Moving Forward: Where To?

Margot Saville is a freelance reporter and contributor to Crikey. After two years as a junior solicitor at Allen Allen & Hemsley, Margot Saville turned to journalism, working at ABC Television, the Nine Network and the Sydney Morning Herald. She is also the author of The Battle for Bennelong: the adventures of Maxine McKew, aged 50 something, about Maxine McKew’s successful bid to win the seat of Bennelong from then-PM John Howard in 2007. Margot Saville addressed The Sydney Institute on 16 September 2010.

MOVING FORWARD – WHERE TO?

MARGOT SAVILLE

When Gerard and Anne kindly asked me to be on this panel tonight my first thought was how safe could it be for a Crikey journalist to appear on the same platform as Glenn Milne? But we seem to be getting on famously.

It’s hard for such a list not to sound like a Hallmark greeting card list.

In order to prepare for tonight’s talk I tried to analyse the topic. It seemed to be a very wide topic. Thoughts crossed my mind of “To where do I think we are moving forward?” and “To where would I like us all to be moving forward?” If it’s the first question, the short answer would have to be, probably not a clue, with a qualifier that anyone who would publicly venture an opinion on this topic is probably brave or foolhardy.

So, would I like us all to be moving forward? Here, I prepared a long list of things that I would like to gain some importance in the new government. Although it’s hard for such a list not to sound like a Hallmark greeting card list. You start at the top with world peace, and no child shall live in poverty, and you end up with no verbal abuse in question time. And there are an awful lot of aspirational statements in between.

Basically, what I would like from the new government is that it works more effectively than the last one. That it is a government that actually passes legislation that reflects some of the policies it was elected for. Although it’s much too early to tell, there were three stories in the media this week which gave me some hope that this aim may actually come true.

A clear majority surveyed also agreed with the decision of the Independent MPs to back Labor to form a minority government, over the Coalition.

The first was Tuesday’s Newspoll in The Australian, which indicated that the primary support for both the Coalition and Labor had dropped, while that for the Greens and the Independent MPs had surged. The conclusion from the Newspoll was that a clear majority surveyed also agreed with the decision of the Independent MPs to back Labor to form a minority government, over the Coalition. Even though these rspondents weren’t hopeful that it would go a full term, but they were quite happy with the result.

As you all know, there had been many predictions during that 17-day hiatus, which seemed to stretch to 18 days as we were listening to Rob Oakeshott, that if we had another election, voters would flock back to the major parties because they preferred certainty in the status quo. This recent Newspoll points to the difficulty of making predictions about the electorate at large. It was an encouraging result in that the people polled had liked the result and were less likely to change things; we therefore had in some form, or some shape, a stable government, however strange it may look.

The Coalition said it was not in favour of new big taxes, but that shouldn’t mean they are not in favour of tax reform to move to something that is profit based.

The other piece of good news I read this week was a story about Clive Palmer urging Tony Abbott to get involved in the parliamentary negotiations for a profit-based mining tax. We all know Clive Palmer is a huge donor to the Coalition, and was one of the most vocal opponents of the mining super profits tax while it was being proposed. But, he was quoted as saying this week that the coalition should get involved to influence the outcome.

Palmer thinks that there really hasn’t been enough debate and that, during the election campaign, politicians were either for the tax or against it as was proposed. The Coalition said it was not in favour of new big taxes, but that shouldn’t mean they are not in favour of tax reform to move to something that is profit based. Palmer thinks now that there should be a broad debate about a profit based tax, and about how the tax system can be used to encourage downstream processing of minerals in Australia.

I was greatly encouraged by that, because I think that’s what you want from your business leaders. If Clive Palmer is using this sort of conciliatory language, and calling for a negotiation about a profits-based tax, that’s a very good sign. And I take back all the bad things I’ve said about him in the past. Including his hair colour – can anyone explain it?

Has anyone heard a word about stopping the boats since election night?

The third piece of really good news was the head of BHP Billiton, Marius Kloppers, who came out yesterday and said he wanted the government to something about climate change, rather than waiting for the rest of the world. In a public address, Kloppers called for a combination of a carbon tax, regulations, land use actions and perhaps a limited trading system.

These statements are a very long way from the brain snapping slogans that we heard in the election like “moving forward” and “stop the boats” and “great big new tax”. Incidentally, has anyone heard a word about stopping the boats since election night? Has anybody heard anybody in public say “stop the boats”? Presumably they’ve stopped.

These pieces of news tell me three things: that the population at large has accepted the new government arrangements; that the business community has accepted it, and is now prepared to work with the new government, however long that may last; and if Marius Kloppers has come out and said we need to do something about climate change then he really should be CEO of the year. I’m hoping that this new political landscape means that more people will think about a role in politics.

I’ll talk now briefly about Tony Windsor and the way he relates to his electorate. A friend of mine who lives in the electorate of Wentworth was discussing with me whether Malcolm Turnbull had the sort of relationship with his electorate that Tony obviously does with the people of Tamworth and Armidale. My friend told me that with Malcolm Turnbull, he thought it was more one-way. He said he received a lot of information from Malcolm and a lot of invitations, but it was all Malcolm Turnbull telling him the elector what Turnbull was doing. And I could only respond that Tony Windsor was quite different.

For years my mother has been banging on to me about Tony Windsor and what a brilliant politician he is.

I happen to know this because Tony Windsor’s number one voter is my mother, who lives in Armidale and has had Tony as a local member for the entire time he’s been there. For years my mother has been banging on to me about Tony Windsor and what a brilliant politician he is. How he sends not just her, but every member of the electorate, very detailed questionnaires on all sorts of topics. Topics like tax policy, budget considerations, foreign policy.

When the mining tax was being proposed, Windsor send out a questionnaire to every single person in his electorate. My mother doesn’t have a computer, so it comes through her mailbox. And if you answer these questionnaires, as she does, you’re then invited onto panels. On the panels you’re asked to give your opinion and my mother’s very opinionated. So she feels a very close connection to Tony Windsor. In fact, since election night, she’s probably convinced she is running the country. But that is a very interesting model for a politician.

I live in a street which is the exact boundary between the electorates of Sydney and Grayndler. We receive electioneering material for both Tanya Plibersek and Anthony Albanese. As a constituent, I have never laid eyes on either of them; they have never doorknocked me, they have never come to a community event – and I have two children, so I go to lots of community events. I have never seen hide nor hair of them. All I receive is, at election time, materials telling me what they’ve done.

So, when talking about the future of politics, we need to be looking at people like Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott. And, instead of sitting back and judging politicians harshly as I often do, we could start to think about politics personally, as a personal choice, and see what we can do. Because I think we’re entering a very exciting new era.