Machismo Politics

Rudd’s resurrection acted as a circuit breaker, turning certain defeat into the tantalising prospect of a close contest. As his political honeymoon came to an end, Tony Abbott’s prospects rose and then fell a little. Both men have an uneasy relationship with the electorate. Abbott and Rudd appear to have something in common – simmering aggression, threatening to reveal itself one day and on display the next. This was on display in the second leaders’ debate in the form of a dramatic face off between Rudd and Abbott. As annoying as Kevin Rudd’s monologues can be at times, Tony Abbott may have lost more supporters than he gained by his, “Does this guy ever shut up?” remark. An implosive Tony Abbott can be his own worst political enemy. While the possibility of meltdown might be low, the intuitive amongst us sense the possibility. The same might be said of Kevin Rudd but his major flaw is chronic verbosity. As fascinating as psychoanalysing our politicians is, too much attention is paid to their personalities and not enough to their policies. While the Coalition’s Paid Parental Leave scheme would have attracted new supporters to the conservative cause, it annoyed a substantial part of its political base, particularly those that have to pay the proposed levy – Australia’s largest companies. The cost of the scheme has attracted both internal and external criticism with the Coalition wrestling with the contradiction of introducing one of the most expensive policy measures announced during the election campaign. Labor began the election declaring it would offer something new to the electorate. This sounded a bit like desperation politics. To distance his administration from that of Julia Gillard’s, Kevin Rudd announced the end of the carbon tax and early adoption of a floating price on carbon. Some new policies were announced but by and large Labor went into the election on a wave of support for its education and disability care reform packages. Along the way there have been some bizarre populist policy announcements ranging from Kevin Rudd’s Northern Territory company tax break to Tony Abbott’s boat buy back scheme. Neither is likely to endure post the election. Fear has been a weapon of choice for Tony Abbott as well as Kevin Rudd. Abbott chose boats and debt while Rudd adopted the cut, cut, cut mantra. The fear of an Abbott government cutting hard into public expenditure intensified when former ANZ Chief Economist Saul Eslake claimed that the Coalition had a $30 billion election-costing shortfall. He may well be right if subdued economic growth delivers revenue outcomes well below projections – a certainty in my judgment. The focal point in the final days of the campaign will undoubtedly be the veracity of the Coalition’s election costing. Small mistakes will be politically damaging and more substantial errors potentially fatal. For this reason the Coalition have left the release of their costing as late as possible, giving Labor, the media and the wider community very little time to analyse the details. In the absence of access to detailed costing, commentators are forced to conclude that the Coalition will either not be able to afford to fund all of their election promises, raise taxes or increase borrowings. Assuming that Federal Government revenue continues to track below forecasts, as it has over recent years and the Coalition’s proposed Audit Commission does what all past Audit Commissions have done – identifies a raft of cuts for consideration of government, it is safe to assume that the magnitude of public sector job losses will be substantially greater than the 12,000 public servants proposed by the Coalition. As a guide, substantial outsourcing of public health and community service provision would result in the loss of thousands more public servants over the medium term. For South Australia, the federal election has become a referendum on the future of the automotive industry. The Coalition indicated that they will cut around $500 million from industry assistance to the sector while Labor has committed an additional $500 million. Whatever your views about the relative merits of assistance to the industry, one thing is for certain, Holden and Toyota will not remain in Australia if a future government significantly downgrades its support for the sector. Associate Professor John Spoehr is the Executive Director of the Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre at the University of Adelaide