A paradoxical realignment is under way in Australian and US politics.
Until recently, the Republican Party in the US and the Liberal Party in Australia were the parties of business, entrepreneurs, the professions, and the relatively wealthy. And the Democrats and Labor were the parties of the worker. The Democrats and Labor were always wary of new technology because it invariably costs jobs.
It was a fairly straight-forward labour-capital divide.
Then came some big changes: the rise of China; the threat of global heating; the social revolutions relating to identity (race, gender, nationality, and religion); and the collapse of organised labour.
Global heating was seen by Republicans and Liberals as some trendy, leftie anti-capital nonsense. They saw, with some justification, the rise of China as menacing. They attracted working-class votes based on nationalism and opposition to social causes on racial and sexual equality.
Those changes have thrown up some irreconcilable contradictions.
Private-Sector Economic Rationalist Peter Dutton has a plan under one arm to axe 36,000 “Canberra” public servants. Under the other arm Commissar Dutton he has a plan for massive public ownership of the means of energy production and management with seven nuclear power stations – just so his mates can keep up the profitable burning of fossil fuels for a few more years.
No sensible private-sector organisation will go near the nuclear plan, for obvious reasons. Moreover, only a third of federal public servants work in Canberra. But it sounds good to cut “Canberra” public servants. As if they do nothing – aside from, say, running air-traffic control; policing the borders; running Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and the defence forces; doing weather forecasts; and generally making society tick.
It leaves Labor, the party that has usually been unenthusiastic about entrepreneur-driven new technology, embracing and financing private-sector investment in new energy.
Meanwhile, Anthony Albanese, the Workers’ Friend, sits on his hands while the big capitalist gaming, sport, and media industries use obscenely aggressive advertising to lure workers in to shovel their pay-packets into poker machines and on to the backs of horses.
And he sits on his hands while Australians fall victim to sophisticated scams that suck up their superannuation and savings, letting big financial institutions off the hook with no requirement for them to improve anti-scam systems. Classic victim blaming.
And he sits on his hands while lax food-labelling laws allow Big Food to stuff excessive amounts of sugar into Australians’ bodies with drastic health consequences.
The equivalent of the new gold standard of public policy – the randomised trial – has been done on food and scams in Britain and on gambling in Western Australia. The obvious reforms work to the benefit of the wider population. Randomised trials in public policy have been rightly pushed by the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh, a former professor of economics at the ANU. His colleagues should listen to him.
Labor, the party of the environment, has now shelved legislative protection for endangered species and approved dozens of extensions to coal and gas projects while putting its hand on its heart saying it has approved no “new” coal or gas projects.
Despite election promises, Albanese, who “goes after Tories”, has delivered a corruption watchdog that bares its gums in private. And his whistle-blower-protection promises have evaporated. His political finance “reforms” tinker about the edges while continuing to allow big corporations and unions to be puppet-masters.
It is a government that clears the in-tray by moving things into the too-scared basket.
Dutton, meanwhile, the friend of the Australian Jewish Community, cynically weaponises and politicises antisemitic attacks in Australia so he can argue that Albanese is “weak” while stirring up divisions for his own ends. With any luck it will back-fire because the Jewish community is a bit more sophisticated and understanding of the nuances of public policy than the former Queensland policeman.
The attacks, of course, are not coming from racialised Muslims, but far-right, nationalist, self-labelled “Christian” neo-Nazis.
Surely these things mean that Dutton and Albanese have disqualified themselves from leading a majority government. Surely, events of the past three years tell us that a cross-bench holding the balance of power in the House of Representatives will improve government.
If Albanese is Prime Minister, they will demand action on obvious things on pain of being thrown out of office. If Dutton is Prime Minister, they will demand detail, justification, and costings for his nuclear policy or to drop it – again on pain of being removed from office.
How else can the major parties be weaned off the insidious corporate, union, and lobby-group influencers that conspire against the public interest?
The glimmer of hope here is Labor’s massive support of renewable energy. The Australian Energy Market Operator reported this month that coal’s share of electricity generation had fallen below half for the first time. Coal-fired power stations are becoming less reliable and less economic.
The economics are so obvious that households are taking up solar at an unforeseen rate. And they are telling everyone about their zero power bills. So, it is on an unstoppable roll.
Meanwhile, in China leaders must be rubbing their hands with glee at Trump’s blinkered obstinacy. While Trump cancels investment in renewable energy and drills, baby, drills for fossil fuels that fewer and fewer people want to buy, China is taking over dominance in electric vehicles, solar panels, and battery technology.
Here again is the paradox of the political realignment. The party that warns against the rise of China is playing right into the hands of the Chinese pursuit of economic domination.
Australia might be on the cusp of making the same error. The Liberal Party – historically wary of Communist China – is embracing with Marxist-Maoist zeal the state ownership of a massive mid-20th-century white elephant in the form of nuclear power. Meanwhile, China is doing everything to dominate world markets for renewables and electric vehicles.
Trump – who avowedly wants to compete against and crush the economic rise of China – has in effect thrown in the towel on the greatest economic battle of our time because he ignorantly believes that climate change is not happening.
Well, climate change or not, economics and engineering do not lie. Renewable energy is the economics of the future. Trump and Dutton are a danger to western civilisation because they are surrendering the ground to China based upon their political need to support their fossil mates and an irrational denial that climate change is happening.
This is the new politics of paradox and contradiction.
Crispin Hull
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 4 February 2025.
Brilliant!
Once again, the tired and lazy ‘promise’ to cut the bloated ‘Canberra public servants’ is being dragged out by the Coalition. This dead cat is not the sole preserve of the conservatives; Julia Gillard instituted an ‘efficiency dividend’ after John Howard had scythed into the ‘fat cats’ in the early 1990s.
What we got was a tsunami of consultants/contractors from the four corporate amigos.
‘An audit of the Australian Public Service (APS) workforce has found close to $21 billion was spent hiring tens of thousands of external contractors and consultants in the final year of the former Liberal-National Coalition being in power’ (source ABC News).
In this obvious sleight of hand, cutting ‘36000 public servants’ (as advocated by the Coalition) would likely result in 36000 contractors. This was the result of the previous devious governmental wool-pulling over the eyes of the public.
The last seven years of my service in the Australian Defence Force saw me dealing with far more contractors than Defence personnel – civilians or uniformed.
Oh yes, I almost forgot – Dutton won’t tell us where he is going to slash and burn. He’ll do it after achieving government – we have to trust him. Quoting Basil Fawlty: ‘We’ll deal with the sackings later’.
The arm wrestle between the financial might of the fossil fuel industry and the climate change/ renewable impetus is at the heart of politics here and in U.S. it’s taken time for the fossils to get their teeth into politicians but are now on a roll. It’s at the heart of the next election here, quietly held in the LNP/ Rhinehart embrace
One thing all the major parties agree on is support for a “Big Australia”. This is why our massive population growth driven by importing people will not be an election issue. Suggestions will be made but no promises in writing. The young struggling to put a roof over their heads will be abandoned. Our massive population growth has failed to solve just about every problem it was meant to solve. In fact many of the issues have got worse. The reality is that our massive population growth benefits some people. It it these people that count.
China has 56 nuclear power plants and 30 under construction, you must have missed that fact when you were dissing Liberals nuclear plan and the statement that China is dominating in the renewable sector. Interesting omission?
Beautifully put, thank you, Crispin.
My only fear is that (a) the two major parties will gang up to destroy or weaken the Independents
and (b) that the Murdoch media, and skilful use of “social” media by Advance, and the Atlas Network will overcome the basic good sense of people, and pull a swiftie as they did withe the Voice to parliament referendum.