What is the point of Malcolm Turnbull being prime minister?
Whatever else it might have been, Malcolm Turnbull’s election pitch was pretty unexciting, writes Labor’s Member for Scullin Andrew Giles.
Pleading with Australians to ‘stay the course’ was no more than saying ‘don’t risk change’. Many voters, rightly, translated this call for stability as all about him, and not about them.
Nothing substantial to say to Australians about how his government could secure our future.
In this regard, Malcolm Turnbull fundamentally missed the point. The present settings aren’t working out, for a start. And in uncertain times, people are seeking stability for themselves and in their communities — not so much for their elected representatives.
Especially for those who trumpet their enthusiasm for disruption when it comes to the lives of others.
So Mr Turnbull may have fallen over the line as prime minister, but he is a diminished figure leading a government which lacks to mandate to govern. Over the course of this long election campaign he had nothing substantial to say to Australians about how his government could secure our future.
In defensively toning down his rhetoric about innovation, he failed to replace it with anything. The Liberals’ economic plan boiled down to more of the same, with $50b in company tax cuts for emphasis. For all the talk of an ideas boom, there were very few actual ideas directed at improving people’s lives. Very few ideas, full stop.
In place of blind faith in markets.
Labor’s focus on Medicare, on the other hand, spoke to the real concerns of Australians. At the election we stood up clearly for our social compact (if you’re unwell you’ll be supported to get better regardless of your financial position) and for the social wage (in insecure times, you needn’t be anxious about saving for healthcare). These resonate with Australians, especially so in an environment where Medicare as we know it was very clearly under threat.
Labor’s policies more generally effectively addressed the things that matter most to those Australians in insecure work and leading insecure lives — as well as pursuing the opportunities of the future. Supporting penalty rates, most obviously, but also making the case for future prosperity based on productive investments, in people and in infrastructure, in place of blind faith in markets.
ALP has led the policy debate, while Mr Turnbull shrank.
After 25 years of continuous economic growth, too many Australians are missing out. Inequality is at a 75 year high. This does not make for exciting times, especially in communities facing the prospect of further disruption — like in Melbourne’s north, where we prepare for the consequences of the looming automotive shutdown.
Simply repeating the phrase ‘jobs and growth’ is no plan to deliver, well, jobs or growth.
This year the ALP has led the policy debate, while Mr Turnbull shrank. He pandered to his internal opposition, but failed to address the concerns of the millions of Australians being left behind: shut out of home ownership, struggling to balance work and family life and with living standards under real pressure with wages growth stalled.
His sense of the role of government in people’s lives is fundamentally out of step with that of millions of Australians. He just doesn’t get that his role is not about him: it’s about them.
And since polling day Mr Turnbull has been looking everywhere except in the mirror when it comes to taking responsibility for the failures of his campaign and, more fundamentally, of his government.
But he has avoided the real question Australians have been asking: what is the point of Malcolm Turnbull being prime minister?
Get better at listening to the quieter and more numerous voices.
Scraping home in the election doesn’t resolve this issue. The baying voices on the right of Australian politics, within and outside of the Coalition party room, are asking the same question, loudly.
Reactionary populism, though, isn’t want Australians need. It won’t deal with inequality, it won’t rebuild trust in our democratic institutions and it’s no path to secure our standard of living.
This election demonstrates Mr Turnbull needs to get better at listening to the quieter and more numerous voices which so nearly ended a first-term government for the first time since the Great Depression. The people who Labor have listened to, and who will continue to speak for.
This article originally appeared in the Labor Herald.
