson: Well, since you’ve ruled yourself out of the discussion at this stage, it’s quite a good spot to conclude. Thanks for a stimulating discussion. Well done to Aaron Patrick, well done to Parnell McGuinness. I’m sure you will be back here again. But thanks for starting off 2021 at the Sydney Institute for us.