Australian politics
Liberals in la-la land
When Bridget Archer voted to support the government’s climate bill, how was she feeling? Was she deserting her 41 colleagues in the Liberal Party, or joining the 92 Members of Parliament who want an end to the climate war?
There is something odd about that gathering of 42 Liberals and 16 Nationals, designated as the “opposition” under our quaint traditions adopted from some distant country. These parliamentarians are behaving as if the people of Australia have just made a terrible mistake in voting them out of office in a small swing. The electors will shortly come to their senses as the economy descends into chaos as a result of Labor’s incompetence. That’s the impression one gains from Paul Bongiorno’s piece in last week’s Saturday Paper: The Peter Dutton schtick.
Bongiorno’s article starts “It still hasn’t dawned on the Liberal and National parties why they suffered such a stunning defeat at the May election”, and goes on to describe the parliamentary party’s delusion after delusion. He’s writing not about a party that’s reflecting on its steady decline in support in successive national and state elections and is working on rejuvenation, but about an organism that’s in the initial “denial” stage of Kübler-Ross’s stages of grieving. Hang on for the “anger”, “bargaining” and “depression” stages.
The reality they’re not confronting is the collapse of their support in what used to be their strongest electorates. Unless the urban independents do something really stupid – which is unlikely – those seats aren’t coming back to the Liberals, and 23 of the Coalition’s seats are on margins of less than 5 percent.
As Richard Denniss has written in the Canberra Times, the Coalition is on a path to irrelevance. His article is paywalled, but you can pick up Denniss’s reasoning in the first paragraph, which is about the Parliament:
The Australian Parliament is more representative of the Australian population than it has ever been. It has more women, indigenous people and first-generation Australians than any before it.
The trouble for the Coalition, Liberal and National, is that it has become less representative of the Australian people.
If we had an immutable two-party system, specified in our Constitution, then the decline of the opposition would be a serious matter – possibly the first step on the path to a one-party state.
But that doesn’t seem to be the direction we’re heading. As has been frequently pointed out in these roundups, the vote of the two established parties has been declining for 75 years, and independents and small-party candidates have been slowly creeping up to the point where they have been able to win seats in the House of Representatives. Anyone keeping his or her eyes on voting patterns could see the trend, but because it’s not linear (not much happens until a threshold of support is gained), most journalists and politicians haven’t seen it happening. We are probably already on the way to becoming a multi-party democracy, as is the pattern in most mainland European countries.
To throw in another speculation, is the present Albanese government the last majority government we will see for a long time?
Essential poll
This fortnight’s Essential Report shows a fall in Albanese’s net approval, but he’s still doing well. Immediately after the election his net approval was a whopping 41 percent: it is now down to 27 percent. In response to the question “would you say that Australia is heading in the right direction or is it off on the wrong track?”, most respondents think we’re heading in the right direction, but that’s down a little since the election. On this question there are strong partisan differences.
There is a set of questions on the performance of the Albanese government. The government is generally travelling better with younger people than with older people, but there is one important exception: younger people are more likely to believe that it is “out of touch with ordinary people”. On the whole set of questions there are strong and predictable partisan differences.
Unsurprisingly people are worried about inflation: 84 percent of respondents are “concerned” or “very concerned” with inflation, and 60 percent want the fuel excise cut to extend beyond September.
On fiscal measures, there is little support for the stage 3 income tax cuts, and there is strong support for spending to improve the quality of aged care.
There is strong support (65 percent “yes”, 35 percent “no”) for “an alteration to the Constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice”. There is a significant and predictable partisan difference, and young people are more in support of a Voice than older people.
Respondents are asked their views on the pledge of allegiance parliamentarians are required to make. “To Australia and the Australian people” is favoured by 75 percent of respondents, while “To Queen Elizabeth” (the hereditary monarch of one of Europe’s offshore islands) scores 15 percent. Presumably the other 10 percent go for Ashleigh Barty or Ariarne Titmus.