AUSTRALIA AFTER THE 2022 FEDERAL ELECTION

With the votes still being counted in many seats following the 2022 federal election, The Sydney Institute held a briefing on what might be expected on Wednesday 25 May 2022. Ticky Fullerton – Editor-at-Large at The Australian Business Review  – joined Gerard Henderson, executive director of The Sydney Institute to pose some scenarios. At the time of the event, it was not clear if Teal Independents would have the balance of power in the house of Representatives or even if some Liberal seats challenged by the Teals would hold out. The papers from the event are edited transcripts of the speeches given. Due to illness, Gerard Henderson was a replacement for Paul Kelly.

AUSTRALIA AFTER THE 2022 FEDERAL ELECTION

Gerard Henderson

Without question, the 21 May election represented the greatest change in the Australian political system since the emergence of the two-party system in the years after Federation. I’ve got one general and three specific reflections on the election itself, and then some on what happens after the election.

First, in much of the media coverage on the ABC and The Guardian, what I call the Guardian/ABC Axis, and to a lesser extent Nine Newspapers, there has been scant discussion about the reality facing the new government, led by Anthony Albanese. Namely, the possibility of a serious international downturn due to lingering effects of Covid-19, Russia’s invasion on Ukraine and its impact on world energy supply and price along with the possibility of a world food crisis, due to the inability of Ukraine to export wheat, the current drought in India and the effect of most of the above on international supply chains.

The ABC’s Insiders is presented as one of Australia’s leading current affairs programs. However, due essentially to the decision of its executive producer and presenter, none of the above topics were discussed on the Sunday before or after Saturday’s election. It was as if Australia was unaffected by international security and economic developments. However, these matters are likely to be of more importance than the outcome of last Saturday’s election.

There was also the domestic discussion. On ABC Radio National Saturday Extra on Saturday of the election, Geraldine Doogue, who, along with Stan Grant, are perhaps the ABC’s best interviewers, interviewed Gabrielle Chan of the Guardian Australia and Peter Lewis, whose Essential media poll appears in The Guardian. Again, it was The Guardian/ABC Axis at work.

Peter Lewis had this to say about the Liberal Party after the election: “If you’re going after the uneducated vote, in a nation that’s increasingly becoming educated, that kind of seems to be chasing a narrower market”. So, there you have it. According to Peter Lewis, the current division of Australia is between the educated and the uneducated. Not between those Australians with tertiary qualifications and those without, but between the educated and the uneducated. My father left school at 14, but he was far wiser than quite a few people I know with PhDs on meaningless topics. He could also read, write and do arithmetic, which not everyone can do these days at university.

That was Saturday. On Insiders on Sunday, David Speers interviewed Zoe Daniel, the one-time ABC journalist, a Teal Independent, who defeated Tim Wilson in the affluent seat of Goldstein in Melbourne. The following exchange took place:

David Speers: Climate change – will you be seeking a more ambitious policy than Labor?

Zoe Daniel: Absolutely. I came into this campaign with a stated target of 60 per cent by 2030. People have voted for me based on that and that’s what I will argue for.

Now, David Speers did not ask Zoe Daniel how Australia can reduce emissions by 60 per cent within around eight years. Nor did he ask what the cost of this would be and what the effective carbon price would be if the new member for Goldstein succeeds in her aim. Nor did he contest Ms Daniels’ view that any reasonable person would agree with her on climate change. So, to Peter Lewis, the political contrast is between Australians who are educated and uneducated and to Zoe Daniel it’s between reasonable people and unreasonable people. Which sounds somewhat elitist when you think about it, or perhaps even if you don’t.

Then, on Monday, Patricia Karvelas interviewed Monique Ryan, who likes to be termed “doctor”. Although she is a doctor – and, unlike Dr Norman Swan, she’s a practising doctor. So, Patricia Karvelas interviewed Monique Ryan, the Teal candidate who defeated Josh Frydenberg in the affluent Melbourne seat of Kooyong. The interview took place on Radio National Breakfast. Monique Ryan said that Labor’s target to reduce emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 is “just inadequate”, adding, “we need to move to at least 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030”. Dr Ryan declared that Teal Independents could give the Labor government “advice around the details of policy and facilitate its introduction”. But she did not state and was not asked how Australia could reduce emissions by 60 per cent by 2030 and what would be the price of doing so.

In short, none of the Teal Independents have produced any policy whatsoever on how Australia should further reduce emissions in the lead up to 2030 and beyond that to 2050. The Labor Party has, but the Teal Independents and the Greens haven’t, particularly the Teal Independents. The Greens have got certain views on taxation and the like, sure in the knowledge that they will not form a government any time soon.

Here it is worth reflecting on the German sociologist Max Weber, who once distinguished between democratically elected politicians who exhibited what he called “the ethics of ultimate ends” and those who demonstrated “an ethic of responsibility”. The former were, in his words: “Here I stand, I can do no other” mode – while the latter, in realistic mode, regarded democratic politics as what Weber called “slow boring through hard boards”.

As you know, the count for the current election is not finalised, but it would appear that Labor will have the numbers to govern in its own right in the House of Representatives. A narrow majority but a majority, nevertheless. Around the kind of majority that the Morrison government had after the last election. If the Albanese government falls short of a majority, it should be able to get the support for much of its legislation from three of the Independents who have been re-elected. Namely, Rebekha Sharkie in South Australia, Helen Haines in Northern Victoria and Bob Katter in Queensland.

In other words, it seems likely that Australia has been spared a government that will be dependent on the Greens or the Teal Independents in the House of Representatives. In any event, before the outcome of the election has been determined, Chris Bowen, who is likely to be the Energy Minister in the Albanese government, has declared that Labor will not adopt the Greens proposal of reduction of emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 or that coal and gas be left in the ground.

Labor’s immediate future will turn on how it governs for three years in what is likely to be a difficult economic environment. The Labor governments of Gough Whitlam (December 1972 to November 1975) and Kevin Rudd/Julia Gillard/Kevin Rudd, (November 2007 to September 2013) managed to govern for three years and six years respectively. In the case of Gillard/Rudd, in a minority government. Both governments were afflicted by adverse international economic conditions that essentially emerged after they were elected. The Albanese government, on the other hand, has attained office at a time of already existing concern about the international situation, due primarily to inflation as discussed, along with potential energy and food crises.

The problem facing Prime Minister Albanese is maybe that he has promised too much. For example, in response to a question from Leigh Sales about Labor’s agenda on the special 7:30 program which was run on the Friday before the election, the Prime Minister said: “What I will deliver is what I’m saying we’ll deliver – cheaper childcare, cheaper energy bills, a future made in Australia, end the climate wars, a National Anti-Corruption Commission and move forward with the constitutional recognition of First Nations people with a Voice to Parliament”. This was consistent with Mr Albanese’s commitment to reduce the cost-of-living problems.  It’s a mightily ambitious policy, to be sure, in the current international environment.

The Liberal Party was the least successful in Australia’s most affluent and best educated seats – North Sydney and Mackellar in Sydney, along with Kooyong and Goldstein in Melbourne. It was most successful in Braddon, where it received a positive swing, and Bass, where it held on against the national swing – both in Northern Tasmania. According to the 2016 census – the next one is due shortly – 65 per cent of the North Sydney electorate has a higher educational qualification.

The comparable figures are Mackellar, 54 per cent, on the Sydney Northern Beaches. Kooyong, 61 per cent, in Eastern Melbourne. Goldstein, 58 per cent, on The Bay in Melbourne. Braddon, 38 per cent, and  Bass, 40 per cent in Northern Tasmania. It’s likely that these figures, with respect to the Sydney and Melbourne seats, will increase when the next census comes out.

Voters in wealthy seats with high property values working in the professions and tertiary industry can afford to adopt an ethic of ultimate ends with respect to such matters as emissions reductions. They can pay increasing energy bills and petrol bills with ease and their jobs are not challenged by carbon emissions policies which affect those who work in such carbon dioxide emitting industries and mining, agriculture, manufacturing, transport and timber.

I think it’s unlikely that the Liberal Party will regain such seats as North Sydney and Kooyong until there is a Labor government that happens to preside over a period of economic decline which adversely affects the economic interest of voters in these seats in a significant way. That may or may not occur in the short term. Over the next three years the electoral challenge for the Liberal Party will be to increase its support in suburban and regional Australia among less wealthy and less tertiary educated individuals.

The Liberal Party looked in a dreadful state after its devastating defeats of December 1972, March 1983 and March 2007. But it was back in office in November 1975, March 1996 and September 2013 respectively. Likewise, Labor recovered by 1983 after its disastrous loss under Gough Whitlam’s leadership in 1975.

The Nationals had a good election; they held all their House of Representative seats, although there was a swing against them in some seats. Some Liberal Party operatives believe that its support in metropolitan areas suffered partly as a result of the dislike of the Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce. This may be the case, but the fact is that the Liberal Party cannot form majority government without the support of the Nationals, and the Nationals cannot hold Cabinet positions unless they are part of the government led by a Liberal Party prime minister.

Both parties have no options but to work together, as such successful long term Liberal Party leaders as Robert Menzies, Malcolm Fraser and John Howard understood. Whatever the outcome of the election, it’s likely that the Greens will have the balance of power, or close to the balance of power in the Senate.

I have argued for many years that it makes no sense for the Coalition to preference the Greens over Labor. Particularly those Labor members of a social democratic disposition, who belong to the party’s right-wing faction and strongly support the Australian American alliance along with the right of Israel to exist within secure borders. This makes no sense from an ethic of responsibility point of view.  In this context it’s worth remembering that the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, entered the House of Representatives in 2010, replacing Labor member, Lindsay Tanner, who retired. Bandt entered the House of Representatives on the back of Liberal Party preferences. I don’t think that was a very smart move.

With respect to the Senate, it would make sense for the Coalition to support some government legislation which has been opposed by the Greens and the green-tinged Teal Independents. While indicating, if this is the case, that it opposes such legislation and would reverse it, if necessary, when the Coalition regains office. The less the Greens and the Teal Independent (if David Pocock wins a Senate seat in the ACT) achieve in the Senate, the easier it will be for Australia and for the Coalition when it’s next in government whenever that might be – three, six, nine years, who would know?

In conclusion, the Liberal Party’s worst electoral defeat probably occurred not last Saturday but on the 28 September 1946. Its worst performance occurred in NSW, where the Party was severely divided. It sounds somewhat familiar. What happened was that John Carrick, who had been a prisoner of war of the Japanese during the Second World War, and a very brave and able man, became secretary of the NSW division of the Liberal Party in 1948, and set about healing the party’s internal divisions. He did so very successfully and quickly. On 10 December 1949, the Coalition defeated the Labor Party, led by Ben Chifley, and performed well in NSW.

The result of the 1946 election nearly led – as Anne Henderson points out in her most recent book on Robert Menzies – to Menzies resigning from politics. He didn’t and the Liberal Party prevailed in 1949 in coalition with the Country Party (now the Nationals). It was Robert Menzies who led the Liberal Party to victory in 1949, and it was the very same Robert Menzies who presided over the Liberal Party’s dreadful defeat three years earlier in 1946. I’m not suggesting that Peter Dutton, who is likely to succeed Scott Morrison as Liberal leader with Sussan Ley probably as deputy leader, is a modern-day Menzies. But I am suggesting that political parties can reform after their defeats if there is the will to do so.