So many Coalition policy positions have become ballast, thrown overboard as Tony Abbott seeks to right his listing government, that it’s been hard to keep track.
One marker from which to measure the rapid retreat are the policies earnestly inscribed into the G20 “Brisbane Action Plan” only four months ago.
That was the agreement touted as the big achievement of Australia’s G20 year. It was supposed to boost global growth by 2% because countries would be monitored and held to account and would therefore definitely have to do all the things they were promising.
Except in Australia’s case many of the promised policies have now been thwarted or abandoned.
One of the “key commitments” was “creating self-reliant industries”.
“Rather than providing funding for a growing array of assistance programs through the budget that serve to protect domestic firms, the government’s focus will be on strengthening the overall business environment so that enterprises, large and small, can create more jobs in Australia. As part of this commitment to self–reliance … the government has given a clear signal to firms that they can no longer rely on government subsidies.
“Past industry assistance programs have delivered rapid growth in annual assistance, but have not always been matched by changes in firm practices required to maintain viability and improved productivity.”
The government might have been determined to “end the age of entitlement” then, but now it is reinstating up to $500m in subsidies to the car industry, obviously without any requirement to “maintain viability” past 2017 since the industry is already slated to close.
Another “key commitment” was “employment and welfare reforms” – where almost all the promised policies have been dropped or are facing Senate defeat or serious internal Coalition dissent.
The list includes: paying unemployment benefits for only six months of the year to under 30s (new social services minister, Scott Morrison, has said he would consider alternative savings); increasing the age pension age to 70 (backbenchers are demanding the policy be dropped); the paid parental leave scheme (now dropped); the higher education reforms (facing defeat in the Senate); reintroducing the Australian Building and Construction Commission (also facing possible Senate defeat); the changes to the fair work laws (stalled in the Senate) and new eligibility rules for the family tax benefit (taking effect from July).
Other “key commitments” included free trade – where the government can claim it has concluded three new free trade agreements, cutting red tape – a cause which may have been set back by recent announcements on foreign investment rules, and the asset recycling fund, for which the recent Queensland and Victorian elections proved a setback but which is on track to deliver money to the ACT and NSW.
Not on the G20 action plan, but also until recently on the government’s list of tough-but-necessary decisions, are the defence pay deal (now increased to just above inflation) and the GP co-payment (once absolutely necessary to restore the budget to surplus, then shelved while alternatives were considered, and now dead, buried and cremated).
The great policy dump means the prime minister has to fall back on the abolition of the carbon and mining taxes, as well as red tape and free trade, in his recitations of the government’s achievements.
Listening to the voters, and the backbench, is always a good idea, but after explaining what it has ditched, or been unable to achieve, the government is surely going to have to come up with an alternative plan. The G20 might like to know about it, too.
