Comment

Barry Jones
The last majority government

The great globe itself, and human life and society as we know it, is potentially more threatened in the coming decades than since the Ice Age thawed about 11,000 years ago. Australia is particularly exposed and vulnerable. Three generations into the future, long before 2100, our continent may become uninhabitable.

Populist politics attacks reason, science, history, the arts, tolerance, diversity, the rule of law, ethics, liberal democracy and female liberation. It uses cruelty as a political weapon, reinforces racial stereotypes, refuses to recognise existential global crises and asserts the greatest ambition for humanity is to get rich.

United States President Donald Trump’s imposition of harsh and irrational tariffs globally changed the terms of engagement. This led to a furious reaction from Elon Musk, and a 90-day pause in which foreign leaders, Trump says, were “kissing my arse”.

In China tariffs rose to 145 per cent, except on smartphones and laptops. In Australia, they were unchanged at 10 per cent.

It seemed inexplicable that Norfolk Island, subject to a 29 per cent tariff, could have been regarded as threatening the US economy, let alone Heard Island and McDonald Islands, where a 10 per cent tariff protects American trade from penguins and seals.

It is, however, Trump’s actions on climate change that are far more threatening in the long term.

Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement, which adopted policies to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, cut greenhouse gas emissions and attempt to keep increases in average global surface temperature below 2°C since the 1850s.

That horse has already bolted and the rate of change is far greater and more rapid than the earlier worst-case scenarios had predicted.

In his first administration, Trump announced he would take the US out of the Paris Agreement. Joe Biden brought the US back again in 2021 and Trump pulled it out again in 2025.

The US is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are being stripped of their funding and expertise.

Globally, humanity faces the melting of polar regions and glaciers and rising ocean levels that threaten cities, towns and islands. In December last year, a trillion-tonne iceberg broke free from the Antarctic ice shelf. The oceans are also undergoing rapid acidification, which threatens species extinction. Bees and other insects are disappearing, with serious implications for pollination and food security. Drinking water is compromised for many millions of people and reductions in arable land have resulted in brutal tribal wars in Africa.

Despite all this, in Australia we are in the middle of an election campaign where the central issue is the cost of next week’s shopping trolley.

When considering this contrast, it is essential to avoid condescension. Superiority is fatal to progressive causes and was exploited lethally by Trump in his 2024 campaign. Promises of cheaper petrol, cars, gas, groceries and housing are understandably appealing for families on the margin, millions in total.

The chaos, vindictiveness and personal self-absorption of the second Trump administration have become a roadblock for Peter Dutton, however. Historical precedent also lengthens the odds against Dutton.

Curiously, with one exception, since Federation in 1901 the first new leader of the opposition after a change of government has never gone on to become prime minister: Frank Tudor (1917-22), John Latham (1929-31), Bert Evatt (1951-60), Billy Snedden (1972-75), Bill Hayden (1977-83), Andrew Peacock (1983-85), Kim Beazley (1996-2001), Brendan Nelson (2007-08) and Bill Shorten (2013-19).

The exception was Andrew Fisher, who was briefly prime minister from 1908-09, then became for the first time opposition leader from 1909-10, and then defeated Alfred Deakin to become prime minister in 1910.

Seven defeated prime ministers stayed on as party or coalition leader after a change of government: Chris Watson (1904-07), Deakin (1910-13), Joseph Cook (1914-17), James Scullin (1931-35), Arthur Fadden (1941-43), Ben Chifley (1949-51) and Gough Whitlam (1975-77).

John Curtin is an anomaly: he succeeded Scullin as Labor leader in 1935, failed to win elections in 1937 and 1940 but became prime minister of a minority government in October 1941 after a change in alignment by two independents.

The ancient Billy Hughes, at 80, implausibly, was leader of the UAP (1941-43), followed by Robert Menzies, who then invented the Liberal Party (1944).

This election campaign has been so far marked by timidity, obfuscation and, with the opposition, refusal to answer questions directly. Dutton and his prospective ministers have failed to provide evidence for various propositions and have been allowed to lie, or make stuff up, without challenge. The opposition has had three years to provide new policies with plausible associated costs but Dutton acts as if the prime minister had called a snap election.

While better than the opposition on this, there have also been disturbing anomalies in the government’s approach to the environment. The relevant minister, Tanya Plibersek, a very effective communicator, seems to be in a witness protection scheme.

Legacy media is in sharp decline. It is disconcerting to hear reports of people in marginal seats who don’t know there is to be an election in 2025, when polling day is or what the issues are. Instead, personal strengths, weaknesses, enthusiasms, fears and phobias have become marketable commodities and are used through social media and AI by parties and influencers as political weapons, with laser-like precision.

There has been a conspicuous failure to address two issues related to intergenerational equity: climate change as a threat to future generations, and taxation reform, especially on negative gearing, which punishes the young and benefits the affluent aged. For millions of Australians, property is by far the preferred investment. Even international money launderers are attracted to Australian real estate, pushing up prices.

The taxation review by Ken Henry, formerly secretary of the Treasury, published in 2010, was monstered by the mining industry and never implemented. Fifteen years on, the tax system has been embedded and is no longer fit for purpose. Tax avoidance is easy for corporations and many of the super-rich.

Peter Dutton has been a successful property investor. However, his expensive scheme to make mortgage payments tax-deductible for first-home buyers looks Trumpian and opportunistic. It comes very late in the campaign and may have been thought up on the run, without much consultation. If implemented, it is likely to drive up property prices. As John Howard shrewdly observed, “You can’t fatten the pig on market day.”

Angus Taylor, the shadow treasurer, maintains a single line of attack on Albanese: that he lied in the 2022 campaign by promising to cut household spending on power bills by $275 in 2025. Taylor emphasises effects and refuses to explain, or even mention, causes.

A promise made in 2022 about power costs in 2025 depends on the risky assumption that the national and global economies have been essentially the same in both years. In reality, they have changed dramatically.

Energy is an interesting issue when it comes to household expenditure. It is well behind the total spent on alcohol and gambling. Australia ranks with Russia as the world’s leader in drunkenness. We rank first in the world, per capita, for expenditure in gambling. The social costs of illness, accident, domestic violence, depression, absenteeism related to alcohol and gambling are very high. Shamefully, neither government nor opposition will mention these problems in the election campaign.

Externally, Australia’s economy has been hit by the impact of the war between Russia and the Ukraine, and Israel’s war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah, with its implications on fuel costs globally. The flattening of China’s economy meant a sharp fall in the price and volume of Australia’s iron ore exports, now selling at US$80 a tonne. In 2022 it was US$130.

It is not all bleak. The new prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, has never been in parliament and won’t be until after the election on April 28, but he is shaping up as a major international leader and role model. Born in the Northwest Territories, an ice hockey player and educated at Oxford and Harvard, Carney was governor of the Bank of Canada 2008-13, then the Bank of England 2013-20, retiring to devote himself to saving the world.

His book Value(s): Building a better world for all (2021) is outstanding, lucid and compelling, especially powerful on climate change, emphasising that most human and natural values do not have a dollar equivalent. Our politicians should read it. His criticism of Trump’s economic fetishes has been stronger than that of any other Western leader. Benjamin Netanyahu detests him.

The likeliest result on May 3 will be a small majority for Labor, but it will almost certainly be the last victory for a hegemonic party. Albanese will largely owe his success to consistently high performances by Jim Chalmers, Penny Wong, Jason Clare, Tony Burke, Chris Bowen, Katy Gallagher, Mark Dreyfus, Richard Marles, Mark Butler, Murray Watt, Clare O’Neil and Ed Husic. All future parliaments will have a three-way split in the House of Representatives, as is the case already in the Senate, except where Labor and the Coalition gang up to pursue their own party interests. I expect that independents, including teals, will increase their numbers in the House from 10 to 12.

Australia must have the courage to take up major problems. Life expectancy in Australia is five years longer than in the US, but there have been major, even criminal, deficiencies in the provision of aged care. Childcare is inadequate, the gap in private and public schooling is widening, and the treatment of First Nations people remains shocking. We need our own foreign and defence policies.

A hung parliament is not to be feared. John Curtin’s first war-time government (1941-43) lacked a majority, and Julia Gillard persuaded a hung parliament (2010-13) to pass 560 bills. Our electoral system is the world’s best and we have excellent institutions, which can survive political upheaval. If the historic parties were forced to open up, instead of being dominated by factions, lobbyists and ideological obsessions, and fear of offending, democracy would have a fresh burst of energy.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on April 26, 2025 as "The last majority government".

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