The next six to nine months of Australian politics until the 2019 federal election promise to be the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Nothing much new about that given that these are the three choices available in any election campaign: appeals to our better natures, resort to bland and boring, or the turn to fear-mongering.
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But after what we have witnessed since 2007 what happens seems particularly important. We should really put our best foot forward. But will we? Do we know how to? Is it asking too much to be idealistic?
These choices are in the hands of the two political party leaders, Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten. Each can bring the best or the worst out of the other. Between these two extremes is hard, grinding business as usual.
The best is an idealistic politics which aims for the common good of all Australians. This politics would identify the major issues facing the nation today, draw on the best possible community and public service advice, and then seek solutions which are aspirational but also financially achievable.
There will be genuine disputes about priorities and real disagreements about how to best achieve agreed goals. That is understandable as such disputes and disagreements exist among experts and specialists as well as within the wider community.
They should be handled with sensitivity and respect for the other side and conducted in a style and a language that seeks to reach compromise rather than to inflame divisions.
When policy decisions have been reached they should be communicated clearly and in a timely fashion so that feedback can be received from citizens and special interest groups.
They should be accompanied by a clear statement of the financial implications, which means expenditure for government spending programs and revenue for government taxation programs. This should all be done in time for an independent examination by the Parliamentary Budget Office, universities and lobby groups.
The outcome of all this should be a clear choice for the electorate which enables both the national interest and individual self-interest to be calculated by each voter. The plans should detail both immediate and longer-term impacts so that different generations of voters can have their say.
This doesn’t mean that the choice will be clear in any objective sense because voters will remain divided about priorities. They will also differ in their assessment of the leaders and of the competing teams. There will be considerable lack of trust in both sides of politics, not unreasonable given their track records. But at least the choice will be a reasonable one and it should be spelled out as far as possible.
Ideally, we should reach election day not feeling cheapened. We should have witnessed a hard-fought but ethical contest between competing parties and individuals, conducted in an honest and sincere fashion.
The ugliest alternative is the politics of fear and scare-mongering. There is plenty of it in Australian politics and both sides are guilty. It is more than just negative politics, a certain amount of which is reasonable because pointing out the weaknesses of your opposition is a legitimate part of any contest. But fear tactics and scare-mongering go further than mere negativity.
Some campaigning is associated with the manipulation in election campaigns of international and domestic threats to our security and well-being, perhaps to our very existence. This strand has a long history in Australian politics in the form of the communist bogey and is continued today in the form of international and domestic terrorism.
But scare campaigns can also be associated with more mundane domestic policies like health and welfare, taxation and superannuation, sometimes directed particularly at the most vulnerable, the aged and infirm. A common thread is the claim that the opposition cannot be trusted not because they are wrong or ignorant, but because they are devious or corrupt.
Let’s hope that we don’t go down this path much at all between now and the next election.
Between idealism and total cynicism is the business as usual mixture of the above plus a politics shaped by dour professionalism.
Morrison and Shorten have practical tactical choices facing them over the coming months. Their choices are tailored to their respective positions in the race. Morrison is lagging and must decide how to claw back the lead. He can’t afford to be defensive; his options are either positive or negative tactics.
The positive ways forward include all aspects of good governance, such as attention to outstanding policy issues like energy policy, drought, education funding, constructive federal-state relations, and taxation policy. But the temptation will be to approach these issues in the spirit, not of rational decision-making but vote-buying.
Shorten must choose between being bold and defensive. The temptation for him will be just to keep his head down and let the government continue to flounder. But that would be a mistake. He is best advised to continue what he’s been doing so far which has had an element of boldness about, especially in taxation policy.
There are two big dangers. One is that the leaders will be locked into a race to the bottom to buy votes by extravagant government spending with the Government leading and the Opposition following blindly.
The second is intrusions into federal politics from the Victorian and NSW election campaigns. Only ugly consequences will follow interventions by Morrison and Shorten to support their state counterparts through sledging their state-level adversaries. They should keep out of these state campaigns.
John Warhurst is an emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University.
