HERE is a list of election-cycle clunkers. They are clunkers that the Australian public should not have endured but which they largely brought upon themselves.

“Stop the boats”. This Coalition slogan was originally “turn back the boats”. It went from turning people back to almost certain death in unworthy boats to carting them to Nauru at great cost before they would mostly be given refugee status and residency in Australia.

This is an immoral playing on people’s irrational fears for a non-problem. The few thousand refugees a year who arrive this way are taken from the annual refugee quota of 13,000 anyway.

Population policy. The real danger to Australia’s way of life is not being “swamped” by boat people but being swamped by a too-aggressive immigration policy which strains our environment and overtakes our capacity to build infrastructure.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s risible response has been the tokenistic addition of the word “sustainable” in the Minister’s title and an illogical proposition that she can develop a population policy without talking about birth rates or immigration.

The Coalition has equally pushed platitude not policy.

Climate change. Labor’s citizen’s assembly is not substitute for action. We have a citizen’s assembly called Parliament and we have a community consensus for action.

The Coalition under Tony Abbott’s piecemeal projects for clean energy are no substitute for a market-based carbon tax which Malcolm Turnbull rightly points out is the only effective way to reduce emissions. The Coalition disgracefully reneged on its deal with the Government on the admittedly second-class emissions-trading scheme by chucking Turnbull out.

Both sides should return to the Garnaut report and find the courage and leadership to implement it.

“Pay back the debt”. This simplistic Coalition slogan makes a mountain out of a molehill and fails to understand that debt can be useful. Virtually no one in Australia buys a home without incurring debt. Most people in Australia would love to have their debt level at the level of “Labor’s debt” – just 6 per cent of their annual income. If anything, our low debt level is a missed opportunity.

The insulation scheme. The Government was naïve in imagining that any scheme handing out government money would not attract the worst low life from the private sector to rip it off with shonky practices.

“Cash for clunkers”. Didn’t the Government learn anything from the insulation scheme? The Government will now waste money handing out $2000 for cars that would have mostly come off the roads anyway through break-down or wreckage. And swapping clunkers for SUVs is of dubious environmental value anyway.

“End the waste”. This masterful Coalition propaganda is based on repetition and exaggeration. Waste is newsworthy. And Labor waste is especially newsworthy in the Murdoch press.

If every instance of any defect in a school project is given front-page treatment (even if individually accurate), the overall impression is a fiasco – an inaccurate impression. The impression is not removed when the overall report is given the once-over-lightly treatment.

The detailed overall report revealed a low level of waste, complaint or defect. Moreover, it was a price worth paying for getting money out quickly to prevent a recession. A sacked worker is newsworthy. A worker who retains their job is not.

Broadband policy. Some projects in the wide brown land can only be done by government. But Labor has not made its cost-benefit case very well. Why do we need internet 10 or more times faster than we have now? How will it be paid for?

Labor should not have sat on its costings so long. Why not engage in debate and discussion? There are a lot of talented people in Australia who can comment on government discussion papers and help improve and sell what is proposed.

The internet filter. This is the unworkable trying to create the unsearchable. It will slow the net down for no appreciable gain because it cannot filter everything which is rightfully of concern to parents without imposing unacceptable infringement of adult liberty. Free filters for parents to load on to individual computers is the answer.

On the other hand, the Coalition hardly has a broadband policy or even understands the need to have one.

“Stop the big new taxes”. Another masterful piece of Coalition propaganda. For a start there is only one tax – the mining tax. And in fact it is not big, not new and not even a tax. It a rent for resources in the ground and at a fair rate, especially after the Government’s cave in and it mostly replaces the old state royalties.

But the Government’s approach on this tax and tax in general has been amateur. It sat on the report of the Henry review for four months instead of consulting on those who might affected and drawing on the talents in the community to comment. Even after four moths it chose a couple of the 141 recommendations on offer.

This control-freak view of the world has been the root of Labor’s woes this term.

Education. The Coalition offers more cash for parents who send their kids to private schools and little else.

What was not said. The war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. Like the war in Iraq it has only created enemies and decreased our security. What is Australia to do about peak oil? What about our slow slide towards becoming a net food-importing nation? Foreign aid?

Lastly, the four big clunkers of every recent Australian election campaign: the single-member electoral system which encourages marginal-seat politics; compulsory voting which forces politicians to appeal to the ignorant, stupid and apathetic; an education system which does not teach critical thinking; and a media which pits conflict and personality before matters of consequence

Perhaps 50 or so of the 150 Reps seats could be national seats. A threshold could be set to prevent instability-causing minor parties getting seats, but giving some Reps representation to significant minor parties. The present system in effect disenfranchises voters in safe seats and causes misallocation of resources according to politics not need.

We could get rid of above-the-line voting in the Senate and rotate the position of candidates on the ballot paper so candidates earn their seats rather than have them handed to them by factions and preference deals.

With compulsory voting, politicians have to pander to people who have no interest in voting, so of course they will dumb down policies. We now have the politics of paralysis by fear: politicians fearing the dumb masses and the dumb masses being duped by politicians into fearing things they should not fear.

If the schools and universities taught logic and critical thinking fewer people would fall for dumb, simplistic proposals. Merit would replace celebrity and contest over ideas would replace conflict over personality.

Media coverage would evolve accordingly. Instead of the endless exhortations by journalists for politicians to be brief, they would be searching for length, depth and detail.

Surely something can come out of this clunker of a campaign, so we might not to have to suffer so many clunkers next time.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra TImes on 14 April 2010.