IN 1993, sociologist Hugh Mackay concluded that Australians were anxious about too much change. His 1993 book Reinventing Australia concluded that Australians were frazzled by too much change, especially economic change which had debased job security with casualisation and contracting out.
The Hawke-Keating years of economic reform and the prospect of more to come under a Coalition Government had people yearning for a bit of stability.
The lesson was reinforced with the near death of the Howard Government in 1998 after promising a major reform with the GST so soon after a huge win in 1996 by offering virtually no change at all.
Do nothing bold and making yourself a small target became the political wisdom.
But perhaps now we have come full circle. We need a bit of modernising and vision, at least according to some polling on some issues. And according to views put forward by business, environment and other interest groups. They are looking at what other countries are doing. They are looking at what we are not doing.
The changes in the 1980s and 1990s may have frazzled people, but the lack of it in the 2010s makes them despair.
Let’s look at some of the big-ticket items. Symbols and social questions; environment; education and research; government finance; health; defence and the political system.
New Zealand under a conservative government has the self-confidence to look at its flag. It wants a flag more symbolic of modern New Zealand.
We retain the Union Jack and lack the self-confidence even to put one of our own at the head of the Australian polity – we have a British hereditary monarch.
Worse, we have now gone backwards by re-introducing titles.
We continue to struggle with Indigenous recognition. Either nothing will happen for fear of calls for wider constitutional change, or it will be too paltry to be satisfactory.
Conservative leaders in New Zealand, Canada and Britain have accepted marriage equality. Our government ducks.
On the environment, we fly in the face of good sense, good economics, world opinion, the right thing to do, and even our own best interests. Polls are now showing the great majority of Australians feel we are not doing enough about climate change.
Our government is clinging to coal, when it is obvious the future is in renewables. India is simply not going to stretch poles and wires to every village and buy Australian coal for power stations when solar and wind are far more economic for them.
The world will not allow us to get away with doing so little. It will impose trade penalties.
On government finance, it is becoming more obvious that the government is not raising enough revenue to fund the things that need funding and that the tax it does collect is collected in a grossly unfair way. Inequality is rising.
Sensible, fair tax rises are ruled out through fear of voter or support backlash. We should double or treble the Medicare levy to pay GPs decently and give primary preventative care more attention. It makes good economic sense in the long term.
A modest rise in the GST with compensation for those on low incomes and welfare again is ruled out and the states cry poor.
Changes to superannuation and property taxing are not tackled. Instead we prefer to see the much revered “working families” be kicked harder as inflation takes them into higher income-tax brackets.
In Education, NAPLAN results indicate Australia is falling behind other countries. Disproportionate amounts of money are going to private schools. Public schools languish. The teaching profession is too poorly paid to attract top graduates.
Scientific research in Australia is being defunded at an economically irresponsible speed. Economic growth and better standards of living are almost all due to the application of scientific research. And a nation needs a threshold level of pure research to stay in the world research networks and reap the benefits from them.
We just slash research funding to deal with this year’s bottom line, and devil take tomorrow.
In health, we wring our hands wondering how we are going to pay for the extra health costs of an ageing population – exaggerating and misplacing the problem. Ageing is less of a problem than chronic illness caused by over-eating and lack of exercise.
Yes, health needs more money. Increasing the Medicare levy is the obvious and fairest way of doing it.
We should spend more on public health and prevention. It makes good economic sense to do so. Australia has a pretty good health system on world’s standards, but it will not stay that way without money and effort.
Our political system does not encourage trust. It used to be taken as a given that there was little or no corruption at the federal level. Can we now be so sure? Corruption and outright criminality permeate our union movement to the cost of the very people the movement is supposed to advance.
Business, particularly mining, holds governments to ransom to get policies and tax breaks that are almost invariably against the public interest. Fear of offending funding providers ensures there is no change.
And then there is defence. We charge off to Iraq yet again without any idea of the costs or even a plan with an end in sight. We pledge millions to build ships in South Australia because Coalition seats are vulnerable there. If we are to build in Australia, it could be done more cheaply in and around Sydney and or Melbourne.
Lastly, refugees. An Australian Government will have to face the question fairly and honestly. We should not lock up refugees, especially children indefinitely. But we cannot encourage people smuggling. We have to do a deal with Indonesia under which they accept back all people who pay people smugglers to get here by boat, and we accept an equivalent number or more refugees directly from them.
Then there is no incentive to get on boats and there is a genuine queue.
None of this is rocket science or especially difficult. It just requires a little courage and a little vision. Those things more than anything else are lacking in Australian politics today.
Far from fearing change, voters want it. But the people they elect run scared.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 22 August 2015.
Yes, there’s no doubt that too many of our national policy dials are stuck on “I’m with stupid”. And you haven’t even mentioned our stupid population and transport policies.
Perhaps the takeaway lesson is that we should take more notice of Countries That Aren’t Australia, and stop puffing ourselves about our GFC performance and so-called “23 years of growth”. GDP trends don’t tell you much about the fairness of the social and environmental contract.