tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/anthony-albanese-5613/articlesAnthony Albanese – The Conversation2023-11-30T09:58:35Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2189152023-11-30T09:58:35Z2023-11-30T09:58:35ZGrattan on Friday: As Albanese’s fortunes slide, people start to wonder what sort of PM Peter Dutton might make<p>Peter Dutton has his tail up, but he’s being careful to manage expectations. As the opposition celebrates its suddenly improved fortunes, Dutton told the party room this week that inevitably the government would recalibrate over the summer break. </p>
<p>He also said that from the start, the opposition had been determined to chart a course to return to power after a single term. </p>
<p>Even with Labor’s poll slide among its multiple problems, a Dutton government in 2025 looks, as things stand, unlikely – although Labor in minority is being widely canvassed. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, while a few months ago Dutton was considered simply “unelectable”, now that view is more hedged. If the government’s position doesn’t improve substantially, people will take a more serious look at the hard man from Queensland, and speculate about what sort of prime minister he’d make. </p>
<p>As often remarked, Dutton as opposition leader is another Tony Abbott. He is a relentless attacker, a devotee of the politics of negativity. It’s an unattractive style, but it can get the job done. Remember that when Abbott became leader, it seemed a joke. How could he possibly win an election? </p>
<p>Abbott made a success of opposition but failed in government, brought down – in part – by his poor judgement, obsessions and eccentricities (of which the Prince Philip knighthood was just the most bizarre). </p>
<p>Dutton observed, through the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison eras, how not to run the prime ministership. In those years he also gained ministerial experience. After being assistant treasurer in the Howard government, he was initially health minister under Abbott. He then moved to immigration, home affairs, and finally defence. </p>
<p>As health minister, his performance was ordinary. For him, the ministerial green grass was anything to do with national security. </p>
<p>On security matters, Dutton as prime minister would lean in strongly, at home and abroad. But how would that work out in practice? If he inherited the present improved relationship with China, would he maintain or jeopardise it? Would his very arrival in office prejudice it? He certainly would never give China the benefit of any doubt. How would he deal with a Trump presidency? Or a Biden one?</p>
<p>If Dutton won in 2025 he would inherit a batch of economic problems. As Albanese has found, campaigning on the cost of living is easy but doing much to relieve it is not. On economic matters, Dutton presently doesn’t venture far beyond the politics, and his shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has been an ineffective performer. </p>
<p>That brings us to a potential Dutton cabinet. Though public attention is primarily on the leader, the quality of a government is determined to a significant extent by how good its frontbenchers are. </p>
<p>The Hawke government had an exceptional cabinet. Albanese has a mixed bunch, and some of them have recently set Labor back. Dutton’s team is second rate in opposition, which is not a good sign for government. </p>
<p>One of Dutton’s strengths – and preoccupations – as opposition leader has been holding his party together. Scott Morrison was a control and secrecy freak and a self-confessed “bulldozer”. Dutton is regarded as collegial, even by some Liberals who don’t share his views. He looks to John Howard as a model (one Liberal observer describes him as “a student of Howard”) and would probably run an orderly, conventional cabinet system. </p>
<p>Dutton is also pragmatic. This was evident in government when he facilitated (via the idea of a postal vote) resolving the marriage equality issue, regardless of his personal opinion on it. </p>
<p>But – and this is a major problem – he gives no indication of big picture thinking, let alone an ambitious reform agenda. Policy tidbits he has thrown out in budget reply speeches are small and ad hoc. Leading a Liberal party dominated by conservatives, and with many traditional Liberal voters looking to the teals, Dutton has neither the scope nor the personality to appeal to the country as an inspirational leader. </p>
<p>He does, however, know his prime constituency: the financially-stretched families on the outer rings of the cities. How they will judge him at election time remains to be seen. </p>
<p>Labor is putting maximum effort into discrediting Dutton, all the more important as the memory of Morrison starts to dim. Given he’s long been an unpopular and divisive figure, Dutton’s been a relatively easy target, but this might wear a tad thin. </p>
<p>As the election draws nearer, Dutton and his minders look to his image. He appeared on Annabel Crabb’s Kitchen Cabinet and cooked her a seafood chowder, an upmarket potato soup, presumably a riff on the frequent depiction of him as “potato head”. </p>
<p>Eyewear is now a thing in pursuing the prime ministership. Albanese’s new specs received many media mentions. Dutton’s eyesight may or may not have suddenly deteriorated but his appearance has been improved by donning glasses.</p>
<p>Dutton will remain anathema to parts of the electorate. At the state level: in Victoria. At an electorate level: in teal territory. But the ex-cop from Queensland is a strong asset in that state, where the Coalition needs to guard against Labor incursions. </p>
<p>At Tuesday’s Coalition parties meeting, Dutton indicated next year would see the rollout of policy. This will be a massive test for him. He’s suggested the Coalition won’t pursue a “small target” strategy, as Albanese did. But Bill Shorten showed the risks of going big-target. Dutton will presumably seek to position himself somewhere in between. “We will have a bold agenda,” he told the NSW Liberals at the weekend. “People need a reason to vote for us, not just to vote against the Labor Party.”</p>
<p>His policies will be tested on two fronts. Are they attractive to middle and lower-middle Australia? And can they stand up to the assaults the government (and experts) will mount on them? Dutton will need to clear both hurdles to be credible at the election. And on the economic front, he will be facing the formidable skills of Treasurer Jim Chalmers who, one imagines, will be charged with much of the demolition task.</p>
<p>Also challenging will be Dutton’s policy on climate and energy. He wants to exploit Labor’s problems with the energy transition, but can’t afford to appear reactionary on climate. He’s attracted to nuclear power but will need to be cautious in how he puts it on the table. His energy policy must be deliverable, even if he never gets to deliver it. </p>
<p>Assuming Dutton’s hope of just one term in opposition is fanciful, what would happen if he took substantial bark off Albanese at the election, resulting in minority government? </p>
<p>The conventional wisdom is Dutton gets only one chance. If Josh Frydenberg had decided to contest the 2025 election, and returned to parliament, he’d have been next in line. Sussan Ley and others carry their batons, although there is no heir apparent.</p>
<p>But a skilled head kicker can be quite effective against a minority government and Dutton might, just possibly, hold his post, at least for a time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan explains what a government with a so-called ‘unelectable’ hard man at the helm might look like.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130762023-09-07T11:14:11Z2023-09-07T11:14:11ZGrattan on Friday: Transport Minister Catherine King struggles to find a landing strip amid Qatar turbulence<p>A few days ago, the furore over the government’s rejection of Qatar Airways’ bid for more flights into major cities was all about cheaper tickets and additional seats.</p>
<p>Now the issue has doubled back to become, apparently, at least in part about the mistreatment of the Australian women who were hauled off a flight in 2020 and subjected to invasive body searches, after a newborn was found abandoned in Doha Airport. </p>
<p>Five of the women have a legal case on foot. It is back in the Federal Court on Friday for the 21st time.</p>
<p>Transport Minister Catherine King, in yet another attempt to explain, or dodge explaining, her rejection of the Qatar application, said on radio on Thursday morning that the 2020 incident “wasn’t a factor in the decision, but it was certainly context for the decision”. </p>
<p>This is as baffling as most of the other explanations King and other government members have given. Isn’t “context” a “factor”?</p>
<p>Well yes, it seems. Only an hour or so earlier, at a crack-of-dawn news conference at Canberra airport, where she released a green paper on aviation policy, King suggested the 2020 incident was a factor, although “there was no one factor that influenced my decision in relation to the national interest”. She argued: “I don’t think it’s helpful for me to point to any one factor.” </p>
<p>On Thursday night on the ABC, she did spell out some factors – what was happening in the aviation market, capacity coming back into the market, jobs.</p>
<p>While initially it was thought the 2020 incident might have been a reason behind the decision, King had subsequently indicated that it was not, finally settling on this nebulous concept of the “national interest” to justify the government’s stance. </p>
<p>But the 2020 incident has hung there in the background of the controversy. On July 10, the day she made the decision, King wrote to the five women, who had contacted her strongly opposing the additional access, to assure them Qatar was not being considered for more flights. </p>
<p>In their letter the women had said the airline was “not fit to carry passengers around the globe let alone to major Australian airports”. </p>
<p>“When you are considering Qatar Airways’ bid for extra landing rights, we beg you to consider its insensitive and irresponsible treatment of us,” they wrote. “We implore you to instead consider an airline that will uphold human rights.” </p>
<p>On Monday this week, Foreign Minister Penny Wong had a phone conversation with the prime minister of Qatar. </p>
<p>Wong has said that in the call, which she initiated, they discussed bilateral matters, as well as multilateral issues ahead of the United Nations UN General Assembly meeting later in the month. They did discuss the 2020 incident; they did not canvass the flights matter. That seems extraordinary. After all, the Qatar government owns Qatar Airways and flights involve country-to-country agreements.</p>
<p>Could this resurrection of the 2020 incident be one way of seeking to neutralise an issue that has been debated – to the Albanese government’s detriment – in terms of limiting competition? </p>
<p>King insists she made the decision herself. She says she consulted colleagues, whom she doesn’t name. She has fudged when probed about what her department recommended. She said she told Anthony Albanese of the decision before it became public later in July, but stonewalled when pressed in parliament for the date on which she informed the prime minister. </p>
<p>Before the attention focused on King, Albanese was copping the heat, because the decision was seen to be in line with his perceived closeness to former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce (who quit prematurely this week, as part of that airline’s attempt to quell public anger at it). </p>
<p>King, from the left, is one of the longest-serving House of Representative members, having won the Victorian seat of Ballarat in 2001 from the Coalition. She was briefly in the ministry in 2013, at the tail end of the former Labor government. </p>
<p>Transport wouldn’t have been King’s first choice of portfolio. She was shadow health minister (she had a background in health policy) for two terms under Bill Shorten, and looked forward to being health minister after the election Labor thought it would win in 2019. The unexpected loss meant major changes in the frontbench under Albanese, which saw King moved to infrastructure, transport and regional development.</p>
<p>King will survive this imbroglio, but the affair is salutary for the Albanese government. </p>
<p>Much of the trouble over the Qatar decision comes from public anger about Qantas and its poor service and arrogant attitude. The rejection of the Qatar flights, which benefited Qantas, became a lightning rod. The government failed to pick up on the strength of feeling about Qantas – if it had, Albanese might not have appeared with Joyce at the airline’s recent event to back the Voice, including with travel assistance for “yes” campaigners.</p>
<p>The Qatar matter shows the government can’t just expect to fob off questions by invoking generalities such as the “national interest”. It also reaffirms the point that while parliament’s question time is mostly useless, it can on occasion expose the weaknesses of a minister under pressure.</p>
<p>Finally, there is a lesson here about the role of cabinet. King might argue such decisions are “routine” and say she consulted (unspecified) colleagues, but the matter would have been better taken to cabinet. A cabinet discussion can tease out competing arguments for and against a decision, and reinforce a government’s case. In her defence in parliament, King tried to make a virtue of ministerial autonomy, but it doesn’t always serve a government. </p>
<p>Thanks to its own bungling, the government on Tuesday facilitated the Senate setting up an inquiry this week that will do a deep dive into its mishandling of the Qatar affair. </p>
<p>Nationals senate leader Bridget McKenzie proposed the inquiry. The government got the Greens onside to vote against it, by accommodating their push for another inquiry – into the Middle Arm export facility in the Northern Territory. </p>
<p>But it neglected to attempt to peel off other crossbenchers until the very last moment. McKenzie had already done the rounds. On Thursday, the government did manage to tweak the terms of reference to look back into some of the Coalition’s years.</p>
<p>Courtesy of the inquiry, a good deal more is expected to emerge about this imbroglio.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At a crack-of-dawn news conference at Canberra airport, King suggested the 2020 incident was a factor, although “there was no one factor that influenced my decision in relation to the national interest”.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2094902023-07-11T09:34:24Z2023-07-11T09:34:24ZWhat’s behind Australia’s $1 billion defence deal with Germany?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536741/original/file-20230711-25-sl30n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C26%2C5685%2C3961&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kay Nietfeld/DPA/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Early last year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a major historical turning point – a <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/zeiten-when-scholz-needs-to-stop-standing-in-the-way-of-germanys-foreign-policy-turning-point/"><em>zeitenwende</em></a>. </p>
<p>That turning point continues to play out. On the eve of this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania, Berlin and Canberra announced a deal that will send <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-berlin-germany">more than 100 Boxer</a> armoured fighting vehicles from Australia to Germany – not the other way around, as had been the case when Australia bought <a href="http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/Armoured%20Vehicles/leopardph_1.htm">about 100 Leopard tanks in the mid-1970s</a>. </p>
<p>This unique deal, worth more than A$1 billion, is driven by the demands for a <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/helmets-to-jets-germany-beefs-up-dire-military-to-counter-russia-20230214-p5ckfz">rapid German rearmament</a> after the strategic shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Germany doesn’t have adequate military production capacity to meet its suddenly pressing new defence needs. </p>
<p>Prime Minister Anthony Albanese then added to the German deal by declaring an Australian Air Force <a href="https://www.airforce.gov.au/aircraft/e-7a-wedgetail">Boeing E-7A Wedgetail</a> surveillance aircraft would be based at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany for six months, starting in October. </p>
<p>This aircraft will be part of NATO surveillance of the alliance’s <a href="https://ac.nato.int/archive/2022/nato_eAV_air">eastern flank</a>, in particular <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/nato-summit-australian-eyes-inthe-sky-join-fightfor-ukraine/news-story/f89eccf95253a138d1978ae6fcdb9b69">European logistical hubs</a> supporting Ukraine. These could be threatened by air incursions from Russia or Belarus if the war escalates. </p>
<p>The Wedgetail will be able to detect aircraft approaching the Baltic states or Poland in the east. It can then determine their likely intent and whether they are friendly or not. Then, if necessary, an airborne air defence fighter aircraft could be vectored to intercept the intruder. </p>
<p>This task has been carried out by NATO’s E-3 AWACS aircraft, but these planes were bought in the 1980s and have very low reliability. The Wedgetail is only a decade or so old and is much easier to maintain and keep in the air. </p>
<p>With this move, Australia will now share the burden of continual air patrols in Eastern Europe made necessary by the Russian invasion. </p>
<h2>Bringing Germany and Australia closer together</h2>
<p>The Boxer is an <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/project/combat-reconnaissance-vehicle">eight-wheeled armoured vehicle</a> fitted with a 30-millimetre automatic cannon. It is operated by a crew of three and able to carry eight solders in its rear cabin. </p>
<p>The Boxers are built at a facility just outside <a href="https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/97407">Brisbane</a>. In late 2018, the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall won a <a href="https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/defence-procurement-combat-reconnaissance-vehicles-land400-phase2">$4.28 billion contract</a> to build 211 Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles for the Australian Army. As part of the contract, the Australian government mandated Rheinmetall build the majority of the vehicles in Australia. </p>
<p>The new Boxers being built for Germany will be based on the Australian Army’s reconnaissance vehicle design, but <a href="https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2023/apr/2023-04-03-boxer-combat-vehicles-from-australia-for-bundeswehr">given a different name</a>: “heavy weapon carrier infantry”. The first deliveries will be made in 2025. </p>
<p>The Boxer deal helps to bring Germany and Australia closer at a time when Berlin is increasingly interested in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/germany-sends-troops-australia-first-berlin-shifts-focus-indo-pacific-2023-07-10/#:%7E:text=Mais%20said%20up%20to%20240,U.S.%2C%20held%20bi%2Dannually.">Indo-Pacific defence matters</a>. </p>
<p>In 2021, a German warship <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/germany-sends-troops-australia-first-berlin-shifts-focus-indo-pacific-2023-07-10/">visited</a> the northern Indian Ocean and western Pacific in a long deployment, and the following year, the German air force joined in an air defence exercise in Darwin. </p>
<p>In late June, Germany released its first National Security Strategy, which <a href="https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2023/06/germanys-first-ever-national-security-strategy/">called China</a> a “partner, competitor and systemic rival” and observed that competition with China has “increased in the past years”.</p>
<p>And later this month, Germany will <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/germany-sends-troops-australia-first-berlin-shifts-focus-indo-pacific-2023-07-10/">send more than 200 soldiers</a> to participate in the
Talisman Sabre, a large, multinational, military exercise in eastern Australia. It will be the first time Germany participates in the drills. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-nato-expanding-its-reach-to-the-asia-pacific-region-209140">Why is NATO expanding its reach to the Asia-Pacific region?</a>
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<h2>Why the deal matters to both countries</h2>
<p>The Boxer deal is also appealing domestically to both leaders. </p>
<p>For Scholz, buying vehicles from the factory of a German arms manufacturer in Australia is more attractive than buying US-made arms. Moreover, the deal would seem pivotal in ensuring Rheinmetall Defence Australia is <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/project/land-combat-vehicle-system-infantry-fighting-vehicle">now chosen</a> over South Korea’s Hanwha to build <a href="https://www.australiandefence.com.au/defence/budget-policy/unpacking-the-defence-strategic-review">129 new Infantry Fighting Vehicles</a> for the Australian Defence Force (ADF). </p>
<p>For Albanese, the Boxer deal is one of Australia’s <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/australia-agrees-to-near-record-german-defense-deal-/7174076.html">largest defence export orders ever</a>, which will create hundreds of jobs. </p>
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<p>It will also ameliorate some <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/dsr-slow-unfunded-vague-australias-defence-industry-warns/news-story/24580aa376cc63912fbb1008126c0946">dissatisfaction</a> in the defence industry over the recent <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/defence-strategic-review">Defence Strategic Review</a>. Of note, the review saw no place for vehicles like the Boxer in the Australian Defence Force of the future, and certainly not in local production. </p>
<p>However, the deal will have some direct effects on the defence force in the short term. Fulfilling the German order will probably delay Boxer deliveries to the ADF at a time when quickly increasing its capabilities is considered important. </p>
<p>Moreover, sending a surveillance aircraft to Europe will take it away from Australia’s area of principal strategic interest. However, the Ramstein air base is a very large American facility, so this move will also help support the burgeoning Australia-US military alliance. </p>
<p>Australia was Boeing’s first customer for the Wedgetail aircraft in the early 2000s. Some will hope NATO will <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2023/02/nato-begins-assessment-of-e-3a-replacement-wedgetail-globaleye-in-the-running/">now look favourably</a> at also buying them from the US. This could help lower the overall operating costs of the fleet. Larger fleets gain economies of scale and reduce individual maintenance costs. </p>
<h2>Could more deals be forthcoming?</h2>
<p>These deals were announced even before the NATO summit, so could there be more to come? </p>
<p>Australia is <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/retired-raaf-fighter-jets-could-be-sent-to-ukraine-20230605-p5de0h">reportedly in negotiations</a> to potentially give up to 41 old Hornet fighter jets to Ukraine. Ukraine is <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraines-ambassador-confirms-interest-in-australias-f-a-18-hornets">apparently interested</a> in the retired jets, if perhaps only to spur others into gifting it a much larger number of F-16s. </p>
<p>This is all somewhat missing the forest for the trees, however. Russia’s war has now dragged on past the 500-day mark. It is reasonable to assume Ukraine will need more support from NATO and its allies. And as the war drags on, it is diverting attention away from the Indo-Pacific, where Australia’s core geostrategic focus lies. </p>
<p>But Australia will remain on the hook for more aid until the war ends. Boxers and Wedgetails are fine in their own way, but the main game remains defeating Russia and driving it out of Ukraine. With that, the historical turning point would be complete. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-is-not-giving-ukraine-the-military-support-it-needs-sending-our-retired-jets-would-be-a-start-208570">Australia is not giving Ukraine the military support it needs – sending our retired jets would be a start</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Layton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The major deal for Boxer armored fighting vehicles matters to both Australia and Germany individually – and also to the countries’ growing relationship.Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064132023-05-25T10:29:47Z2023-05-25T10:29:47ZGrattan on Friday: Labor’s national conference looms but the party’s rank and file has lost its bite<p>Stuart Robert, one of the ministers involved in the notorious Robodebt scheme, can anticipate some sharp criticism when the royal commission’s findings come. Robert won’t be able to avoid the flak, but he has made sure he is out of parliament before it lands. </p>
<p>The commission’s report is due early July; on July 15 voters in Robert’s Gold Coast seat of Fadden go to the polls in the byelection to choose his replacement. </p>
<p>Labor has yet to say whether it will contest the seat Robert held on a comfortable 10.6% margin, after a 3.5% swing against him on the two-party vote. </p>
<p>There are arguments both ways. After seizing the Victorian seat of Aston from the Liberals in April, there’s the smell of blood. Even in these volatile times the government doesn’t think it could “do an Aston” in Fadden, but a swing to Labor could further wound Peter Dutton.</p>
<p>But Queensland – Dutton’s home state – is hard going for Labor. A swing against the ALP would be a (minor) setback for the government and a morale boost for the Liberals. </p>
<p>It might also be seen as sending a message against the Queensland Labor government, which has lost its pandemic shine and faces an election next year. </p>
<p>A month after the byelection, the Labor Party will hold its national conference in Brisbane on August 17-19. Coincidentally, the venue is in the electorate of Griffith, which Labor lost to the Greens in 2022. </p>
<p>This will be the first face-to-face national conference in five years (a virtual conference, which didn’t amount to much, was held in 2021). </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-labors-julian-hill-on-employment-ai-julian-assange-and-tiktok-206399">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Labor's Julian Hill on employment, AI, Julian Assange and TikTok</a>
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<p>While some state delegations are still being chosen and so the numbers remain uncertain, the conference might possibly be the first in recent times where the left has the numbers. </p>
<p>But the notions of “left” and “right” don’t mean a lot in today’s Labor, except as groupings to dole out preselections, frontbench representation and other spoils. </p>
<p>Journalist Michael Pascoe, writing in the New Daily this week and focusing on the parliamentary party, declared: “Mr Albanese, the former leader of the left, has effectively abolished it.” </p>
<p>Most notably, a prime minister from the left has delivered the former Coalition government’s AUKUS deal, with hardly a murmur from that faction. </p>
<p>In a twist on how the story might have gone in earlier times, the most vocal criticisms of AUKUS and the implications of the submarine deal have come from two major figures from the right, former PM Paul Keating and former foreign minister Bob Carr. </p>
<p>Attacking AUKUS, Keating said he expected the issue would mobilise ALP branch members. Certainly one would anticipate that AUKUS and the submarines will trigger one of the more spirited debates at the Brisbane conference, including about the storage of the nuclear waste. </p>
<p>In the end, of course, AUKUS and whatever other contentious issues arise at the conference will be squared away. The government’s boat won’t be rocked. The leadership will not be embarrassed. </p>
<p>The conference might see an undercurrent of tensions between the pragmatists and those who would like the government to move faster on a progressive agenda, but the pragmatists will carry the day. The Albanese narrative of caution in the first term to win a second and hopefully a third is baked in. </p>
<p>Once, Labor national conferences set prescriptive platforms, although the timing of implementation was a matter for the caucus, which meant a Labor cabinet. </p>
<p>Victories came after struggles. In the early days of the Hawke government, then treasurer Paul Keating had to fight at the 1984 national conference to get approval for the entry of foreign banks into Australia. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-on-the-voice-the-quad-and-indian-pm-modis-visit-206305">Word from The Hill: On the Voice, the Quad, and Indian PM Modi's visit</a>
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<p>Before that conference a senior journalist, David Solomon, had written: “The party conference is the only real threat facing Prime Minister Robert Hawke and his government. The government has a huge lead in public opinion polls [..] Mr Hawke has an unprecedented 70 percent personal popularity in the polls. But the Labor Party requires its politicians to be responsive to the policies of its rank and file.”</p>
<p>The Hawke government had already defied the platform, in particular on floating the dollar, but by and large acknowledged the conference’s authority and the need to win its approval.</p>
<p>For instance, that government took plans for airline privatisation to a special national conference in 1990. Such a course would be unthinkable now. </p>
<p>These days the national conference, which is a mass affair of some 400 delegates, is more or less a toothless tiger. Even tigers without teeth have to be managed, however, and there’ll be a good deal of work behind the scenes to keep things as smooth as practicable in Brisbane. </p>
<p>The government’s aim will be to control issues at the conference as meticulously as it does in the caucus (despite the recent stirring on a couple of specific matters) and in Labor’s presentations in the public arena. </p>
<p>There is one issue, however, where the government is at risk of losing control. Not at the national conference, where there will be furious agreement, but in the electorate, which is far more serious. </p>
<p>That issue is the Voice to Parliament. While it is too early for the government to panic about the decline in support for the “yes” vote in some polling, it should be worried about the turn the debate is taking. </p>
<p>For Indigenous leaders to engage in personal attacks, as Noel Pearson did against Mick Gooda (both on the “yes” side), is neither respectful nor tactically wise. </p>
<p>For assistant minister Malarndirri McCarthy to be drawn into a shouting match at Senate estimates with maverick crossbencher Lidia Thorpe was to fall into a trap. </p>
<p>The further descent into claims about racism could be harmful for the “yes” case. Peter Dutton, in his speech to this week’s House of Representatives debate on the referendum legislation, used as one of his arguments against the Voice that it would “re-racialise” the nation. Anthony Albanese, in his contribution on Thursday, denounced Dutton’s speech as “simply unworthy of the alternative prime minister of this nation”.</p>
<p>There’s been a lot of talk about Albanese trying to get the Voice passed on “the vibe”, something he has been criticised for by those who say the detail is what should matter.</p>
<p>But “the vibe” is actually important in the effort to secure the referendum’s passage. That “vibe” encompasses fairness, doing the right thing by First Australians, the prospect of progress on closing the gap, a body that’s seen as unthreatening. </p>
<p>“The vibe” leaves voters feeling comfortable with the “yes” case.</p>
<p>Once the Liberals (preceded by the Nationals) decided to fight the Voice, the vibe was delivered a major blow. Now it is being undermined further as the debate gets rougher. </p>
<p>The referendum is far from doomed, but it is in a dangerous place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Labor Party will hold its national conference in Brisbane. Coincidentally, the venue is in the electorate of Griffith, which Labor lost to the Greens in 2022Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029542023-03-30T09:08:34Z2023-03-30T09:08:34ZGrattan on Friday: We need more tax revenue, but don’t ask the major parties how we’ll get it<p>Teal candidates again fell short in the NSW election. Only one who was so labelled was successful, and she rejects the terminology. This followed the Victorian state election in which no teal won. </p>
<p>Inevitably, the two state polls raise the question of whether the teal phenomenon, which saw six win federally last May, was such a product of special circumstances that the balloon might now have burst. </p>
<p>The story is likely to be more complicated. </p>
<p>The federal teals’ campaigns were awash with money – different laws at state level limited resources available to them, even though Climate 200 continued to help. In NSW, optional preferential voting also worked against them. </p>
<p>The specific issues driving the federal teals’ wins (climate change, integrity, women’s equality) were particularly intense in 2022, and the anti-Morrison factor was huge. </p>
<p>When the federal teals seek re-election, there will be no Morrison factor.
But the benefits of incumbency will work for them, as will the general and continued disillusionment with the major parties, which means many voters are looking favourably on independent alternatives. </p>
<p>While the changed electoral scene in 2025 (compared to 2022) could make it harder for new teal candidates to win, so might an overhaul of the electoral funding regime. </p>
<p>If, for example, Labor decided to cap candidates’ spending, which would be desirable to stop the financial arms race we now see in elections, that would harm teal candidates struggling for name recognition. On the other hand, given the teal movement, directed at Liberal seats, has benefited Labor, the federal government might keep its changes modest. </p>
<p>The federal teals, although they liaise and collaborate, are not one bloc, and their parliamentary votes have shown they are ideologically diverse. Labor’s lower house majority has meant they do not, to their disappointment, hold the balance of power there. </p>
<p>But they are proving adept at using the forums provided by parliament, making a contrast with many backbenchers from the major parties who, although they might do admirable work in their electorates and sometimes on committees, give the impression of being just numbers in their respective parties. Serious policy discussions in the Labor caucus or the Coalition party room are rare.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/former-treasury-head-ken-henry-says-we-need-big-bang-tax-reform-rather-than-incremental-change-201962">Former treasury head Ken Henry says we need 'big bang' tax reform rather than incremental change</a>
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<p>The backbenchers in the government and opposition are at their worst in the House of Representatives question time, which continues to be as uninformative as ever. </p>
<p>This government (like its predecessor) uses question time to parade what it is doing, with endless so-called Dorothy Dixers, which must be embarrassing to ask. Apart from questions on the Voice, the opposition asks variations on a common range of questions about cost of living, energy prices and the like, often with a slogan attached – “why do Australian families always pay more under Labor?” </p>
<p>The Coalition questions are predictable and repetitive so the prime minister and practised senior ministers have little trouble batting them away. In the last parliament, question time was frequently painful for the Morrison government; in this parliament, it is seldom difficult for the Albanese government.</p>
<p>Rarely does the opposition produce anything from its own independent research with which to surprise a potentially vulnerable minister. Nor does it effectively use question time to extract information. </p>
<p>Crossbenchers (not just teals) do seriously probe for information and sometimes test ministers. </p>
<p>Question time is frustrating, when you think what it could be. But a much more important fault in current federal politics is this: despite the general recognition that big economic reforms are needed, neither government nor opposition dares go there. </p>
<p>Taxation is the standout example. Over the coming years, total tax will have to increase if we continue to want the services from government we are demanding.</p>
<p>Some 59 leading economists were asked, in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/inheritance-taxes-resource-taxes-and-an-attack-on-negative-gearing-how-top-economists-would-raise-20-billion-per-year-202630">survey</a> by the Economic Society of Australia and The Conversation, for ways to find an extra $20 billion a year. They nominated new or increased land taxes, increased resources tax, winding back negative gearing, and broadening the GST as their top four options. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-trimming-the-tail-of-the-superannuation-tax-tiger-is-no-easy-task-200996">Grattan on Friday: Trimming the tail of the superannuation tax tiger is no easy task</a>
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<p>The Albanese government is hamstrung by its election promise to not increase taxes (apart from cracking down on multi-nationals’ tax avoidance). That’s for this term, but its narrow majority is likely to make Labor wary at the next election of bold tax reform promises. </p>
<p>One way of tackling the issue would be to have a comprehensive inquiry into the tax system, but treasurer Jim Chalmers has made it clear he doesn’t want one. Chalmers was a staffer to then treasurer Wayne Swan when the Henry tax inquiry was held and is seared by the experience – the aftermath didn’t go well for Labor. </p>
<p>Nor can we expect the opposition to lead the way on tax. The risks of being a big target are obvious. John Howard, having lived through the disaster of the Coalition under John Hewson offering major reform with its “Fightback” program at the 1993 election, pledged before the 1996 election “never ever” to introduce a GST, only to reverse that after he won government (and nearly lost the subsequent election). </p>
<p>Small target is today’s fashion, the road to power for Anthony Albanese and Chris Minns.</p>
<p>Teal crossbencher Allegra Spender is free of responsibility for a party, although she does have an eye on what the constituents in her Sydney electorate of Wentworth want her to do. She judges them open to a policy discussion about tax. </p>
<p>Spender on Friday hosts a roundtable on the tax system, to which she has attracted a who’s who of experts, including former treasury secretary Ken Henry (of THAT review) and Grattan Institute executive director Danielle Wood. </p>
<p>In her speech to the roundtable, Wood will say: “Australia’s tax system is failing us as a nation. It fails us because it cannot deliver the revenue we need to fund the services we expect. Australia has a revenue problem. Without policy change, we only have two solutions: let budget deficits grow ever larger, or continue to push up taxes on labour income.</p>
<p>"This is uncharted territory for tax reform: we need changes to the system that both boost revenue and improve the efficiency of tax collections. There is simply no opportunity to ‘buy reform’ through overly generous compensation packages – we need to raise more and we need to raise it smarter.”</p>
<p>At least roundtables like Spender’s provide an airing for initiatives that we should be considering. It’s just unfortunate the leading politicians in the major parties are not the ones giving them ventilation, let alone support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government is hamstrung by its election promise to not raise taxes or bring in new ones. That’s for this term, but its narrow majority is likely to make Labor wary at the next election of bold tax reform promises.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1964782022-12-19T01:23:57Z2022-12-19T01:23:57ZLabor just ahead in two Queensland polls and retains large federal poll lead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501756/original/file-20221219-19-w6i3s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darren England/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/12/12/yougov-50-50-in-queensland-2/">Poll Bludger</a> reported on two Queensland polls on December 12. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted December 1-8 from a sample of 1,000, had a 50-50 tie, unchanged since June. Primary votes were 38% LNP (steady), 34% Labor (steady), 13% Greens (down one), 11% One Nation (up one) and 4% for all Others (steady).</p>
<p>Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had a 41% disapproval rating (up two) and a 40% approval (down five), for a net approval of -1, down seven points. LNP leader David Crisafilli had a 31-27 approval rating (31-23 in June). Palaszczuk’s lead as preferred premier slipped to 39-28 from 41-28 in June.</p>
<p>Analyst <a href="https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2022/12/mid-term-queensland-polling-and.html">Kevin Bonham</a> strongly criticised The Courier Mail for the anti-Labor slant they put on this poll.</p>
<p>The first <a href="https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/palaszczuk-labor-still-favoured-by-voters-at-political-halfway-mark-20221212-p5c5k3.html">Resolve Queensland state poll</a>, conducted from August to December from a sample of 924 for The Brisbane Times, gave Labor 37% of the primary vote, the LNP 35%, the Greens 11%, One Nation 6%, independents 7% and others 4%.</p>
<p>Resolve does not give two party estimates until close to elections, but Bonham estimated this poll would be 53-47 to Labor. This Queensland poll was presumably conducted with the five federal Resolve polls from August to December.</p>
<p>Asked whether they held positive, neutral or negative views of the leaders or were unfamiliar with them, Palaszczuk had a 39-31 positive rating and Crisafulli a 23-15 positive rating. Palaszczuk led as preferred premier by 42-30.</p>
<p>The next Queensland election is not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Queensland_state_election">until October 2024</a>. Currently Labor appears to be just ahead, and Bonham thinks Labor would be likely to hold onto enough seats to form government with a 50-50 two party tie. </p>
<p>By the 2024 election, Labor will have held power since the January 2015 election, so there’s time for the polling to worsen for Labor. But Victorian Labor just retained government after eight years in power with 56 of the 88 lower house seats, up one since the 2018 election.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/final-victorian-election-results-how-would-upper-house-look-using-the-senate-system-196291">Final Victorian election results: how would upper house look using the Senate system?</a>
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<h2>NSW Resolve poll on cashless gaming card</h2>
<p>The New South Wales state election is in March 2023. We have been getting NSW voting intentions after every second federal Resolve poll. The last voting intentions was in <a href="https://theconversation.com/victorian-newspoll-has-labors-lead-down-but-would-still-win-with-three-weeks-until-election-193825">early November</a>, and there’s only been one federal Resolve poll since. I don’t expect NSW voting intentions until after the next federal Resolve poll.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/voters-back-strong-action-on-pokies-as-60-percent-support-cashless-gaming-card-20221206-p5c425.html">NSW Resolve poll</a> for The Sydney Morning Herald, presumably conducted with just the federal December Resolve poll, had voters supporting a mandatory cashless gaming card by 62-16. However, the question wording included arguments in favour of the cashless gaming card, but none against.</p>
<p>If the cashless gaming card were to go ahead, 32% wanted it introduced immediately for all gamblers, 24% to have a voluntary trial of the card statewide and 19% a mandatory trial in specific areas.</p>
<p>By 47-28, voters thought pubs and clubs have been poor instead of good on problem gambling. By 30-26, voters trusted Labor and Chris Minns over the Liberals and Dominic Perrottet to get the right outcome on gambling reforms.</p>
<h2>Federal polls: Essential and Morgan</h2>
<p>In last week’s <a href="https://essentialreport.com.au/reports/federal-political-insights">federal Essential poll</a>, Labor led by 51-44 on Essential’s two party measure that includes undecided (51-43 in <a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-retains-big-lead-in-newspoll-as-albaneses-ratings-jump-victorian-election-update-195440">late November</a>). Primary votes were 35% Labor (up two), 30% Coalition (down one), 13% Greens (steady), 17% for all Others (steady) and 5% undecided (down one). Respondent allocated preferences were friendly for the Coalition.</p>
<p>In other findings from <a href="https://essentialreport.com.au/reports/13-december-2022">this poll</a> of 1,042 respondents conducted in the days before December 13, Anthony Albanese’s ratings were unchanged since November at 60-27 approval (net +33). An Indigenous Voice to parliament was supported by a 63-37 margin (65-35 in August).</p>
<p>Probably due to the change in federal government, 2022 was considered a good year for trade unions over a bad year by a net +13, up from -13 in 2021. Small business was up from -45 to -25 in 2022, after the end of COVID lockdowns. The Australian economy had a net -27 rating in 2022, down one point on 2021.</p>
<p>Thinking about 2023, 40% thought it would be better for Australia than 2022, 25% no difference and 24% worse. On economic indicators, 78-80% expected the cost of living, energy prices and interest rates to be up in the year ahead, while 43% expected unemployment to be up, 30% about the same and 18% down.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/weekly-update-december-13-2022-consumer-confidence-inflation-expectations-unemployment">Morgan federal poll</a>, conducted December 5-11, gave Labor a 56.5-53.5 lead, a two-point gain for Labor since the previous week. Morgan’s polls have been better for the Coalition than others since the May election. This is Labor’s highest two party vote in Morgan polls since the election.</p>
<h2>US Senator Kyrsten Sinema switches from Democrat to independent</h2>
<p>Shortly after United States Democrats won the December 6 <a href="https://theconversation.com/resolve-poll-gives-labor-huge-lead-us-democrats-win-georgia-senate-runoff-196047">Georgia Senate runoff</a> election to seal a 51-49 federal Senate majority, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/democratic-sen-kyrsten-sinema-switches-to-independent/4a61b6ad-5af1-4415-a299-14c67ee3d68d">defected from the Democrats</a> to become an independent.</p>
<p>I have not seen any polls of Arizona conducted since Sinema defected, but <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/09/kyrsten-sinema-approval-rating-equally-unpopular-everyone.html">Slate reported</a> on a September poll that showed Sinema was unpopular with all Arizona demographics sampled. Sinema was at net -17 overall, net -20 with Democrats and net -18 with Republicans. She performed better with independent voters, but was still at net -10 with them.</p>
<p>Sinema is up for re-election in November 2024. Democrats are likely to run their own candidate against Sinema and a Republican. I do not know which side she will take most votes from, but it’s very unlikely Sinema will win given her unpopularity across the board.</p>
<p>Republicans’ worse than expected performance at the US midterm elections has resulted in some polls of the <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/">Republican presidential nomination</a> in 2024 showing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis now leading former president Donald Trump, although Trump still leads in others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With an election due in October 2024, Queenslanders still favour the incumbent Palaszczuk government.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1867122022-07-13T15:01:57Z2022-07-13T15:01:57ZAs China flexes its muscles in the Indo-Pacific, Canada and Australia must step up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473619/original/file-20220712-27-hledk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3872%2C2567&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activists hold slogans as they protest against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea outside the Chinese consulate in Makati, Philippines in November 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Aaron Favila)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Neither Canada nor Australia currently has a comprehensive strategy for the Indo-Pacific region. But it’s essential that both develop one given the rapidly evolving environment in the area. </p>
<p>First, NATO recognized <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_196951.htm">the importance of the region at its June 2022 summit in Madrid, and second, it named</a> the People’s Republic of China as a challenge to the alliance’s interests, security and values.</p>
<p>Canada is a NATO member, and Australia is an “<a href="https://theconversation.com/china-russia-and-climate-change-why-australias-place-at-the-nato-summit-was-so-important-185588">enhanced opportunities partner</a>” along with Japan, Korea and New Zealand. How middle-power countries like Canada and Australia respond to these challenges and contribute to NATO’s new “<a href="https://www.nato.int/strategic-concept/index.html">Strategic Concept</a>” — the alliance’s plan to deal with ongoing risks — will be vital. </p>
<p>Both countries have relied to date on news releases, ministerial statements and readouts to convey their approach to the Indo-Pacific. Now they must map out more authoritative and detailed Indo-Pacific strategies.</p>
<h2>Military muscle flexing</h2>
<p>Indo-Pacific nations have been watching with concern as North Korea <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/north-korean-missile-tests">dramatically increased</a> its missile testing. Chinese aggression has also intensified in the South China and East China Seas, <a href="https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/fighting-over-fish-in-the-south-china-sea/">including over-fishing</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-17/china-launches-fujian-aircraft-carrier/101162552">military muscle-flexing</a>. </p>
<p>In late May, in separate locations, Chinese fighters <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/07/a-dangerous-act-how-a-chinese-fighter-jet-intercepted-an-raaf-aircraft-and-what-happens-next">aggressively intercepted</a> Australian and Canadian maritime patrol aircraft in the western Pacific.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473621/original/file-20220712-31833-2bvded.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A combo photo shows an artificial island with just a few structures on it, and the same island almost 25 years later with what appears to be a military base on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473621/original/file-20220712-31833-2bvded.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473621/original/file-20220712-31833-2bvded.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473621/original/file-20220712-31833-2bvded.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473621/original/file-20220712-31833-2bvded.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473621/original/file-20220712-31833-2bvded.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473621/original/file-20220712-31833-2bvded.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473621/original/file-20220712-31833-2bvded.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">This combo photo shows the same Chinese structures on an man-made island in February 1999, top, and March 2022 in a disputed area of the South China Sea. China once said it had no plans to build military bases on the island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photos/Aaron Favila)</span></span>
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<p>China has also made its intentions in the South Pacific clear by announcing a supposed security agreement with the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/solomon-islands-prime-minister-manasseh-sogavare-thanks-china-refuses-to-answer-questions-from-australian-press/">Solomon Islands</a> and attempting to co-ordinate a new region-wide security arrangement, including policing and cybersecurity. </p>
<p>Although the security arrangement wasn’t accepted by the <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/chinas-real-ambitions-for-the-south-pacific/">Pacific Islands Forum</a>, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-27/china-pushes-for-pacific-foreign-ministers-meeting/101186148%22%22">declared its determination</a> to continue to pursue these goals. The U.S. is <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-12/us-kamala-harris-to-appear-at-pacific-islands-forum-fiji/101229858">becoming more engaged</a> as a response.</p>
<p>Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong recently referred to “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-07/penny-wong-calls-for-china-to-use-influence-on-russia-to-end-war/101214956">strategic equilibrium</a>” when calling on China to show restraint in its dealings with smaller countries, and to use its influence over Russia to end the war in Ukraine. </p>
<p>At the same time, countries that have experienced <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/beijing-suffers-major-loss-its-hostage-diplomacy">Beijing’s trade coercion and hostage diplomacy</a> are now seeking to <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/news/media-release/launch-indo-pacific-economic-framework-prosperity-ipef-joint-statement">deepen relations with countries other than China</a> in the Indo-Pacific region.</p>
<h2>Australian, Canadian policy</h2>
<p>Against this backdrop, it’s surprising that neither Canada nor Australia has a comprehensive, coherent and up-to-date Indo-Pacific strategy. </p>
<p>Australia’s approach is based on an amalgam of policies, including a <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/2017-foreign-policy-white-paper.pdf">2017 foreign policy white paper</a> that has a section referring to the <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/minisite/static/4ca0813c-585e-4fe1-86eb-de665e65001a/fpwhitepaper/foreign-policy-white-paper/chapter-three-stable-and-prosperous-indo-pacific/indo-pacific.html%22%22">Indo-Pacific</a>, a <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-11/Factsheet_Strategic_Update.pdf">2020 Defence Department update</a> and various ministerial <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/joint-communique-indonesia-australia-annual-leaders-meeting">announcements</a> and <a href="https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/media-centre/labors-plan-for-a-stronger-pacific-family">news releases</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A grey-haired man in glasses points as he walks into a summit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473623/original/file-20220712-16-pw3km1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473623/original/file-20220712-16-pw3km1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473623/original/file-20220712-16-pw3km1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473623/original/file-20220712-16-pw3km1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473623/original/file-20220712-16-pw3km1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473623/original/file-20220712-16-pw3km1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473623/original/file-20220712-16-pw3km1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrives for the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, on June 29, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Paul White)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Policy examples include the <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/defining-diamond-past-present-and-future-quadrilateral-security-dialogue">Quadrilateral Security Dialogue</a> also involving the U.S., Japan and India (known as the Quad), the controversial <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-12/defence-minister-richard-marles-first-us-visit/101229152">AUKUS</a> agreement, Australia’s membership in the <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Pages/australia-and-the-origins-of-the-pacific-islands-forum">Pacific Islands Forum</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-01/china-daily-editorial-slams-albanese-taiwan-ukraine-war-nato/101200662">Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s statement</a> at the Madrid NATO Summit.</p>
<p>Canada has also relied on ministerial statements, readouts and news releases to demonstrate its commitment to the Indo-Pacific. However, since November 2019, Justin Trudeau’s government has been developing an Indo-Pacific strategy involving consultations with several countries in the region and engagement across federal government departments to ensure an “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00207020221083243">all-of-government approach</a>.”</p>
<p>Similarly, in December 2019, Canada announced it would also develop “<a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/content/Committee/431/CACN/WebDoc/WD10653524/431_CACN_reldoc_PDF/DepartmentOfForeignAffairsTradeAndDevelopment-1-e.pdf">a new framework for Canada-China relations</a>.”</p>
<h2>No substance from Canada</h2>
<p>But a year later, François-Philippe Champagne, the foreign affairs minister at the time, said there would be no document, describing the framework as comprising a <a href="https://openparliament.ca/committees/canada-china-relations/43-2/7/francois-philippe-champagne-1/">“challenge, coexist, compete”</a> approach.</p>
<p>In Parliament, he <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-2/house/sitting-30/hansard">said the following</a>:</p>
<ol>
<li>“The China of 2020 is not the China of 2016” when there were <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/a-canadian-indo-pacific-strategy-must-link-aspiration-to-pragmatism/">still hopes</a> for a Canada-China free-trade agreement.</li>
<li>“National security will be the prime criterion for the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/huawei-5g-decision-1.6310839">Huawei decision</a>.” The government later banned the Chinese tech giant from Canada’s 5G network.</li>
<li>“The Michaels are not just Canadian citizens, they’re citizens of a liberal democracy.” </li>
</ol>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Two men in suits stand in front of flags in a white-panelled room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473624/original/file-20220712-26-l8yi1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473624/original/file-20220712-26-l8yi1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473624/original/file-20220712-26-l8yi1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473624/original/file-20220712-26-l8yi1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473624/original/file-20220712-26-l8yi1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473624/original/file-20220712-26-l8yi1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473624/original/file-20220712-26-l8yi1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">François-Philippe Champagne, left, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Li pose for photographers in Rome in August 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The final point was meant to argue that all liberal democracies had a stake in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-have-canada-and-australia-taken-such-a-different-approach-to-china-168236">the plight of Canadians Michael Korvig and Michael Spavor, known as the “two Michaels,” who returned to Canada in 2021 after spending more than 1,000 days detained in China</a>. </p>
<p>But in our view, as scholars of policy and legal frameworks, taglines do not make a China framework.</p>
<p>If Canada continues to express its Indo-Pacific strategy via ministerial statements — as has been discussed within government, according to an internal source of ours — it would fall far short of what Canadians and Indo-Pacific nations need and deserve. </p>
<p>Speeches, statements and readouts cannot by themselves reflect a coherent, comprehensive strategy. Far more detail is required to demonstrate Canada’s role, including substantive operational and financial commitments.</p>
<h2>Lack of urgency</h2>
<p>Given the fate of Canada’s China framework and the apparent lack of urgency in developing a <a href="https://socialsciences.uottawa.ca/public-international-affairs/sites/socialsciences.uottawa.ca.public-international-affairs/files/natsec_report_gspia_may2022.pdf">Canadian national security strategy</a>, it’s concerning that there’s apparently still no comprehensive strategy for the Indo-Pacific.</p>
<p>An <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2022/06/minister-joly-announces-new-indo-pacific-advisory-committee.html">Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee</a> was appointed in June 2022, further delaying the process. This risks disappointing partners in the region who have expected a strategy for years and could result in lost opportunities, including collaborations on trade, security, technology, population health, research and development, sustainable fisheries management, tourism and higher education. </p>
<p>It’s in Canada’s interests to play a substantive role as a regional partner, not just an occasional visitor.</p>
<p>Similarly, Australia’s newly elected Albanese has identified <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-11/prime-minister-pitches-to-restore-australia-s-climate-reputation/101228704">key themes</a>, including creating a “<a href="https://globalnation.inquirer.net/205084/we-are-more-than-just-bit-players-on-stage-dominated-by-great-powers-australia-tells-asean">strategic equilibrium</a>,” recognizing that countries will make their own sovereign choices, working with trusted friends and partners, being resolute in defending democracy and upholding core values of fairness.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-wong-makes-her-mark-in-the-pacific-the-albanese-government-should-look-to-history-on-mending-ties-with-china-184144">As Wong makes her mark in the Pacific, the Albanese government should look to history on mending ties with China</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These are good starting points for a framework. The Albanese government is seeking to take a <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/penny-wong-and-wang-yi-meet-on-sidelines-of-g20-in-bali-with-hopes-of-stabilising-australia-china-relationship/ar-AAZlTYe">fresh approach</a> to the region, but it will need to expand these broad political ideals beyond news releases and rhetorical flourishes. </p>
<p>As with Canada, the challenge is to develop comprehensive, integrated Indo-Pacific strategies addressing the real risks to regional peace and security.</p>
<h2>Substantive strategies needed</h2>
<p>While Canada and Australia strive <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/change-of-tone-in-aus-china-talks-marles/ar-AAZkNx5%22%22">at diplomatic levels to reset</a> their China relationships, their Indo-Pacific strategies must, at the same time, explicitly recognize the significant <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/06/fbi-mi5-china-spying-cyberattacks-business-economy">risks China is posing</a>. </p>
<p>Using co-ordinated middle-power strategies to stabilize relations and to <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/open-to-engaging-with-china-penny-wong-to-meet-with-wang-yi-in-bali/3920o1cdj">encourage China to demonstrate restraint</a> in exercising its power, especially with smaller countries in the region, is a useful first step. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men in suits shake hands with flags behind them. Both are smiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473625/original/file-20220712-16-kpopp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473625/original/file-20220712-16-kpopp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473625/original/file-20220712-16-kpopp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473625/original/file-20220712-16-kpopp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473625/original/file-20220712-16-kpopp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473625/original/file-20220712-16-kpopp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473625/original/file-20220712-16-kpopp9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the NATO Summit in Madrid in June 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But comprehensive strategies are now imperative to navigate the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/11/australia-doesnt-respond-to-demands-anthony-albanese-tells-china">growing challenges</a> across the Indo-Pacific. </p>
<p>When Trudeau and Albanese <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/readouts/2022/05/24/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-speaks-prime-minister-australia-anthony">spoke in May</a>, they “agreed to advance common objectives in the Indo-Pacific region, especially in working with partners and allies to promote security and uphold democratic values … and to work together to advance shared priorities.”</p>
<p>To support these shared principles, substantive strategies will be essential.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>China is posing many challenges to the Indo-Pacific region in 2022. How should Canada and Australia respond?Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaJohn Garrick, University Fellow in Law, Charles Darwin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1803372022-03-30T07:33:43Z2022-03-30T07:33:43ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Next step for Morrison is visit to governor-general<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455204/original/file-20220330-5663-1csfx6q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C11%2C3970%2C1982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.</p>
<p>In this podcast, Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn talk about treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s ‘big spend’ budget, Anthony Albanese’s coming budget reply speech, a Liberal senator’s scathing review of Scott Morrison, and what the parties’ key issues will be at the election that’s about to be called.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180337/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan discusses politics with politics + society editor, Amanda DunnMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1768082022-02-09T18:52:55Z2022-02-09T18:52:55ZLiberal revolt removes all discrimination against gay and transgender children<p>In a humiliating rebuff to Scott Morrison, a revolt by Liberal backbenchers has struck down the provisions of the sex discrimination act that allow discrimination against gay and transgender children. </p>
<p>In the early hours of Thursday, five Liberals crossed the floor – Katie Allen, Dave Sharma, Trent Zimmerman, Bridget Archer and Fiona Martin – in defiance of the Prime Minister. The vote was 65-59. The amended bill then passed the House of Representatives and now has to go to the Senate.</p>
<p>The rebels had been concerned the government’s much narrower proposed change excluded transgender children at religious schools. </p>
<p>The amendment was moved by crossbencher Rebekha Sharkie and was identical in wording to one of Labor’s proposed amendments. Sharkie told The Conversation she thought it might have a greater chance of success coming from the crossbench.</p>
<p>Earlier Morrison had told the house there would be “a time and place” to address the situation of transgender children.</p>
<p>He said the Law Reform Commission would consider the protection of these children from discrimination while allowing schools to maintain their ethos. The commission would report in six months. He also named Allen as chair of a House of Representatives select committee on the question. </p>
<p>The government’s proposed change to the sex discrimination legislation was a parallel bill to its religious discrimination legislation. </p>
<p>Labor and two Liberal rebels narrowly failed to amend the religious discrimination bill when Speaker Andrew Wallace used his casting vote to break a tied vote. </p>
<p>Archer and Zimmerman crossed the floor to support a Labor amendment aimed at ensuring existing anti-discrimination protections were not diminished by the protection to be given to “statements of belief”. The vote was 62-62.</p>
<p>The religious discrimination bill passed the house at 4am Thursday, shortly before the revolt over the associated bill. The only amendments to it were those the government made.</p>
<p>Archer, who supported all Labor’s amendments to the religious discrimination bill, also voted against its second reading and its final passage. </p>
<p>Now that they have been lost in the lower house, the opposition will pursue its amendments to the religious discrimination bill in the Senate.</p>
<p>Labor on Wednesday gave support to the controversial bill but said it was flawed and should be amended. </p>
<p>Caucus approved a package of proposed amendments that would </p>
<ul>
<li><p>prohibit religious vilification </p></li>
<li><p>make it clear the legislation’s “statement of belief” did not remove or diminish existing protections against discrimination. (The legislation provides that “statements of belief” are legally protected if based on a genuinely held religious view.)</p></li>
<li><p>ensure in-home aged care providers could not discriminate on the basis of religion in providing services </p></li>
<li><p>prohibit discrimination against children on the grounds of sexuality or gender identity. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>During the House of Representatives debate opposition leader Anthony Albanese tabled a letter Morrison had sent to him late last year in which the PM reaffirmed “there is no place in our education system for any form of discrimination against a student on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity” and said the government would amend the sex discrimination act to remove the provisions allowing this. </p>
<p>Labor said that it would “insist” on any of its amendments that were passed in either house. That could mean, if the government refused to accept them, the legislation bouncing between the houses until one or other side gave way. </p>
<p>The religious discrimination legislation is up against the clock, with the Senate rising on Thursday, and not sitting again until budget week, the last sitting before the election. </p>
<p>Albanese told parliament the legislation was “flawed” but it could be fixed. </p>
<p>He said it should be possible “to enhance protections against discrimination without enhancing discrimination against others”.</p>
<p>“We need shields from discrimination, not swords for discrimination."
He said the legislation should be a unifying moment. </p>
<p>But if not amended the bill "will only succeed in driving us apart,” Albanese said. </p>
<p>Morrison has been pulling out all stops to get the religious discrimination legislation through. </p>
<p>But moderate Liberals have had a range of concerns, and much effort had gone into trying to settle backbench doubts and minimise defections. </p>
<p>Zimmerman told the house that he would “part with my party” on the statement of belief provision and the changes to the sexual discrimination act. </p>
<p>Zimmerman said the statement of beliefs “puts religious faith on a pedestal above other rights”. He objected to the changes to the sex discrimination act failing to include protection for teachers and transgender children. </p>
<p>NSW Treasurer Matt Kean tweeted “Trent Zimmerman has been one of my greatest political heroes during my 20 years in the Liberal party. This speech will help everyone understand exactly why.” </p>
<p>Earlier, NSW premier Dominic Perrottet said of the religious discrimination legislation: “I’ve made it very clear that I don’t believe legislation in this space is necessary”. He said it could end up creating more problems than it solved. </p>
<p>Within the Labor frontbench, and in the wider caucus, there was division about over whether the opposition should pursue amendments or oppose the legislation outright. </p>
<p>Former Labor leader, Bill Shorten, who was reported to have argued in shadow cabinet that Labor should oppose the legislation, told the house, “We will rue the day if this legislation passes the Senate” .</p>
<p>The religious discrimination legislation had its origins as a gesture to the losing side after the legislating of marriage equality. </p>
<p>Morrison has hoped to wedge Labor on the issue; Albanese is anxious to avoid the wedge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a humiliation rebuff to Scott Morrison, a revolt by Liberal backbenchers has struck down the provisions of the sex discrimination legislation that allow discrimination against gay and transgender children.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1412732020-06-23T08:13:15Z2020-06-23T08:13:15ZThe ‘problem’ is not ‘fixed’. Why we need a royal commission into robodebt<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343363/original/file-20200623-188886-l6i4p4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C104%2C4592%2C2934&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Public pressure is growing for a royal commission into the <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-to-repay-470-000-unlawful-robodebts-in-what-might-be-australias-biggest-ever-financial-backdown-139668">controversial robodebt scheme</a>. </p>
<p>After calls from <a href="https://rachel-siewert.greensmps.org.au/articles/greens-join-call-royal-commission-robodebt">the Greens</a> this week, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-23/labor-calls-for-robodebt-royal-commission/12381456">Labor also demanded</a> an inquiry. </p>
<p>As Opposition leader Anthony Albanese said: “how can we ensure that a debacle like this never happens again?”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/government-to-repay-470-000-unlawful-robodebts-in-what-might-be-australias-biggest-ever-financial-backdown-139668">Government to repay 470,000 unlawful robodebts in what might be Australia's biggest-ever financial backdown</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But Prime Minister Scott Morrison quickly <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6802498/pm-facing-robodebt-royal-commission-calls/?cs=14264#gsc.tab=0">shot down the idea</a>, telling reporters it wasn’t necessary, “because we’re fixing the problem”. </p>
<h2>The tide has turned on robodebt</h2>
<p>In the past few months, the campaign against robodebt has enjoyed a series of unprecedented wins.</p>
<p>Last November, the Federal Court declared the robodebt of Melbourne woman Deanna Amato was “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/27/government-admits-robodebt-was-unlawful-as-it-settles-legal-challenge">not validly made</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343413/original/file-20200623-188926-tqgbc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343413/original/file-20200623-188926-tqgbc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343413/original/file-20200623-188926-tqgbc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343413/original/file-20200623-188926-tqgbc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343413/original/file-20200623-188926-tqgbc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343413/original/file-20200623-188926-tqgbc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343413/original/file-20200623-188926-tqgbc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Labor is now pushing for a royal commission into robodebt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then last month, the Morrison government announced it would <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-29/federal-government-refund-robodebt-scheme-repay-debts/12299410">repay $721 million</a> worth of robodebts. Earlier this month, Morrison <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/11/scott-morrison-apologises-for-hurt-or-harm-caused-by-robodebt-rollout">also told parliament</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would apologise for any hurt or harm in the way that the government has dealt with that [robodebt] issue. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://gordonlegal.com.au/robodebt-class-action/robodebt-faqs/">a class action</a>, seeking interest and damages on behalf of about <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-01/robodebt-class-action-lawyers-urge-government-to-apologise/12302108">600,000 Australians</a>, is scheduled for trial on September 21. </p>
<p>Given all that is happening, however, we still need the power of a royal commission. </p>
<h2>Unanswered questions</h2>
<p>As an administrative law researcher, myself and my colleauges have watched the robodebt scandal play out for four years now. </p>
<p>In this time, we have seen <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/06/centrelink-was-warned-robodebts-could-be-inaccurate-more-than-four-years-ago">blocked freedom of information requests</a> and unanswered questions. I have sat with some of my own students devastated by life-changing, inaccurate debts. </p>
<p>Only a royal commission can bring real change to Centrelink, as it could ensure every unlawful debt is accounted for and fixed.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-robodebt-to-racism-what-can-go-wrong-when-governments-let-algorithms-make-the-decisions-132594">From robodebt to racism: what can go wrong when governments let algorithms make the decisions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Importantly, any potential class action settlement may not account for everyone who had an unlawful debt. For one thing, we know debts prior to June 2015 are excluded from the class action due to legal time limits on suing for damages.</p>
<p>Despite claims it is “fixing the problem”, the federal government is so far <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/31/robodebt-scandal-leak-reveals-unlawful-debts-predate-2015-but-government-has-no-plans-to-pay-back-money">refusing</a> to take any practical action to find, refund or compensate this unknown number of people. </p>
<p>We have also yet to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/30/coalition-told-robodebt-no-longer-viable-and-should-be-abolished-leaked-advice-reveals">see due diligence</a> applied to debts raised solely from people’s bank statements. </p>
<p>These debts are raised by turning net received income amounts into gross fortnightly earnings. This is a complex process, which raises further legal questions. Again, a royal commission is needed to ensure everyone who was harmed by defective administration is recognised and compensated. </p>
<h2>History cannot repeat</h2>
<p>A royal commission is also needed because it has the capacity to make sure robodebt never happens again. </p>
<p>Robodebt is an unprecedented failure of governance in an institution - Centrelink - that potentially touches the lives of every Australian. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343414/original/file-20200623-188900-f1uqri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343414/original/file-20200623-188900-f1uqri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343414/original/file-20200623-188900-f1uqri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343414/original/file-20200623-188900-f1uqri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343414/original/file-20200623-188900-f1uqri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343414/original/file-20200623-188900-f1uqri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343414/original/file-20200623-188900-f1uqri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A royal commission is needed to prevent governance failures like the robodebt scheme from happening again.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the institutional level, what has been done to people and the federal budget and since the scheme began cannot go uninvestigated.</p>
<p>For example, we do not know when the government first learned that the scheme was unlawful. </p>
<p>It is also not clear why it did not challenge <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/12/coalition-warned-robodebt-scheme-was-unenforceable-three-years-before-it-acted">multiple adverse Administrative Appeal Tribunal decisions</a> about the robodebt scheme. </p>
<h2>Questions about budgetary processes</h2>
<p>Robodebt also raises troubling questions about Australian government budget processes. </p>
<p>In early 2015, the government proposed removing existing compliance safeguards, <a href="https://www.ombudsman.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0022/43528/Report-Centrelinks-automated-debt-raising-and-recovery-system-April-2017.pdf">telling Centrelink staff</a> to stop gathering payslips directly from employers before raising debts. </p>
<p>Just four months later, more than one billion dollars in estimated savings had <a href="https://archive.budget.gov.au/2015-16/glossy/Tax-and-Benefits.pdf">already made its way</a> into the federal budget. The program eventually grew to a projected $3.7 billion.</p>
<p>It may now result in a net cost to the taxpayer. On any objective measure, that requires an independent inquiry.</p>
<h2>Centrelink needs to learn by listening</h2>
<p>Robodebt is a reminder for academics, the media and the public that where we focus our attention is a form of power. </p>
<p>A royal commission would give a platform to people who are frequently talked over, talked about or placed on hold by those in government. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-robodebt-its-time-to-address-parentsnext-133222">After Robodebt, it's time to address ParentsNext</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s not just consultants and politicians who have ideas about the government, everyday Australians have ideas, too. For four years, the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/i-don-t-have-any-trust-centrelink-robo-debt-recipients-say-it-feels-like-bullying">people who knew the truth </a>about robodebt were not listened to.</p>
<p>When they hear the word “robodebt”, Australians should not see politicians or even court victories. We need to reshape the system around the working mum or dad, on the phone, two kids at their feet - who tried to accurately report their earnings to the government, only to be told they owed a crudely averaged debt. </p>
<p>No wonder an estimated <a href="https://essentialvision.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Essential-Report-090620-1.pdf">55% of Australians</a> already support the idea of a royal commission into robodebt.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren O'Donovan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Morrison government is resisting calls for a royal commission into robodebt. But there are still too many unanswered questions about the controversial scheme.Darren O'Donovan, Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1408392020-06-16T20:03:37Z2020-06-16T20:03:37ZLabor’s branch stacking scandal is a problem for the whole party. Not just Victoria.<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342048/original/file-20200616-23243-1de0cch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C78%2C5225%2C3410&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Ross/ AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Victorian Labor, the jewel in the party’s crown, has been thrown into crisis by the allegations of massive branch stacking. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-16/adem-somyurek-ally-marlene-kairouz-quits-branch-stacking-scandal/12358610">A third state Labor minister</a> has now left their position over the scandal that as engulfed the party in the wake of <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/topic/the-faceless-man-1nhi">revelations by the The Age and 60 Minutes</a>.</p>
<p>But with federal leader Anthony Albanese also <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/anthony-albanese-says-labor-party-is-a-better/12357906">facing questions about party culture</a>, the scandal will not be contained to Victoria. </p>
<h2>Declining membership facilitates branch stacking</h2>
<p>On Monday, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-15/victorian-labor-minister-adem-somyurek-sacked/12354870">sacked Labor powerbroker Adem Somyurek </a>from his cabinet. This came after allegations Somyurek was involved in <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/f-k-the-premier-labor-s-secret-tapes-reveal-industrial-scale-stackathon-20200614-p552g2.html">“industrial scale” branch stacking</a> and used offensive language about a ministerial colleague. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342074/original/file-20200616-23266-16zdwoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342074/original/file-20200616-23266-16zdwoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342074/original/file-20200616-23266-16zdwoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342074/original/file-20200616-23266-16zdwoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342074/original/file-20200616-23266-16zdwoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342074/original/file-20200616-23266-16zdwoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342074/original/file-20200616-23266-16zdwoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews sacked Adem Somyurek on Monday.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Scott Barbour/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As federal Labor MP and former academic Andrew Leigh <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/disconnected">has shown</a>, the propensity of Australians to join formal organisations has been in steady decline for 50 years, and parties are a key example. Weeds have sprouted in these ruins. </p>
<p>The infrastructure of party and union branches that once underpinned politics in Labor heartlands has collapsed. The factories are gone and Labor branches have in most cases shrunken to a few ageing true believers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-branch-stacking-and-why-has-neither-major-party-been-able-to-stamp-it-out-140726">Explainer: what is branch stacking, and why has neither major party been able to stamp it out?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Branch stacking is possible because Labor’s active membership is now so low they can be easily swamped by those “stacked” into the party.</p>
<p>Preselections for safe seats in state parliament are often determined by fewer than 50 votes at the local level.</p>
<h2>We have been here before</h2>
<p>Branch stacking is, however, not new. </p>
<p>During the Cold War, membership soared as left and right battled for control. But back then, it reflected real ideological disagreements that mobilised thousands. This popularisation sparked a <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-labor-party-split-74149">catastrophic split in the ALP</a>. </p>
<p>Today, Labor is not divided by deep ideological battles and as a consequence, its membership is much lower. As a further result, it is much easier to stack the branches. </p>
<p>With Labor as the dominant political force in Victoria, it is now mostly jobs - from lowly electorate officers to ministerial roles - that people fight about. The power of factional bosses rests on their ability to control access to these positions.</p>
<h2>The need for change</h2>
<p>The decline in the levels of Labor membership and the commitment of Labor voters have concerned supporters for <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/45621239">decades</a>. </p>
<p>Today, new political forces such as the Greens and independents are now going after Labor in their heartland. Even at the 2018 landslide victory of the Andrews government, the Greens retained three seats and independents mounted serious challenges in safe Labor seats. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342088/original/file-20200616-23235-1j8vctb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342088/original/file-20200616-23235-1j8vctb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342088/original/file-20200616-23235-1j8vctb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342088/original/file-20200616-23235-1j8vctb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342088/original/file-20200616-23235-1j8vctb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342088/original/file-20200616-23235-1j8vctb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342088/original/file-20200616-23235-1j8vctb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Greens are challenging Labor in heartland seats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penny Stephens/ AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One popular proposal has been to increase the rights of members, so they can have a greater say in how the party is run. </p>
<p>At the federal level and for some states, this has taken the form of direct ballots for parliamentary leaders. </p>
<p>This method was described by former ALP national secretary George Wright as “<a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p309171/pdf/ch12.pdf">an outrageous success</a>” in 2013, leading to an extra 4,500 members at the time. But some states - including Victoria - have not gone down this path. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-law-say-about-secret-recordings-and-the-public-interest-140731">Explainer: what does the law say about secret recordings and the public interest?</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<p>Some have argued it would be better to give up the dream of building a mass membership Labor Party and instead allow all Labor voters, not just party members, to select candidates by an American-style system of primaries. </p>
<p>However, here, the likely outcome would be an even more media-centric politics, where political celebrities - such as Canadian leader Justin Trudeau - would communicate directly with voters. It is a weak shield against a populist right on the march.</p>
<h2>Organisational reforms flagged</h2>
<p>On Tuesday night, ALP president Wayne Swan announced former Victorian premier Steve Bracks and former federal frontbencher Jenny Macklin had been appointed administrators of the Victorian branch until the end of January 2021. </p>
<p>They will report on how the branch “should be restructured and reconstituted so that the branch membership comprises genuine, consenting, self-funding party members”.</p>
<p>So, organisational reforms are most likely in the short term. These could include banning the payment of <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/f-k-the-premier-labor-s-secret-tapes-reveal-industrial-scale-stackathon-20200614-p552g2.html">membership fees in cash</a> as well as a proposed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/15/victorian-labor-may-face-national-intervention-over-branch-stacking-allegations">audit of party membership</a>. </p>
<p>But in the absence of a larger and engaged membership, organisational reforms will always be subject to evasion. The highly-centralised pre-selection system in Victorian Labor <a href="https://agitateeducateopine.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/how-the-impact-of-branchstacking-in-victorian-labor-differs-to-nsw-labor">provides an incentive to stack</a>, but reform of this would disrupt the delicate factional balance within the ALP. </p>
<h2>The political fallout</h2>
<p>The branch stacking scandal also presents political opportunities for Labor’s opponents. </p>
<p>For the Greens, this latest scandal offers the opportunity to challenge Victorian Labor’s progressive image. In the short run, the Andrews brand is strong enough to ride out the loss of less talented ministers, but one day, the political tide will turn. The collapse of the once all-conquering NSW Labor Party is a cautionary lesson.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342075/original/file-20200616-23261-12h95is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342075/original/file-20200616-23261-12h95is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342075/original/file-20200616-23261-12h95is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342075/original/file-20200616-23261-12h95is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342075/original/file-20200616-23261-12h95is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342075/original/file-20200616-23261-12h95is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342075/original/file-20200616-23261-12h95is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The branch stacking scandal is an unwelcome distraction for Anthony Albanese ahead of the Eden-Monaro by-election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At a federal level, it drags Albanese back into mire of Labor politics and undercuts his attempt to present him as an inner-suburban everyman - unlike former leader Bill Shorten, who could never escape his identity as a political hack. </p>
<p>If Labor loses the forthcoming <a href="https://theconversation.com/eden-monaro-byelection-to-be-on-july-4-139324">Eden-Monaro byelection</a>, this is something all Labor MPs, not just the Victorians, will have more to worry about.</p>
<p>Albanese most of all.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/eden-monaro-byelection-to-be-on-july-4-139324">Eden-Monaro byelection to be on July 4</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Robinson made a contribution to the 2019 campaign of Labor MP Julian Hill. This MP is not aligned with Adem Somyurek.</span></em></p>Branch stacking may not be be new. But if the ALP is to fend off political rivals in the future, it will need to get serious about reform.Geoffrey Robinson, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1213602019-08-02T03:14:18Z2019-08-02T03:14:18ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Labor’s hard reality - and Barnaby Joyce supporting an increase to Newstart<figure>
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<p>University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Deep Saini discusses the week in politics with Michelle Grattan. They examine <a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-anthony-albanese-on-labors-hard-times-121184">Anthony Albanese’s approach to passing legislation</a>, given the hard reality for Labor in the senate. They also talk about Barnaby Joyce’s support for an increase in Newstart and Julie Bishop’s appointment as the first female chancellor of ANU.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121360/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Parliament has now finished its sitting fortnight. Michelle Grattan discusses the key issues from it, including Labor’s approach to passing legislation given its weaker position in the Senate.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/806312017-07-06T11:54:32Z2017-07-06T11:54:32ZGrattan on Friday: Everything’s going Bill Shorten’s way<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177095/original/file-20170706-11397-1jvh7vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The fight over penalty rates is an issue made for Bill Shorten's skill set.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Miller/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bill Shorten has been on holidays this week. Probably just as well. The “energizer bunny” would have felt the need to be out every day, as usual. His absence left more room for the fractured Liberals.</p>
<p>Shorten’s extraordinary political luck continues, as Tony Abbott rampages, to the despair or fury of frustrated colleagues. </p>
<p>But it is not just his opponents that have been raining political gifts on Labor. Last weekend saw the start of the phase-in of the Fair Work Commission’s decision to cut Sunday penalty rates for retail, hospitality, fast-food and pharmacy workers.</p>
<p>Admittedly this isn’t WorkChoices. But for Shorten it could become a pale version of it. Hundreds of thousands of employees stand to lose, very many of whom are low-income earners. And it’s not just those directly affected. Think of parents who have kids doing some Sunday shifts. And consider the potential for a scare campaign about other sectors.</p>
<p>Shorten has a clear-cut policy to sell. A Labor government would legislate to reverse the commission’s decision and prevent a repeat.</p>
<p>This is an issue made for Shorten’s skill set. As a former union leader, he’s effective at rallies and at home in workplace conversations. He can mesh his campaign with that of the union movement, which has plenty of feet on the ground. There can be photo opportunities at businesses that decide not to cut their employees’ rates.</p>
<p>The opposition will potentially lose support among those in small business who favour the rates cut. But Shorten can reckon that most of them would be voting Coalition anyway.</p>
<p>There is a social logic and an economic rationale for lowering Sunday penalty rates. You can say that these days Sunday is little different from Saturday, for which penalty rates have been less. The economic argument is that businesses will be inclined to put on extra workers, or in some cases open on Sundays, if rates are not as high.</p>
<p>But there is a disconnect between the economics and the politics. </p>
<p>What would make sense if setting rates from scratch is political poison when it is a matter of changing the status quo. It’s the same difficulty a government has when removing or reducing access to a benefit.</p>
<p>Also, even assuming there’ll be a gain in employment – which some dispute – it is unlikely to show up quickly, given the phase-in.</p>
<p>The pain will be felt before any gain. Anyway, that gain will be difficult to separate from other factors affecting employment. Those suffering a cut in wages will be able to identify its cause; people getting jobs that mightn’t have been there before won’t usually make a direct link.</p>
<p>The government knows penalty rates is dangerous ground for it. While it makes the economic case in a desultory way, it is more likely to emphasise that it was the umpire’s decision.</p>
<p>On both sides of politics there’s now a feeling the next election is Shorten’s to lose. But that in itself is a reason for a few Labor jitters. There could be nearly two years before the election; the favourite doesn’t always win the race; the sour mood in voterland carries its risks for both sides (though mostly for the government); Shorten lacks charisma and always lags behind Malcolm Turnbull as preferred prime minister.</p>
<p>Shorten is something of a prisoner of his success. With Labor in a sustained lead in two-party terms, he needs to maintain that advantage. If the Coalition hauled up to equal, the climate would quickly change, fuelled by the media, sections of which are feral.</p>
<p>While it’s extremely unlikely Shorten would be replaced before the election, any serious revival of the Coalition in the polls would trigger a rash of speculation about the ambitions of Anthony Albanese.</p>
<p>A taste of what Shorten can expect as the election draws closer came with Daily Telegraph’s Wednesday front page fake news story reporting a Shorten government’s first 100 days. Under the heading “NOW HERE’S YOUR BILL”, it read: “Workers laid off. Record tax rates. Rents hit new high.” </p>
<p>In the Shorten office they had a good laugh. They can take comfort in the fact the Tele’s clout in Sydney’s west isn’t what it used to be.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177110/original/file-20170706-5026-1qsi89v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177110/original/file-20170706-5026-1qsi89v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177110/original/file-20170706-5026-1qsi89v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177110/original/file-20170706-5026-1qsi89v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177110/original/file-20170706-5026-1qsi89v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177110/original/file-20170706-5026-1qsi89v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177110/original/file-20170706-5026-1qsi89v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Much of the political risk Shorten faces revolves around tax. Labor’s policy is to reimpose the deficit levy on higher-income earners (it expired on June 30). So if there were a change of government these people would face two extra taxes – that levy and the budget’s increase in the Medicare levy, proposed to kick in from 2019. They would have a marginal tax rate of 49.5%.</p>
<p>Labor opposes the government’s proposal for tax cuts for big companies but has yet to say what it would do about the already-legislated tax cuts for small and medium-sized businesses, phased in over coming years. While it will keep the cut for small businesses (up to A$2 million or perhaps $10 million turnover), the medium-sized businesses (up to $50 million turnover) are likely to take a hit.</p>
<p>If that turns out to be the decision (expected before the end of this year) it will cause Shorten grief with the business sector – more than his stand on penalty rates will. What to do about these legislated company tax cuts looms as one of the most important policy judgements Labor has to make in coming months.</p>
<p>Shorten’s opponents are still struggling to find the right negative with which to hit him.</p>
<p>There was an unfulfilled expectation he’d be much damaged by the trade union royal commission. Turnbull has tried to cast him as the friend of billionaires.</p>
<p>Recently, Shorten was hammered not just by the government but in the media for his nay-saying response to the budget, including opposing the Medicare levy hike for those on incomes under $87,000. While the Labor frontbench was divided over the levy stand, it did fit squarely into the wider Shorten narrative of protecting lower-income earners.</p>
<p>Labor also came under fire for its opposition to the government’s Gonski 2.0 package – its stance on this seemed to me much more dubious in policy terms than its attitude on the Medicare levy.</p>
<p>So far, the criticisms of its policy positions haven’t harmed the opposition in the polls.</p>
<p>One reason Labor is proving hard for the Coalition to dent is because of what the public are not saying about Shorten’s team. People aren’t saying it is divided and fighting internally. That stark contrast with the other side is a boon for an aspiring prime minister.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For Bill Shorten, cuts to Sunday penalty rates could become a pale version of WorkChoices.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/731302017-02-16T05:21:31Z2017-02-16T05:21:31ZPolitics podcast: Anthony Albanese on Labor’s approach to infrastructure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157069/original/image-20170216-27391-14q1ne9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1498%2C3024%2C1996&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pat Hutchens/TC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labor’s edge over the government in the polls has seen the party stay united. But it has not stopped speculation about whether frontbencher Anthony Albanese would be a better fit as leader of the party. </p>
<p>Albanese dismisses Coalition jibes about him being the alternative leader. He tells Michelle Grattan it’s the government who has internal issues. “The government are I think more divided than I’ve seen a political party for a very long time – and I’ve seen a bit of division,” says the deputy prime minister in the second Rudd government. </p>
<p>As shadow minister for infrastructure and transport, Albanese says there are significant differences between Labor and the government in this portfolio. </p>
<p>“We established Infrastructure Australia to recommend the right projects to the government that would provide the biggest economic boost. We’ve seen the government effectively walk away from that strategy and remove funding from projects that had been approved by Infrastructure Australia, particularly public transport projects.</p>
<p>"Malcolm Turnbull likes riding on trains and taking selfies but he hasn’t funded any new public transport projects,” he says. </p>
<p>After coming under threat from the Greens in his own seat at the last election, Albanese sees weaknesses in his opponents to the left. </p>
<p>“I think they’re struggling with their identity, of whether they’re a protest party and a movement, if you like – which is the view of many in the New South Wales Greens – or whether they’re a parliamentary party.</p>
<p>"For many in the Greens, the protest is the end in itself. It’s a sophisticated view I guess. It says: that is how people are politicised, and how from their perspective of wanting revolutionary, if you like – rather than reformist change – you need that momentum from the bottom and from social movements.</p>
<p>"I’m about making a difference to people’s lives and making lives better. That’s why I’m in politics and that stands in stark contrast to many in the Greens who advocate that sort of view,” he says. </p>
<p>Despite his strong personal advocacy for marriage equality, Albanese maintains that members of the Labor caucus should be able to vote with their conscience on the matter – in contrast to the ALP conference policy of a bound vote from 2019. </p>
<p>“I’ve supported the conscience vote for a considerable period of time on a range of issues where essentially people are in a position whereby they believe that they have to choose between their loyalty to their party and their loyalty to their faith.”</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Music credit: “Racketeer”, by Tab & Anitek on the Free Music Archive</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labor's edge over the government in the polls has seen the party stay united. But it has not stopped speculation about whether frontbencher Anthony Albanese would be a better leader of the party.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/643612016-08-24T03:35:56Z2016-08-24T03:35:56ZPolitics podcast: Karen Middleton on Albanese – Telling It Straight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135246/original/image-20160824-30252-1duhcee.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pat Hutchens/TC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week, political reporter Karen Middleton is releasing a book about the life and career of Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese. At its heart is a deeply personal story of Albanese’s absent father. </p>
<p>As a boy, Albanese believed his father had died in a car accident shortly after his parent’s marriage. But at the age of 14 his mother told him the truth. </p>
<p>Middleton tells Michelle Grattan she came to know Albanese’s story over the years “sort of by accident”. “He had told a few people but not very many and he had kept this story about his father and his personal life very tightly,” she says. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135253/original/image-20160824-30249-km6bo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135253/original/image-20160824-30249-km6bo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135253/original/image-20160824-30249-km6bo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135253/original/image-20160824-30249-km6bo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135253/original/image-20160824-30249-km6bo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135253/original/image-20160824-30249-km6bo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135253/original/image-20160824-30249-km6bo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135253/original/image-20160824-30249-km6bo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Maryanne Ellery (Anthony Albanese’s mother) on the right with her brother and friends in a cruise ship dining room. Carlo Albanese is standing on the left.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albanese family</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p><em>Music credit: “Roll On” by Ketsa, Free Music Archive.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64361/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Political reporter Karen Middleton is releasing a book about the life and career of Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese. At its heart is a deeply personal story of Albanese's absent father.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/619692016-07-03T10:18:32Z2016-07-03T10:18:32ZLabor leadership talk a bit of mischievous arson<p>In an election full of drama, it is still remarkable that media speculation on Sunday was not about whether Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership might be shaky, but the possibility of a challenge to Bill Shorten.</p>
<p>One reason, perhaps, is that while some Liberals would like Turnbull replaced there’s no immediate alternative except Tony Abbott – and that would be a bad joke.</p>
<p>In Labor it’s different. It’s hardly a secret that Anthony Albanese, who ran unsuccessfully in 2013, hankers for the leadership. He was carefully positioned in the last term when there was speculation Shorten might be removed. He has been match-fit in the event Shorten did poorly on Saturday.
But Shorten much exceeded expectations, and the result, hovering between a hung parliament and a small Turnbull majority, is very much better for Labor than even its senior figures anticipated.</p>
<p>Obviously if the parliament came in hung and Shorten proved the more effective suitor of the crossbenchers, that would be the end of leadership talk. But even if Turnbull emerged the winner, in a majority or a minority Coalition government, why – given Shorten’s achievement – would a challenge even be thought about?</p>
<p>First, because under the party rules the leadership, in which caucus and rank-and-file have a 50-50 say, is thrown open automatically after a Labor loss. </p>
<p>Second, now the leadership is a real prize. With a minority Turnbull government or one with a wafer-thin majority anything could happen anytime.</p>
<p>The Shorten-faces-challenge kite was deliberately flown in the media after Saturday’s election. It was mischief, but produced a sharp reaction from Labor figures. With the possibility of a minority Shorten government still live, it looked like gross disloyalty – undermining Shorten if things got to the point of his negotiating with the crossbenchers.</p>
<p>If the result went the Liberals’ way, any move against Shorten would still appear expedient and be divisive. Asked about the speculation, Shorten could mean what he said on Sunday: “I have never been more certain of my position.”</p>
<p>The Shorten camp would have liked Albanese to have quashed the chatter immediately. He hasn’t done that. But a well-placed senior source said: “I’d expect Bill to be unopposed”. Another said Albanese would be “crazy” to put his name forward. “Amongst the rank-and-file Shorten is a hero today.”</p>
<p>When we think back to the lows of Shorten’s leadership during the last term – his ordeal before the trade union royal commission, his roc- bottom approval when Turnbull’s was soaring – how far he’s come is all the more impressive.</p>
<p>Under his big-target strategy he had Labor on the front foot with bold policies. In the campaign he mostly looked better on the hustings than Turnbull.</p>
<p>But, nevertheless, there were question marks over Shorten’s campaign – not ones of day-to-day performance but the strategic decisions. Not the Medicare scare – an example of ruthlessly effective expediency – but the big spending program, and the decision to have deficits over the forward estimates larger than the Coalition’s.</p>
<p>Labor would be foolish to allow its strong result to convince it that it doesn’t need to do some hard thinking about the appropriateness of its economic approach.</p>
<p>Shorten’s position if he remains in opposition is as safe as houses. But the story of modern Australian political leaders is that you have to keep proving yourself. There is little patience when those polls slip. Shorten is fortunate in that Turnbull and the Coalition, if in government, would be in a dire position. The Liberals are deeply divided, ideologically and over Turnbull himself. Turnbull downplays ideology while those on the right want to accentuate it.</p>
<p>If Labor remains in opposition, the warmth of relative success will engulf Shorten for some time as Turnbull suffers and struggles. But inevitably the spotlight would come back sharply on to Shorten. Labor’s rules make revisiting the leadership during the term difficult but not impossible.</p>
<p>In a strange way, bringing his party so close to victory, while giving short-term protection, would build in longer-term vulnerability because the stakes become so high. To stay safe Shorten would need to have his eyes on the next campaign and what would be appropriate for that. He once more would have to get out in front of the game.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In an election full of drama, it is still remarkable that media speculation on Sunday was not about whether Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership might be shaky but the possibility of a challenge to Bill Shorten.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/611712016-06-16T13:14:26Z2016-06-16T13:14:26ZGrattan on Friday: If Labor loses, what happens to Bill Shorten?<p>As election day nears – well, only a fortnight away – speculation within each side is already turning to what happens after July 2.</p>
<p>In Labor the interest is on the leadership if it remains in opposition; with the Liberals, it’s on the ministry of a re-elected Turnbull government.</p>
<p>Three-quarters of the way through the campaign, Malcolm Turnbull is favourite to win the election, though remember favourites can be beaten, and there’s that gap – a hung parliament – between a clear Turnbull victory and a majority Shorten win.</p>
<p>But assuming a Labor loss, what happens to Bill Shorten? Much would depend on the margin of the defeat. If he fell just short of victory, he would have a substantial case to hang onto his post. A poor result would, most likely, see him replaced. Precisely where the dividing line was would be a matter of judgement, depending to an extent on how people interpreted the outcome and the reasons for it.</p>
<p>Under the Labor rules that are Kevin Rudd’s legacy, the leadership is thrown open following an election, with the caucus and the rank-and-file each having 50% of the vote.</p>
<p>A key player after a defeat would be the left’s Anthony Albanese. It’s no secret that he hankers for the leadership. Late last year, when Shorten was in the doldrums, there was chatter about a possible move against him, difficult though that would have been. Albanese would have been the replacement.</p>
<p>One would think that next term would be Albanese’s last practical chance at the job. If he put up his hand, he could expect strong support in the rank-and-file – which he received when he ran after the 2013 election (only to fall down in the caucus part of the vote). The complication for Albanese would be if Tanya Plibersek, also from the left and, like him, very popular with the party rank-and-file, wanted to have a go. One or other would presumably have to back off.</p>
<p>Another unknown is whether the NSW right, a shadow of its glory days but still powerful, would stick with Shorten, who has his base in Victoria, or would push Chris Bowen, who’s been impressive as shadow treasurer. After the 2013 election Bowen sensibly ruled himself out of the leadership race, but a run this time would have to be tempting if the ALP was in a relatively winnable position for 2019.</p>
<p>But a senior NSW right source, while reluctant to contemplate the loss scenario, says “no-one is envisaging a situation where Bill Shorten wouldn’t be running for leader and have the NSW right’s support”.</p>
<p>If Shorten did remain in place, the experience of this term would tell him there would be no certainty he would lead to the 2019 election. The flirtation by some with replacing him last year, when he’d had only a limited time in the job, indicates the party would be willing to change during the term if it believed another candidate would be a better bet. In other words, his survival would depend absolutely on performance.</p>
<p>On the other side, also assuming a Turnbull victory, it was reported this week there would be pressure on Turnbull to put Tony Abbott on the frontbench. The Australian Financial Review quoted an unnamed Abbott backer suggesting defence would be a worthy role for the former prime minister. This was in the context of Turnbull needing to reach out to the Liberal party’s conservatives.</p>
<p>This seems like some mischief making. Abbott in defence? Replacing Marise Payne? Under Turnbull? Never, and not just because as defence minister Abbott would be, let’s be frank, scary. It’s only a modest exaggeration to say he would want to have Australia intervening almost anywhere, almost any time.</p>
<p>Asked about the proposition of bringing Abbott back into the ministry, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, an Abbott supporter, said on Thursday: “I think some people will push for that”. Abbott himself said: “I am not expecting to go back into the ministry”. That may or may not be his true view but hopefully it is, or else he will be very disappointed. Turnbull has no intention of having Abbott on his frontbench.</p>
<p>Turnbull has made it clear more than once that he does not want to go back to the past in appointments to his ministry. Least of all for Abbott.</p>
<p>Responding to questioning on Thursday, Turnbull said that if he won “the ministry I’m taking to the election will be the ministry after the election … it will be the ministry as it is today”. Is he saying no one will change their portfolio? One example of someone who should be moved is Dutton. If Turnbull is to deal with those who are currently on Nauru and Manus Island in the next term, Dutton is not the best person to do it.</p>
<p>Admittedly, Turnbull’s ministry is a quite recent one – he reshuffled in February – but even so, he should not be so dogmatic (or does he think it doesn’t matter what he says?). After an election is a good occasion for changes and it would be wise for Turnbull to take that opportunity for some tinkering. The chance doesn’t come often.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/h7i43-6003b1?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/h7i43-6003b1?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As election day nears – well, only a fortnight away – speculation within each side is already turning to what happens after July 2.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/593832016-05-13T02:39:50Z2016-05-13T02:39:50ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the first week of the election campaign<figure>
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<p>It’s difficult to pick which side of politics won the first week of the election campaign. Michelle Grattan tells University of Canberra acting vice-chancellor Professor Frances Shannon that with both Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull never having fought an election as leader, this was something of a training week.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s difficult to pick which side of politics won the first week of the election campaign.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/591102016-05-09T12:55:54Z2016-05-09T12:55:54ZGo target the Liberals, Albanese tells the Greens on his tail<p>Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is not the only senior politician having conniptions about his seat. Anthony Albanese was in his New South Wales electorate of Grayndler on Monday, the first full day of the campaign, sandbagging it against the Greens.</p>
<p>Greens leader Richard Di Natale was in Grayndler too, sledging Albanese and declaring his party would give the seat “an almighty shake”. Describing the former deputy prime minister as “a decent bloke”, Di Natale said what counted was not positive rhetoric, but “how you back it up”.</p>
<p>Unlike Labor and Albanese, the Greens hadn’t voted to lock up young asylum seeker kids, Di Natale said. They didn’t support new coal mines. Labor and Albanese had joined with the Liberals against setting up an anti-corruption watchdog and ending large donations from the big end of town, he said.</p>
<p>Albanese gave as good as he got. What was Di Natale doing targeting him rather than a Coalition seat? The Greens were giving priority to “getting [member for Melbourne] Adam Bandt someone to talk to during Question Time over defeating the Malcolm Turnbull-led Coalition government”. As for voting records, had the Greens voted for a price on carbon in 2009 in the Senate “it would have been entrenched”.</p>
<p>Labor’s bad blood against the Greens runs hot. It was evident during the recent all-night debate over a new Senate voting system, when the opposition heaped abuse on them for siding with the Coalition to get the change through.</p>
<p>There is real fear in Labor that the Greens, having won and then held the former Labor seat of Melbourne, could threaten other ALP House of Representatives seats. This is a long-term Green ambition; they even eye off the Liberal seat of Higgins, once occupied by Peter Costello. Realistically, if the Greens could seize one seat on July 2, as well as retaining Melbourne, they would have taken a big stride.</p>
<p>While there has been speculation about various Labor electorates, the most vulnerable are Batman and Wills in Melbourne, and Grayndler, which has two state Greens seats in it.</p>
<p>Batman is held by David Feeney, a factional player from the right, who replaced former minister Martin Ferguson in 2013. Feeney switched houses under a deal because he had an unwinnable place on the Senate ticket. In Wills, Kelvin Thomson, on the “green” end of Labor, has retired, leaving somewhat exposed a seat that was for a time in the 1990s held by left-leaning independent Phil Cleary.</p>
<p>Whether the Greens have any prospects in any of the seats will depend substantially on whether the Liberals preference them. The Victorian Liberals, after putting the Greens in the freezer at the 2010 and 2014 state elections and the 2013 federal election, are now reconsidering the position on preferences. The outcome, which would be in consultation with the federal Liberals, is uncertain. The Greens would not preference the Liberals but could issue “open” tickets in some seats.</p>
<p>Given the pressure on him from the Greens, the last thing Albanese needed on Monday was the Labor candidate for Melbourne, Sophie Ismail, telling Fairfax Media: “I have concerns about turnbacks, I don’t think they should be on the table”.</p>
<p>The comment put Bill Shorten on the spot. He could only keep repeating that
“Labor’s policy is clear” – he would not let the people smugglers get back into business.</p>
<p>When he was asked about Ismail’s comment, Albanese – who at the 2015 ALP national conference voted (on the losing side) against turnbacks – said: “I’m not about condemning people for putting forward their views. They’re entitled to do so.”</p>
<p>Albanese has well-honed political skills, displayed both within the Labor Party – he supported Kevin Rudd’s return to the leadership while maintaining a functioning relationship with Julia Gillard – and electorally.</p>
<p>If Labor stays in opposition and Shorten performs only middlingly at the election, Albanese – whose biography is coming out soon – potentially would be a strong contender for the leadership.</p>
<p>Like Joyce, Albanese is one of the best “retail” politicians in the parliament. They are much in demand by their respective sides to campaign in the marginal seats. But each is having to spend more time than is ideal defending his home turf. Albanese will be in Grayndler again on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The Conversation’s poll and election analyst, Adrian Beaumont, predicts Albanese will hold Grayndler comfortably even if the Liberals preference the Greens, “as he is a high-profile incumbent, and Labor won 46% post-redistribution in that seat”.</p>
<p>In the end, the odds are against either Joyce or Albanese losing his seat. But neither is willing to leave anything to chance.</p>
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Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is not the only senior politician having conniptions about his seat. Anthony Albanese was in his New South Wales electorate of Grayndler on Monday, the first full day…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/586282016-05-02T05:36:16Z2016-05-02T05:36:16ZSmart Cities Plan offers signs of hope, but are Turnbull and Taylor just dreamin’?<p>For committed urbanists, any sign of serious urban policy action by the federal government is welcome. Early announcements by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his <a href="https://theconversation.com/urban-policy-could-the-federal-government-finally-get-cities-47858">appointment of a minister for cities</a> were <a href="https://theconversation.com/hopes-of-a-new-urban-age-survive-ministers-fall-52975">cause for some celebration</a>. </p>
<p>The subsequent <a href="https://theconversation.com/turnbull-makes-necessity-the-mother-of-opportunity-54702">appointment of Angus Taylor</a> as assistant minister for cities and digital transformation continued the positive outlook; a relatively new parliamentarian with a good track record of business development and an analytical disposition was <a href="https://theconversation.com/memo-to-our-latest-cities-minister-heres-what-needs-to-be-done-55768">entrusted to advance this policy agenda</a>.</p>
<p>April 29 marked the start of the next phase of policy development, when we got to see what a <a href="https://cities.dpmc.gov.au/smart-cities-plan">Smart Cities Plan</a> looks like and whether it was worth the wait.</p>
<p>On first reading it contains all of the right words – smart, innovative, liveability and prosperity. It also advocated some sensible principles – collaboration, co-operation and partnership. But do these nice words and sensible principles add up to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-budget-2016-deliver-a-new-deal-for-australian-cities-58581">real step change in urban policy thinking</a>, or to a business-as-usual approach <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2016/05/02/turnbulls-smart-cities-plan-is-that-all-there-is/">wrapped in the latest policy terminology</a>?</p>
<p>At this stage we cannot be sure, but prospective partners in state and local government seem to have a <a href="http://www.planning.org.au/news-archive/media-releases/29-april-2016---planners-welcome-smart-cities-plan-concerns-over-lack-of-population-growth-guidance">fair degree of optimism</a> about the plan. </p>
<p>Most sensible public bodies will profess their support, in principle, for any initiative that offers the prospect of new money to support development proposals in their area. They will commit, in principle, to working together for the common good in their locality. And, if necessary, they will rebadge their current plans to fit more easily with the rhetorical flavour of the new initiative.</p>
<p>The proof will, however, lie in the detail of partnership arrangements, in the implementation structures that are developed and in the way new money is allocated. Even more importantly, success will depend on whether the actual measures employed work in practice.</p>
<h2>Partnerships in practice</h2>
<p>In each of our cities – large and small – we need all three levels of government to work together if growth is to be supported and managed effectively. Intergovernmental partnerships have been proposed for as long as we have had different levels of government.</p>
<p>There is much research on <a href="http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2010/01/11/000158349_20100111135808/Rendered/PDF/WPS5172.pdf">what makes such partnerships work</a> well and what does not. Where partnerships work, much of this success is based on mutual respect and recognition of the distinctive contribution of each partner. </p>
<p>It becomes more challenging where the reality of an urban area requires horizontal partnerships between local councils as well as vertical partnerships with state and federal bodies. </p>
<p>The patchy experience of <a href="https://rda.gov.au/">Regional Development Australia</a> committees across the country gives some indication of how well this has been achieved to date. Some have worked very well. Others have struggled in the face of varied and variable enthusiasm among partners.</p>
<h2>Getting implementation structures right</h2>
<p>I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/city-deals-nine-reasons-this-imported-model-of-urban-development-demands-due-diligence-57040">argued previously</a> that effective implementation of any policy initiative is often plagued by a lack of long-term commitment and bipartisan support. </p>
<p>Along with a seemingly irresistible belief within governments of any hue that policies need to be fiddled with (the technical terms would be refreshed, refocused or rebadged) every few years, carefully designed initiatives are rarely left to get on with their work and run their course. </p>
<p>Another problem is bureaucratic capture, in which early ambitions to work differently, with greater agility perhaps, are slowly but surely overtaken by implementation regimes that do the opposite in practice. The business experience of both the prime minister and his assistant minister for cities will be needed to prevent this type of sclerosis taking hold.</p>
<h2>Finding and spending new money to best effect</h2>
<p>As Taylor <a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-podcast-angus-taylor-on-cities-and-digital-transformation-57974">told Michelle Grattan</a> recently, some partnerships between public bodies and private investors have been very effective in the past – the construction of the national rail network in the US, for example. But there is also no shortage of ones that have not gone well for any of the parties.</p>
<p>So, while there has been some <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-30-minute-city-how-do-we-put-the-political-rhetoric-into-practice-56136">enthusiasm for the potential role of value capture</a> of late – and certainly in the new plan – we need to see the detail of particular proposals. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/city-deals-nine-reasons-this-imported-model-of-urban-development-demands-due-diligence-57040">UK City Deals model</a> includes the principle of transferring some of the increased tax revenue associated with growth from the Treasury back to local partnerships. However, this has sometimes <a href="http://ner.sagepub.com/content/233/1/R14.abstract">proved difficult to agree in practice</a>.</p>
<p>And it is here that bipartisan agreement in the urban policy field seems unlikely at present. The shadow minister for cities, Anthony Albanese, has come straight out with a ringing condemnation of the Turnbull-Taylor plan as a policy without substance. </p>
<p>Albanese also joined with the <a href="http://www.afr.com/real-estate/malcolm-turnbulls-value-capture-plan-for-infrastructure-splits-developers-20160429-goic5m">Property Council of Australia</a> in invoking the spectre of Australian families being <a href="http://anthonyalbanese.com.au/coalition-must-rule-out-new-property-tax">slugged with a new property tax</a> to capture some of any increased value associated with public investment in infrastructure.</p>
<h2>How will we know what works?</h2>
<p>Tucked away on page 23 of the plan is a small section about measuring success. This acknowledges the importance of having good-quality data to provide a baseline against which future performance can be measured. It cites the need for “unambiguous targets, accountabilities and timeframes for city-level reforms”.</p>
<p>The plan recognises that, without these, it will be impossible for the government to hold itself and its investment partners to account. I would like to think that in five years’ time we will be able to read a National Audit Office report (like <a href="//www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/design-and-implementation-liveable-cities-program">this one on the 2011-14 Liveable Cities Program</a>) describing how this bold new Smart Cities Plan heralded a new era of productive intergovernmental collaboration. </p>
<p>That would mean it succeeded in attracting substantial new private investment, which set our cities on a clear path to being <a href="https://theconversation.com/ideas-for-australia-city-v4-0-a-new-model-of-urban-growth-and-governance-for-australia-56372">smarter, more productive and nicer places</a> in which to live.</p>
<p>Let’s hope that if I shared this view with The Castle’s <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Castle">Darryl Kerrigan</a> he wouldn’t tell me, or indeed Angus Taylor, that we’re dreamin’.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Burton receives funding from the City of Gold Coast as part of its Growth Management Partnership with Griffith University. He is also a founding member of Regional Development Australia, Gold Coast. </span></em></p>The discussion paper makes all the right noises, but the proof of the policy will be in the detail of partnership arrangements and implementation structures, and in how new money is used.Paul Burton, Professor of Urban Management and Planning & Director, Urban Research Program, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/561362016-03-17T19:21:39Z2016-03-17T19:21:39Z‘The 30-minute city’: how do we put the political rhetoric into practice?<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/malcolm-turnbull-puts-highspeed-rail-to-sydneys-second-airport-on-fast-track-20160310-gng45p.html#ixzz42eyAjx9d">promoted the benefits</a> of a “<a href="http://www.afr.com/news/politics/election/federal-election-2016-turnbulls-plan-for-30minute-cities-20160620-gpn6tw">30-minute city</a>” in explaining his approach to cities and urban transport. The opposition infrastructure spokesman, Anthony Albanese, notes he <a href="http://anthonyalbanese.com.au/address-to-the-national-press-club-canberra">talked about this idea</a> at the National Press Club in 2014.</p>
<p>The reality is that the 30-minute city is hardly a new idea in town planning, but it is good to see political leaders recognising its value and grappling with what it means. It’s likely to bring <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/turnbulls-budget-will-be-big-and-bold-and-about-boom-20160315-gnjd2y.html">significant change to how we build our cities</a>.</p>
<h2>The urban time travel budget</h2>
<p>People across the world, in every city and in all historical cities, have an <a href="https://theconversation.com/defying-the-one-hour-rule-for-city-travel-traffic-modelling-drives-policy-madness-53099">average travel time budget of one hour</a> – around 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. The historic walking city spread out only 2-4km across, the tram city about 10km and the steam train city about 20km, before the car city went 40-50km out. All were 30-minute cities.</p>
<p>Some people choose to live where they can have a much lower travel time and some choose much longer, especially in far outer suburbs. But the average is around 30 minutes for the journey to work.</p>
<p>Only when a city is becoming dysfunctional does the average start to blow out. Data shows this in Sydney outer areas in recent decades. When this happens people demand faster transit options. The real estate market trend is for people to move into areas where they can reduce travel times.</p>
<p>The 30-minute city concept has become very useful for town planning as it helps plan <a href="http://islandpress.org/book/the-end-of-automobile-dependence">more strategically</a> for where development should happen or not happen. </p>
<p>Although history suggests there is a strong market for living within the 30-minute city, the politics of land development usually interferes. Land owners on the urban fringe will always be looking to make squillions out of rezoning their land for suburbs rather than rural purposes. And there are always people who are ready to stop any density increases in their neighbourhood as the redevelopment market requires.</p>
<p>Why it is very important to see bipartisan support for the 30-minute city is that Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth are already way out of kilter with this goal. Any city that has sprawled more than 50km will be unable to keep those suburbs within a 30-minute travel time budget – traffic congestion keeps average speeds in most cities below 40km/h. The average morning and evening commute in these four big cities <a href="http://islandpress.org/book/the-end-of-automobile-dependence">is now more than 30 minutes</a>.</p>
<p>All the strategic plans of these cities are therefore suggesting that redevelopment must be increased and assisted. Infrastructure can help density. As <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2016-03-11/interview-wendy-harmer-abc-sydney">Turnbull says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you invest in good transport infrastructure, then density gives greater amenity because there are more things to do, you’re closer to work, you’re closer to university.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Tony Abbott era presented cities with very large road projects that would just <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-east-west-link-is-dead-a-victory-for-21st-century-thinking-34914">increase urban sprawl</a>. These projects ultimately would not have reduced travel times as they would not help create redevelopment.</p>
<p>So how do we help our cities achieve 30-minute travel times?</p>
<h2>The urban package</h2>
<p>Turnbull often refers to three factors that are emerging as the government’s urban package: urban rail, urban density and urban land value capture. These are the approaches that can be seen in cities globally.</p>
<p>1) <strong>Urban rail</strong></p>
<p>Several speeches have indicated the Turnbull government is agnostic about the modes of transport it favours. Turnbull <a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-reveals-plan-to-streamline-road-and-rail-transport-in-cities/news-story/85f81d42bbef834721e696db113b3a36">has said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Coalition governments have been very reluctant to fund rail, support rail, (they) prefer to support road. My government will support transport infrastructure regardless of its mode. It depends on what makes most sense. And the reality is it will be a mixture of both (road and rail).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is left of the road package from the Abbott government is being supported. Rural communities will put up their hands for more roads. But Turnbull’s overwhelming message (his consistent personal stance for decades) is that he likes <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-build-light-rail-in-our-cities-without-emptying-the-public-purse-39255">new urban rail systems</a>. He wants a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-11/badgerys-creek-airport-hopes-rail-link-will-be-ready-for-opening/7239098">fast rail link to Sydney’s second airport</a> when it opens. </p>
<p>Before he was prime minister, Turnbull said the Gold Coast Light Rail was his favourite in the world. There was not much doubt he would fund its small extension for the Commonwealth Games. Most significantly, it showed urban rail was <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-light-rail-genie-is-out-of-the-bottle-but-how-many-cities-will-get-their-wish-48669">back on the federal agenda</a>.</p>
<p>Cities across the country have thus been gearing up to put urban rail back into their priority plans. This is not just an Australian phenomenon; cities worldwide are finding new rail technology <a href="http://islandpress.org/book/the-end-of-automobile-dependence">helps them create 30-minute cities</a>.</p>
<p>2) <strong>Urban density</strong></p>
<p>Turnbull has stressed that rail projects enable density in activity centres across the city. He understands how infrastructure is <a href="http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/lachlan-macquarie-lecture">needed for “an integrated investment</a> that creates amenity, value, liveability, affordability and economic growth” and that “communities need smart, well-designed, walkable density”.</p>
<p>In other words, cities need infrastructure and redevelopment that create activity centres where people can live and work within 30 minutes by foot, cycle, bus, car or train/tram. This is the agenda for all our big cities. It has been a big agenda for all state governments in the past decade: the need for strong urban centres that can compete with other global cities for private capital and jobs. </p>
<p>“Walkable density” … I think we will hear that many more times. So how do we achieve that?</p>
<p>3) <strong>Urban land value capture</strong></p>
<p>We need to find ways to fund urban rail and urban activity centres together. We need transit-oriented development, but so often we get transit without the land development, or density without the transit. </p>
<p>The secret seems to be combining government and business to do both as one package. The private sector is necessary – after all, it does the land development in cities – but the approach globally is now to seek ways to have the private sector build both the land development and the transit.</p>
<p>The new mantra is to fund the integrated agenda through urban land value capture. This makes use of the fact that when urban rail is built it increases land value around stations. </p>
<p>This agenda has yet to be fully explained. As NSW Opposition Leader <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/malcolm-turnbull-puts-highspeed-rail-to-sydneys-second-airport-on-fast-track-20160310-gng45p.html">Luke Foley said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our governments need to spell out what … [they] are doing when they talk about value capture. Walk into any pet store in the nation and the resident budgerigar is squawking on about value capture.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Transforming how cities develop</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.curtin.edu.au/research/cusp/local/docs/Rail_Model_Report.pdf">CUSP Entrepreneur Rail Model</a> explains the concept and takes it further. It redefines the core players away from transport planners and suggests land-development expertise should lead the exercise of rail building.</p>
<p>This offers a focused approach for urban areas ripe for intensification. The model shows how governments can best capture the value created from higher densities around new rail stations in direct partnership with the rail builders. </p>
<p>Private land development expertise is needed to recognise where the potential exists for significant accessibility-based land value increase. Private bids can therefore create opportunities to <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-to-build-%20better-cities-get-the-private-sector-involved-in-rail-projects-52204">directly fund the railway</a>. If governments can’t enable this process, then you don’t get the rail or the land development – they depend on each other.</p>
<p>The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure Transport and Cities has been <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/ITC/Transport_connectivity">taking submissions on</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The role of transport connectivity in stimulating infrastructure and economic activity. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=1a39de67-0b67-40bb-b2b2-fc4348938bfb&subId=408950">submission on the Entrepreneur Rail Model</a> prompted two hours of questioning. One questioner said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Your paper is about the reconceptualisation of the role of government agencies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He is right.</p>
<p>The committee’s questions left little doubt that there is a mood for change in how we build our cities. As Torkel Patterson, from Central Japan Railways Company, said at a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/stars-are-aligning-for-australia-to-build-high-speed-rail-says-international-expert-20160301-gn75i6.html">recent Sydney rail conference</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s not transportation, it’s transformation that we need.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is serious debate across Australia about this. Most state governments have little room for more capital spending and are under pressure to provide urban rail. </p>
<p>But the approach that provides money for transport projects at will – treating Treasury like an ATM, as <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/malcolm-turnbull-warns-of-trouble-and-expense-of-raising-gst/news-story/f7e56e2574cb6dfc4d7ceb2651ae4755">Turnbull says</a> – and isn’t integrated with the 30-minute city redevelopment agenda, is not what we need in our cities. </p>
<p>If cities want help with urban rail, they will need the private sector to provide much of the funding, with outcomes that create the 30-minute centres we desperately need. They can do this only if the states develop a mechanism that enables redevelopment opportunities, their activity centres, to be the basis of integrated rail and land development. This is not what states have been doing. They must begin now.</p>
<p>If the 30-minute city goal can indeed guide urban rail investment, then we can unlock the necessary dense activity centres. This is the holy grail of town planning. Such a model is used in Japan, so can we make an Australian model work?</p>
<p>Our leaders’ speeches on the 30-minute city should be a signal for intense activity by federal, state and local government agencies as well as private sector firms. Government processes and consortia will need to gear up to deliver this emerging agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Newman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ‘30-minute city’ goal is about more than urban rail and other transit projects. It means transforming our cities into centres of activity where work, study and services are all close by.Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/515712015-12-03T03:12:00Z2015-12-03T03:12:00ZAlbanese offers Labor a counter to Turnbull’s polished charms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104013/original/image-20151202-14464-jkwwrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Malcolm Turnbull’s potentially most dangerous opposition has begun to emerge from inside his own party.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s hardly unusual for a party to be divided over a leader’s personal style. Even for a government ahead in the polls – as Malcolm Turnbull’s is <a href="https://theconversation.com/terrorism-fails-to-boost-coalition-in-newspoll-despite-increased-popularity-for-turnbull-51198">now</a> – it’s far from rare.</p>
<p>Forty-five years ago, when John Gorton was prime minister, both Liberal and Country Party MPs were split over how <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/03/18/1015909929252.html">“Jolly John”</a> chose to govern. His very Australian love of a drink, a smoke and a dance tended to upset the uptights on the right.</p>
<p>Inevitably, a select group formed around Gorton to bolster his support. Known as the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/05/1022982701054.html">“Mushroom Club”</a> – so called because Gorton’s inner circle allegedly kept others in the dark and fed them bullshit – dined together regularly as they monitored Gorton’s numbers.</p>
<p>Gossip now has it today’s federal Liberals have something of a reverse “Mushroom Club” – an informal <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/angry-liberal-mps-question-tony-abbott-resistance-movement-and-monkey-pod-lunches-20151123-gl65yw.html">“resistance group” of outsiders</a>. But this club, of anywhere between four and nine MPs and senators, is there to remind Turnbull’s supporters that Abbott and his capital “C” conservative clique isn’t going anywhere.</p>
<h2>Opposition from within</h2>
<p>You can just imagine the blue language over oyster soup, mulling over Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/turnbull-resists-pressure-to-put-dutton-on-national-security-committee-51097">exclusion</a> from cabinet’s national security committee, and fears Turnbull’s response to the Paris atrocities has been too meek.</p>
<p>On paper, Turnbull’s greatest thorn should be Labor leader Bill Shorten. But, as Shorten – who is polling at 15% as preferred prime minister and falling – seems all but unelectable, Turnbull’s potentially most dangerous opposition has begun to emerge from the “resistance group” inside his own party. </p>
<p>Even if Abbott never came close to gathering numbers for another spill, the group’s mere presence would eventually have suggested a divided party. This was at least until the Paris terrorist attacks, which have not only put Turnbull under pressure but allowed at least one Labor luminary to shine in his own right.</p>
<p>Nearly 60% of Labor’s grassroots members wanted Anthony Albanese to lead the party after the 2013 election. He <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-13/bill-shorten-elected-labor-leader/5019116">lost to Shorten</a> on caucus factional numbers.</p>
<p>At the time, Labor’s choice of Shorten appeared to be the correct one. Facing off against a gruff ideological warrior in Abbott, Shorten’s more moderate, urbane style at least offered voters a contrast. But that point of difference is now moot as Turnbull corners the electoral market on urbanity.</p>
<p>The plain-speaking, punchy ideological warrior in “Albo”, however, offers voters a new contrast. Throw in some of Albo’s best <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/12/anthony-albanese-labor-has-gone-too-far-in-supporting-national-security-laws">conservative button-pushing</a> over Islamic State, Syria, public ownership and national security – and he’s the most <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/palmer-slams-darwin-port-sale/story-e6frg90f-1227618995227">articulate critic</a> of the government’s decision to lease the Port of Darwin to Chinese interests – and we’ve got a very public job application for Labor’s federal leadership.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104014/original/image-20151202-14444-eya7dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104014/original/image-20151202-14444-eya7dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104014/original/image-20151202-14444-eya7dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104014/original/image-20151202-14444-eya7dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104014/original/image-20151202-14444-eya7dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104014/original/image-20151202-14444-eya7dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104014/original/image-20151202-14444-eya7dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anthony Albanese is one of Labor’s most effective critics of government policy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A return to the ‘ordinary’?</h2>
<p>Sceptics of Turnbull’s apparent invincibility have long warned that this “brilliant” and “fearless” man – as Paul Keating allegedly <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/brilliant-and-fearless-but-paul-keating-was-right-about-turnbull-20090626-czt7.html">described him</a> – suffered two key weaknesses. The first, they say, is judgement.</p>
<p>Perhaps the sceptics are right. Think back to the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-06-21/ozcar-scandal-controversy-explained/1327966">“Utegate” saga</a> of 2009 when Turnbull called for Kevin Rudd’s resignation over a single dodgy email alleging Labor cronyism. When the email was proven fake, Turnbull suffered the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2009/06/29/utegate-could-spell-end-turnbull">biggest single fall</a> in support in Newspoll history.</p>
<p>Think back also to Turnbull’s public <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/coalition-split-looms-over-emissions-trading-20090531-brqu.html">declaration of support</a>, despite colleagues’ opposition, for Labor’s emissions trading scheme.</p>
<p>Cynics also warn Turnbull’s polished, articulate style could easily go the way of former Labor leaders Kim Beazley and Rudd: initially impressive and charming but ultimately annoying and distracting. Interestingly, Albanese has already <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/coalition-mps-tell-pm-malcolm-turnbull-to-get-tough-on-terror/news-story/16632f5810bcc7a346439ee17354f3c8">picked up</a> on this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He doesn’t know when to stop talking and make a clear statement.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Compare Turnbull’s refined style – already lampooned by cartoonists who paint him in top hat and tails – with Albanese’s earthy Aussie twang and potato sack suit. Add <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/anthony-albaneses-waiting-game-20150817-gj0i66.html">Albanese’s</a> single-parent upbringing, his love of footy and a hint of Roman Catholic conservatism, and Labor has waiting in the wings a quintessential man of the people.</p>
<p>Where, in theory, smooth Labor intellects such as Tanya Plibersek, Tony Burke or Chris Bowen should be front-runners to replace Shorten, Australians’ jangled nerves over terrorism and tried patience over cost of living all point to a return to “ordinary” in political leadership. Just ask the premiers of Queensland and Victoria, Annastacia Palaszczuk and Daniel Andrews, if an unpolished persona works.</p>
<p>If Albanese does succeed Shorten, Australians will have the strongest ideological and stylistic contrast in major party leaders since Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke 33 years ago.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Paul Williams is a Research Associate with Queensland's TJ Ryan Foundation. </span></em></p>If Anthony Albanese becomes Labor leader, Australians will have the strongest ideological and stylistic contrast in major party leaders since Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke 33 years before.Paul Williams, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191862013-10-15T05:26:16Z2013-10-15T05:26:16ZAll that glitters was not necessarily gold in Labor’s leadership poll<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33051/original/pnmzrpb3-1381811163.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amidst the celebrations of 'democracy', the ALP leadership election - which gave rise to Bill Shorten as Labor leader - exposed a number of flaws in the new process.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>New Labor leader Bill Shorten has vowed to continue on the path of party reform, but the latest ALP leadership battle failed to expose all the dangers of the new system. </p>
<p>Not only is there the possibility of a paradoxical outcome (where the party membership and the caucus are split on who should be leader), but the process is slow, and there is a clear malapportionment between caucus and branch voting power. This has the potential to cause friction in to the future. </p>
<p>Plus there’s the fact the affiliated unions were not part of the process. </p>
<p>The change in the parliamentary leadership election process, <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-kevin-rudds-new-labor-party-15888">brought in</a> by former leader Kevin Rudd, required a “democratic” selection process in which the parliamentary and branch wings of the party participated. </p>
<p>Shorten <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-labor-leader-shorten-promises-a-positive-agenda-19132">emerged victorious</a> from this process over Anthony Albanese on the back of majority support for him in caucus, and a 40% vote amongst the members. According to those in the know, some 345 branch member votes had the same voting power as one caucus vote. Shorten won 55 votes in caucus and the party reported he obtained 12,196 (or 40%) of the 30,426 votes cast by members. </p>
<p>We have been told this total represents <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national-news/bill-shorten-new-labor-leader-after-beating-anthony-albanese/story-fncynjr2-1226739055728">about three-quarters of the party membership</a>, so we can now say with some authority that Labor’s national branch membership numbers are somewhere around 40,000. </p>
<p>We have also been told that some 4,000 new members <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national-news/labor-leadership-contest-ends-on-sunday-but-has-helped-revitalise-labor/story-fncynjr2-1226737046949">joined the party</a> in the immediate aftermath of the federal election defeat, so this means that Labor membership during the years of government was at about 36,000. </p>
<p>Given that he was the preferred choice of his parliamentary colleagues, it is perhaps fortuitous for the Labor Party that Shorten prevailed. However, his reputation as leader of the party in its totality must be qualified to some extent by the fact that 60% of the broader party preferred Mr Albanese. It is also perhaps fortuitous that the whole leadership process was conducted in such a gentlemanly manner, and that Albanese has been so magnanimous in defeat.</p>
<p>This has allowed the party to celebrate the process as a triumph for internal party reform and democracy. However, rather like the way the axiomatic Labor view of the 2013 election result that precipitated the need for a new leader (that is, the election result wasn’t that bad and leadership instability was to blame) has emerged, the party’s trumpeting of its leader election process might just be wishful thinking. </p>
<p>At least the drawn-out process allowed the Labor caucus and the two men who were so central to Labor’s failure at the federal election to find a distraction in the aftermath of the party’s hiding in both the House of Representatives and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-2013-senate-contest-australia-lurches-to-the-right-17535">Senate</a>. One wonders if this exercise now replaces the otherwise almost obligatory review of the party by an elder party statesman that usually follows ignominious electoral defeat.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33049/original/kj5w3wzy-1381810036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33049/original/kj5w3wzy-1381810036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33049/original/kj5w3wzy-1381810036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33049/original/kj5w3wzy-1381810036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33049/original/kj5w3wzy-1381810036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33049/original/kj5w3wzy-1381810036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33049/original/kj5w3wzy-1381810036.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It was all smiles in the month-long contest between Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese for the Labor leadership.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Shorten-Albanese contest was for the spoils of defeat, and this explains why the loser would be so sanguine. Albanese may well live to fight another day, but the real test for the new process will be when the leadership battle is on in earnest and the question of who might be the prime minister might arise. It would be interesting to see how the branch membership of the party fares in such a contest. </p>
<p>If <a href="https://theconversation.com/rudd-reforms-and-preselection-battles-the-more-things-change-16348">preselection battles</a> in the past are anything to go by, a branch-stack of staggering proportions would probably ensue. If the caucus were to be enlarged ahead of such an event, the numbers of branch members needed would be vast. Alternatively, a grassroots campaign about addressing the malapportionment between caucus and branch voting power could ensue.</p>
<p>This round of the leadership selection process has thrown up a contradictory outcome, but it is one that can be endured by the parliamentary wing. Shorten wasn’t the most popular candidate in the branch, but at least he has majority support amongst his parliamentary colleagues. Labor should reflect on what happened to the Australian Democrats who had a similar ethos when it came to the parliamentary leadership. </p>
<p>In the case of the Democrats, the process <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/2001/04/07/stott-despoja-defeats-lees-to-take-democrats-leadership.html">returned Natasha Stott Despoja</a>, who was very popular among the members but was in the minority faction in the parliamentary Democrats as the party divided over its policy on the GST. Not having the support of your parliamentary colleagues makes parliamentary leadership really difficult, and not even Stott Despoja could survive in that political environment. Her party soon followed her into oblivion.</p>
<p>Labor is a much bigger party than the Democrats. It has shown a capacity to be durable in the face of all sorts of disasters, and has survived bigger calamities than the Rudd party reforms. Still, a clear assessment of the process needs to go beyond celebration of party democracy for its own sake.</p>
<p>Reviving the branch membership of a party is a laudable objective and both the Labor and Liberal parties clearly see the promise of being able to participate in crucial preselection decisions as something that can entice people back to the branches. There are limits to how successful this can be, however, and there are great dangers in a system that takes too long to expedite and might give a result that key players can’t or won’t accept.</p>
<p>Besides, if it wants to regain its support among swinging voters, Labor needs to think less about how to enfranchise its partisans in internal affairs, and more on where it stands on policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19186/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Economou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New Labor leader Bill Shorten has vowed to continue on the path of party reform, but the latest ALP leadership battle failed to expose all the dangers of the new system. Not only is there the possibility…Nick Economou, Senior Lecturer, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/190412013-10-13T04:08:26Z2013-10-13T04:08:26ZShorten wins, but the ALP plays it safe with democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32919/original/ybjg26bd-1381635503.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bill Shorten is the new ALP leader, after an election contest where the votes of the rank and file party members were included for the first time.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>So the election between two middle-aged, middle class, white men with broadly shared policy agendas is over. In this case, it is not the federal election between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, but the month-long Labor leadership contest between Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese that has finally come to a conclusion, with Shorten emerging triumphant.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-kevin-rudds-new-labor-party-15888">first for the Labor Party</a>, Shorten was elected with a 50:50 weighting split between the parliamentary party and the rank and file membership. Despite losing the rank and file vote to Albanese (polling just 40.08% of over 30,000 members’ votes), Shorten won 63.95% of his caucus colleagues’ support for a total of 52.02% overall.</p>
<p>For Labor, this has been largely a therapeutic exercise. Not since the <a href="http://resources.news.com.au/files/2011/02/18/1226008/222073-labor-review-report.pdf">2010 National Review</a> - undertaken by party elders Bob Carr, Steve Bracks and John Faulkner - has the party membership’s views been given so much weight. Perhaps not since Simon Crean’s <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/09/1028158016882.html">internal reforms</a> has the party membership been taken as seriously by the leadership.</p>
<p>Yet for all the boldness of the new election process, this is something of a missed opportunity for the ALP. In a strategic bid to bury internal divisions, both candidates claimed similar ideological ground. A more open competition might have helped the party renew further. </p>
<p>A wider contest might also have been a battle of ideas, not just a demonstration of leadership skills. Chris Bowen, the interim leader since the election, is a noted social liberal, and his <a href="https://theconversation.com/chris-bowens-plan-to-win-hearts-and-minds-and-save-labor-16028">recent book</a> argues Labor should reclaim this tradition. In contrast, former prime ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd oscillated between Labor’s labourist and social democratic traditions. </p>
<p>It would have been interesting to speculate on how former ministers Greg Combet and Nicola Roxon might have enlivened this debate - although both have now left parliament.</p>
<p>Regardless of the result, Labor will be pleased with the process. Drawing upon wider research, British political scientist Tim Bale notes in his <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/29942">book</a> - The Conservatives Since 1945: The Drivers of Party Change - that opposition parties need to do several things to get elected. Freshening the leadership and maintaining party unity and discipline are crucial to the process of renewal. To some extent, the ALP is extracting the poison of its <a href="https://theconversation.com/rudd-wins-the-game-of-thrones-15573">previous leadership problems</a>.</p>
<p>The ALP is often a late adopter of reform processes. It is the latest of a number of parties to “democratise” its selection processes. Following the 2010 election debacle, the British Labour Party <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/sep/25/ed-miliband-wins-labour-leadership">elected Ed Miliband</a> through a new process. The electoral college was split three ways between MPs, individual members of trade unions, and party members. Effectively, the reforms ended the trade union “bloc” vote in the British Labour Party. Rudd, in reforming the ALP, just cut them loose.</p>
<p>In the UK contest, while neither Andy Burnham or Diane Abbott (for example) had much chance of winning, they did enrich the policy debate. British Labour was both tormented and tantalised by Tony Blair’s “New Labour” and the “coronation” of Gordon Brown. So, the new leadership process was also a healing one - except perhaps for David Miliband, who was narrowly defeated by his brother.</p>
<p>Across the Tasman, New Zealand Labour has yet to find a worthy successor to Helen Clark. In 2012, it reformed its leadership rules to enable the rank and file to vote. On a version of UK Labour’s electoral college, David Cunliffe was <a href="https://theconversation.com/albo-and-shorten-should-look-to-new-zealand-for-primary-guidance-18295">elected party leader</a>, on a vote split between the party caucus (40%), party members (40%) and trade unions (20%).</p>
<p>The Canadian centre-left New Democratic party has also reformed its leadership structures. At its <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party_leadership_election,_2003">2003 leadership contest</a>, party members were given a 75% weighting, while trade unions were given 25% (in effect, a “bloc” vote). In 2006, the party shifted to a one-person one-vote process for party members, with Tom Mulcair <a href="http://thechronicleherald.ca/canada/77153-mulcair-wins-ndp-leadership">winning the leadership</a> under this method in 2012.</p>
<p>In the case of the traditional western European social democratic parties - and unlike the Labour parties - trade unions and other affiliates are not usually given formal power in internal structures.</p>
<p>In Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) elected its leader through the national assembly. Peer Steinbrück secured a huge 93% of the vote, but still <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-elections-the-merkel-factor-leads-to-her-third-term-18503">failed to topple</a> Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats at the recent election. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/13/sweden-social-democrats-stefan-lofven">Stefan Löfven</a>, the current opposition leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) was elected through the party room. Current Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt won the leadership of the Social Democrats through the support of party members in 2005. Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann and Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) leader recently retained office in a “grand coalition” at last month’s election. Faymann was elected through the party convention. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32918/original/zc3yg8q5-1381633189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32918/original/zc3yg8q5-1381633189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32918/original/zc3yg8q5-1381633189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32918/original/zc3yg8q5-1381633189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32918/original/zc3yg8q5-1381633189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32918/original/zc3yg8q5-1381633189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32918/original/zc3yg8q5-1381633189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Current British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband won the leadership in 2010 on a weighted electoral college of MPs, party members and affiliated groups such as unions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Andy Rain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Local context is crucial to understanding leadership change, but all the major political parties are suffering from declining membership. While the ALP might be buoyed by the <a href="http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/caucus-votes-on-leader-in-labor-ballot-20131010-2v91r.html">apparent influx</a> of 4000 new members, this might prove to be a short-term boost. Current British Labour leader Ed Milband enjoyed a surge in <a href="http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/8434495/Labour_s_Lost_Grassroots_BP_FINAL.pdf">membership</a>, which then shrunk - as did <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/13/labour-party-record-surge-membership">membership under Tony Blair</a>. </p>
<p>In presidential France and the US, there is a strong tradition of primaries, which enable both party and public to get a good look at the candidates. Of these, failed presidential contender Ségolène Royal tried to make participatory democracy a key party of her appeal in the lead-up to the 2007 French presidential election. Royal, like US president Barack Obama, was an innovator in e-campaigning to find new sources of support.</p>
<p>In this context, Bill Shorten might do well to continue the reform process of the ALP. In “playing safe” with democracy, it might spur a further appetite for democratic reform. And all Australians, not just ALP members, might appreciate that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Manwaring does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>So the election between two middle-aged, middle class, white men with broadly shared policy agendas is over. In this case, it is not the federal election between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, but the month-long…Rob Manwaring, Lecturer, Politics and Public Policy, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182952013-09-18T20:43:37Z2013-09-18T20:43:37ZAlbo and Shorten should look to New Zealand for primary guidance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31507/original/gjffnp3c-1379466366.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New Zealand's new Labour leader David Cunliffe has been elected in a process involving direct voting by the party membership.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NZN/Laura McQuillan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While Australia’s Labor Party is digesting a significant electoral defeat, the New Zealand Labour Party, in opposition since 2008, has gone through another leadership change and is positioning itself to compete for office at the next general election, to be held by November 2014.</p>
<p>Labour not only has a new leader in David Cunliffe, but for the first time used a “primary-style” internal party process for electing him. And some have <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9164503/Loved-and-loathed-the-polarising-politician">compared Cunliffe to Kevin Rudd</a>. With Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten engaging in the first contest for the leadership of the ALP involving a direct vote by party members, the Cunliffe result is worth examining in detail.</p>
<p>But first, some background. Helen Clark’s Labour-led government was defeated in 2008, just after the worst of the global financial crisis had struck. The incoming minority conservative National-led government was headed by prime minister John Key. National were returned to office in the 2011 election with <a href="http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/parl-support/research-papers/00PlibCIP191/the-2011-general-election">47.3% of the party vote</a>, the largest ever under the proportional representation system in place in New Zealand since 1996.</p>
<p>Labour, by contrast, gained a mere 27.5% of the party vote, and a contest for the party leadership began soon afterwards in early 2012. This was won by David Shearer, whose main rival was Cunliffe. Shearer, however, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/22/david-shearer-resigns-new-zealand">never really cut it as leader of the opposition</a>. Relatively new to parliamentary politics, Shearer spent most of his career in humanitarian work in the developing world. He lacked experience and insider savvy, and rarely displayed the cut-through required of a politician on television and in the debating chamber.</p>
<p>Shearer narrowly avoided the sack by resigning, and this set in train a new process for Labour to elect its leader – a ballot weighted 40% for caucus, 40% for paid-up party members and 20% for affiliated trade unions. Hustings events were quickly set up across the country and the process was covered extensively by the news media.</p>
<p>As there were three candidates, a preferential vote was applied.</p>
<p>Cunliffe won on the first round with a total of 51%, but only a third of his caucus colleagues voted for him. Nearly half of them preferred instead his closest rival, former deputy leader Grant Robertson. It was the wider party membership and affiliates whose votes won the race for Cunliffe.</p>
<p>Naturally this has <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11125921">raised questions</a> about how unified the Labour caucus will be under Cunliffe’s leadership, but the desire to win office in 2014 may well take care of that, at least on the surface. In the meantime, though, the prime minister can taunt the leader of the opposition about an apparent lack of support from his caucus colleagues.</p>
<p>The party election results also reflect what many have said for some time about Cunliffe – that he is very intelligent and articulate, with a media presence that Shearer lacked, but with a divisive style. He appeals to the party rank and file but is prone to being a bit grandiose and seemingly narcissistic – or at least he fails to hide those less desirable self-regarding traits that are probably quite common among political leaders. Many of those who have to work with him appear to be less than keen. Hence the comparisons (justified or not) with Kevin Rudd.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31510/original/282nfz4w-1379467312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31510/original/282nfz4w-1379467312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31510/original/282nfz4w-1379467312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31510/original/282nfz4w-1379467312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31510/original/282nfz4w-1379467312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31510/original/282nfz4w-1379467312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31510/original/282nfz4w-1379467312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Will new Labour leader David Cunliffe be able to take the fight to prime minister John Key?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">flickr/Kelvinhu</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The important comparison for Cunliffe, though, will be with John Key, the present prime minister. Key’s intelligence and business nous are combined with an unassuming and down-to-earth manner that connects well with Kiwi voters, while simultaneously making sense to “the markets.” He has seen off three Labour opponents so far, and his government is in good enough shape at present to help him see off this next contender.</p>
<p>Key’s repeated message is that Labour is heading to “the far left.” As Labour will probably need a coalition with (at least) the Green party to form a government, then a vote for them next election is also implicitly a vote in favour of the Greens. And there is no doubt that Labour’s recent “primary” election has shown that their strategy is to pitch for the left, especially for the one third of those eligible who did not vote in 2011. </p>
<p>Their aim is thus to shift the position of the median voter to the left by encouraging the poor and disfranchised who didn’t vote last time to vote Labour next time. Hence, Cunliffe has made promises about raising low wages and taxing the well-off in order to win that support.</p>
<p>This is a socially worthy but politically high-risk strategy for Labour, especially if it means losing ground from the all-important centre. As an Ivy-league educated, business-friendly middle-class white guy, there is a risk that Cunliffe simply won’t inspire the unemployed or low-income workers, especially Maori or Pacific-Islanders, to come out and vote for him.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18295/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grant Duncan is a member of the New Zealand Labour party.</span></em></p>While Australia’s Labor Party is digesting a significant electoral defeat, the New Zealand Labour Party, in opposition since 2008, has gone through another leadership change and is positioning itself to…Grant Duncan, Associate Professor for the School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.