The 2021 Federal Budget confirmed one thing that everyone already knew. In stupendously wealthy Australia, a lack of money is not the barrier to making the future Australia wants. So what is? The Budget laid bare three serious weaknesses in this already broken system.
No creativity or courage for reform. The last major reform by a federal Liberal-National government was the GST, taken to the 1998 election by John Howard and legislated in 1999. Despite broad-based agreement across political lines about major issues holding Australia back, the country has wasted over twenty years without significant reform to address challenges such as First Nations opportunity, women’s equality, aged care and ageing, diabetes, stagnant productivity, a fit-for-purpose tax regime, housing affordability, truth in politics, and climate and energy. After the GST, Australia had to wait until 2013 for the next major reform — the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme by Julia Gillard’s ALP government. The old adage of “never waste a crisis” has fallen by the wayside of the 2021 Federal Budget. It looks more piecemeal than reformist. No wonder the recent Next25 Navigator found that only 34% of Australians say government is taking future generations into account. But, at the 2019 federal election, the voting public narrowly voted against the ALP with its broadranging reform agenda. So, to pick up a theme from the Treasurer’s Budget speech, the public needs to take some responsibility too.
Inability to do two things at once. Where is the plan to bring international students back to Australia (with all the short- and long-term trade, jobs, economic, and cultural value that will generate) while simultaneously maintaining Australia’s enviable record on keeping COVID-19 at bay? When respecting First Nations heritage and culture in everyday life is a major unmet priority for Australians under 30, where is the leadership on a discussion to build fundamental social cohesion and pride in being Australian in the 21st century while also honouring our First Nations, Anglo-Saxon, and multi-cultural history, heritage, and contribution? When caring for our natural environment, plants, and animals is the fourth most important aspiration for Australians and one of the poorest tracking (and particularly for those under 30), where is the plan to tackle the faunal extinction crisis in Australia while also securing jobs and prosperity for young Australians?
Fear trumps vision. The Prime Minister initially downplayed the magnitude of the pandemic and deflected the Federal Government’s responsibility for the national border and quarantine arrangements. With comments like the following the day after the Budget, Morrison now seems intent on scaring the public with the health, job, and economic impacts of COVID-19 rather than making sense of a messy world and setting out a compelling vision and path for Australia’s emergence into an opening world.
“It's about a pandemic, that is what it is about. In a pandemic you have to do what you need to do to save lives and save livelihoods. That's what it is about. That is the enemy here. That is the opposition I'm focussed on. It's the pandemic. Because that is what will rob Australians of their health, it’s what will rob Australians of their jobs and livelihoods. ... I just know the fight we're in — and the fight we're in, and me as Prime Minister I'm in, is to be protecting Australians at this incredibly difficult time.”
It is indicative of short-termism and opportunism that the Liberal-National Coalition, the party of small government and individual responsibility, has embraced the nanny state in a country where taking responsibility for one’s own mistakes is the third most important aspiration for Australians and also one of the worst tracking.
In the absence of the federal Coalition articulating a clear and compelling vision for the nation, it is hard to see the Budget as anything more than a cash splash to satisfy vested interests, buy votes, and stick bandaids over a swathe of festering sores. No wonder only one in five (22%) of us believe politicians act in the public interest and over half of us (52%) are disengaged.
The bigger picture
Stepping back to take a larger view, Australia finds itself in a world that is brittle, anxious, non-linear, and incomprehensible (referred to as BANI). Over two-thirds (70%) of Australians see political leaders as the group with the biggest ability to create change on important issues. In this context, for Australia to succeed over the next 25 years, the two organisations that control Australia’s politics (the Liberal-National Coalition and the ALP) need to articulate visions and plans that are attractive to Australians at large, are consistent with and take us to the future Australia wants, and make sense in the global context — as it actually is, not as they might wish it to be.
Until Australia grasps this nettle, it is hard to see any improvement in the depressing finding from Next25 Navigator that only 39% of us are confident Australia (one of the wealthiest societies on the planet) will be a better country in 5-10 years.