The Voice that favours the bold
The Voice that favours the bold
The Albanese government’s weak voice on key critical policy issues has diminished its projection on loftier goals it may have set out to achieve.
The Albanese Government has been hard at work promoting the Voice to parliament, with the Prime Minister recently attending the Garma Festival to spruik the upcoming referendum, making the case for voting “Yes” just two months before the expected ballot. Recent polling has revealed signs that the “Yes” camp could be in trouble, with a belligerent opposition and a hostile corporate press stoking fears in bad faith. The government needed to set a clear and true tone in order to cut through the muck, but due to its perceived lack of action around issues that took voters to the polls last year, is falling short months out from the important referendum.
Behind the backdrops and cultural events at Garma and the efforts of government to promote the significance of the Voice, the Top-End stirs under the unrestricted development of fracking and new gas projects, the expansion of military airfields to house nuclear capable US strategic bombers, and the construction of infrastructure to base American regional military operations and mission planning. More broadly through the nation, a recent federal budget revealed there would be no brave solutions for the one-in-six children and their parents who make up the millions of Australians living on the poverty line, nothing to curb the corporate profits, tax the big polluters, to regulate the banks, or reform antiquated and unfair tax laws like negative gearing. There would be no bold generational reform. But there would be a small surplus.
A scarcity of boldness from senior ministers regarding crucial national issues, the absence of real innovation to change the imbalances and a lack of definitive values demonstrated on issues from climate to cost-of living to housing, its unwillingness to debate the crossbench on raising the rate or the Housing Affordability Future Fund, and the obsequious lurch towards militarism at the behest of a foreign power, has dulled the crescendo of the government’s projection as it looks to draw national inspiration in support of the Voice.
With a willingness to ensure record profits are business as usual in mining, banking and industry, just like its major party predecessor, the government may have bought the support of the corporate world for the Voice, but its reticence to adequately address or acknowledge a multitude of societal crises has not drummed confidence up in the people. The push towards militarism to meet a perceived subjective threat in our largest trading partner China may seem prudent to the handfuls of hawks in the dusty wood-grained offices of the security elite in Canberra, but to the public it looks like a loss of sovereignty and strategic independence.
With all taken into consideration, perhaps it’s worth considering how the Voice could have played out if the government took a different position.
If in a sliding doors moment, the Australian Labor Party won a historically significant election at a crucial point in Australia’s history and stepped into government boldly, things may be different. In the campaign, already playing a small target in the slipstream of an unwinnable unpopular Morrison government, if Labor decided to leave the Stage Three Tax cuts for a debate, saw the public enmity for new coal and gas, and took a more neutral position on the murky parameters of AUKUS, we all may be in a different position.
If in the months and weeks before polling day, realising that the powerful business and industry lobby groups like the Business Council of Australia were not going to have any ability to reinstall their Coalition partner-of-choice in any form, Jim Chalmers could have kept his cards close, knowing they had no choice either way. Rather than unnecessarily fawning over the disproportionate demands of the unreasonably powerful record profit-driven business class he could have kept them guessing, instead of assuring them of his desire to retain the status-quo.
If Richard Marles kept his powder dry on AUKUS, he could have reasonably told our largest military partner that due to the fact they were frozen out of negotiations, that his government would be doing their due diligence around AUKUS and refraining from making inflammatory actions in the region until it had finished doing so. This action would allow Penny Wong to not appear as hypocritical when lecturing neighbours in the Pacific about their relationships with foreign great powers, instead of a diplomatic voice from Canberra that our neighbours remark has an increasingly American accent.
And if Tanya Plibersek and Chris Bowen, aware of the teal waves that washed over the blue electorates and stained the safe red ALP seats around them, hearing the cries for climate action in the wake of half the continent burning then flooding a few times, got on the front foot on day one to revise the mediocre climate targets set by its predecessor, and worked to ensure net zero was backed up by no new coal and gas, the public may be more confident in the motivations of this government.
But none of this happened.
This government talks more hope than the last one, but seems to enact the same amount of change. Aiming low economically after reigning over 12 consecutive interest rate rises, Jim Chalmers has no desire to be a reformist and stuck to his KPMG-styled neoliberal economic toolbag, Richard Marles delved down deeper into the murky waters of AUKUS, and Tanya and Chris could only talk about gas led recoveries and transitions to renewables for so long before the caper is up and the words appear as empty as the last lot. With these actions, the modern Australian voter now tentatively anticipates the hollow words of a modern Australian major party politician with doubt, making it harder for them to transmit their message on the Voice.
Polling for the “Yes” vote has been in a slow but steady decline. Albanese has become the face of the Voice at the same time his popularity has shrunk to the lowest since his government gained power. By lacking a bold approach to the suite of issues it put its hand up to address, the government hasn’t built up the momentum to be as bold on the voice as it would like to be. Seeing what happened to the last government that didn’t hold a hose, and feeling the desire of the Australian public for leadership that represents their very real issues, a government that was brave enough to accept the challenges in the face of hostile corporate media and powerful industry lobby groups could do so knowing that they had the support of the people. This would have had a positive effect on public confidence around the referendum.
The Voice is a bold and progressive idea, but apart from military spending, the rest of the government policy platform hasn’t been. The public look with some confusion at what the government stands on when it speaks of the importance of the Voice for our nation, but fluffs around refusing to admit there is a housing crisis that deserves more debate, stonewalls on raising the rate above the poverty line, and opens new coal and gas against the grain of the nation’s imperatives. The Voice could be louder if it was supported by additional progressive and reformist platforms and policies, instead it sticks out alone and undefended by a government that has not been associated with inspirational platforms and policies thus far.
After a decade in opposition trying (and finally succeeding) to wedge the coalition, it tries (and fails) to wedge the crossbench on housing and climate, and uses the same political trick to wedge the public on its “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” policy that underwhelms and kills the vibe and stifles the potential – and now this political gamesmanship may end up wedging the Aboriginal population who have the most to lose in this referendum. If it fails, many will have to sit with the fact that it may have been the vehicle and not the Voice that was that problem that led to its potential defeat.
The Prime Minister says the idea of the Voice is about “listening to each other, learning from one another, working together”. Profound words that require a partnership between Australians and government, and a contract in good faith about what this country really is. With all these lofty words, this government has not yet demonstrated it has the same partnership with the people as much as it has with the lobbyists who shill for new goal and gas mines, the consultants it hires to learn how to handle the other consultants, and the foreign ‘security experts’ who augment the continuity of national defence. If the referendum fails, it will be due in no small part to the Albanese government’s weakly defined relationship with Australians, and the uninspiring leadership it offers them.