Voters not fooled by political games

BY SHANT FABRICATORIAN

It’s time to improve the quality of economic debate in Canberra.

Since our federal parliamentarians returned to the national capital earlier this month, there has been a decidedly unseemly, vituperative air to the debate in Canberra. Such is the result when egos override meaningful policy discussion.

If our parliamentarians have a good idea of even basic economics, they do a sterling job of keeping it hidden. It started before Christmas, when Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner displayed world-class contortionist skills to avoid using the D-word ‘ deficit ‘ in any public pronouncements, despite the best efforts of the country’s media.

Because, naturally, deficits are bad, as parliamentarians of all stripes have fallen over themselves to assure us again and again over the last decade: except, of course, when they become a necessary economic tool to dampen the effects of recession.

On the other side of the dispatch box, Malcolm Turnbull was determined not to let the inanity be restricted to the government. After telling us that a budget deficit would be regarded as ‘failure’ (a position he quickly realised was indefensible), Turnbull was at it again this month, arguing that recession ‘[wasn’t] inevitable at all’. He also offered this helpful advice: ‘There should always be more good regulation and less bad regulation. The critical thing is getting regulation right.’

There’s nothing quite like helpful practical advice in a crisis.

What links all these points is that they are symptomatic of a remarkably superficial approach to political economy which dumbs down the quality of the national debate, and ignores crucial questions in favour of irrelevant political point scoring on both sides.

Consider the fracas over Rudd’s essay in The Monthly. Ignoring the political ends it served, Rudd’s argument ‘ that neoliberal policies over the last 30 years have failed and more government involvement in the economy is required ‘ is hardly groundbreaking or controversial, at least in this Timid New World we find ourselves.

The essence of Rudd’s point is not without merit ‘ that in social terms, the ugly side of neoliberalism was most forcefully on display when its policies were perpetrated by economic ‘dries’ on the political Right. But to argue that the policies of the Liberals under Howard represented a difference in kind, rather than in degree, from those of the Hawke-Keating years is disingenuous at best.

Indeed, the phrase ‘We are all neoliberals now’ comes to mind when considering the changes wrought by Labor on the economy throughout the 1980s. Keating as treasurer, in particular, was not at all shy about enacting the changes he believed necessary. Not that he faced much obstruction from the Opposition over the fundamentals of what needed to be done ‘ in general, the only dissent from the Liberal benches was to the effect that Labor’s policies weren’t far-reaching enough.

Clearly, it also stands to reason that the Liberals are not excused from the charge of villainous misrepresentations. Turnbull’s allegation that the Liberals are the only party standing up for ‘good financial management’ is frankly ridiculous, all the more so when one considers the differences (minimal in the grand scheme of things) between their proposed alternative plan and the government’s.

If any of our elected representatives are feeling a bit like Steve Fielding and wondering why they’re not taken seriously, they might start by looking at their own party pearls of wisdom.

Voters aren’t quite the brainless lemmings some in Canberra seem to think.