Republished with permission from Online Opinion
As Australian citizens, voters and taxpayers, we should dare to hope that our government exists to serve us, and not the other way around.
We should dare to hope that a Federal government which accounts for 22 per cent of GDP and state governments which account for around another 11 per cent, between them should be able to provide the essential human services we all rely upon: healthcare, education, infrastructure, defence and a social security system that assists people to become independent where it is feasible for them to do so.
And yet, Australians seem in recent years to have given up this hope. Many of us have accepted the blandishments of successive Federal and State governments that have somehow managed to convince us we’re better off paying our own health insurance, school fees and road tolls – and yet still hand over one-third of our national income in tax.
So let me introduce you to a fictional political party that does observe the maxim of serving the Australian people instead of serving itself.
You won’t find this party registered anywhere. You won’t find their policies among any of the parties who will form government after the election. That’s because those parties long ago stopped daring to hope that they can deliver the services Australians need.
Let’s call them the Australian Progress Party. Even though their election platform below is at present a hypothetical one, let’s dare to hope their vision forms a real part of Australia’s future.
Australian Progress believes in:
- An Australia in which our taxes pay for healthcare and infrastructure, instead of subsidising companies that use our taxes to profit from the provision of essential human services.
- An Australia in which the public education system enjoys the confidence and respect of the entire community, so that families don’t feel the need to opt-out and exercise a Hobson’s ‘choice’ to unnecessarily pay tens of thousands of dollars for a good education they can get for free.
- An Australia that fosters strength through diversity. A strength built from harnessing the diverse talents, interests, ideas, cultures, skills and expertise of everybody in the community.
- An Australia in which people look first to what their co-citizens can contribute to the society, instead of focusing on how their co-citizens worship, what they wear, what languages they speak or their ethnic background.
- An Australia in which our leaders seek constructive solutions instead of reflexively looking for a victim group to blame for our problems.
- An Australia that is excited to be engaged with the wider world, and especially our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region.
- An Australia in which people do not suffer disadvantages at law due to the composition of their family or their living arrangements.
- An Australia that is economically prosperous, and which makes wise and sustainable use of our scarce resources.
- An Australia in which everybody may freely practice their religion, or no religion, without imposing their spiritual beliefs on others.
- An Australia in which every individual’s rights are protected, and in which every individual honours their responsibilities towards themselves and each other.
- An Australia that faces the future with hope instead of suspicion and fear.
Because of our beliefs, Australian Progress commits itself to:
- Progress in the development of public infrastructure that promotes Australia’s prosperity and enhances social amenity.
- Progress in taxation policies that deliver enduring public goods and services to the taxpayer, instead of cash handouts to be spent on consumption.
- Progress in the development of a truly inclusive public education system of which all Australians can feel proud, and to which all Australian families wish to send their children.
- Progress in increasing Australia’s research capacity, scientific development and technical skills-base to build our industries on an environmentally sound basis.
- Progress in pursuing mutually beneficial international trade relations with a focus given to countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
- Progress in removing any remaining legislative, institutional or systemic impediments that would prevent people from participating in the full range of social and economic opportunities that are available to all Australians.
- Progress in simplifying trading and taxation laws so that small businesses can better pursue their entrepreneurial interests.
- Progress towards a safer environment for children, and a freer environment for adults in terms of their individual choices about what to buy or not to buy, and what to do or not to do.
- Progress towards securing the rights of citizens against the coercive application of bureaucratic measures that curtail freedoms.
To honour these commitments, Australian Progress promises to:
At the Federal Level;
- Provide capital works funding to unblock supply bottlenecks in our economy by increasing Australia’s rail freight and port capacity.
- Increase the capacity of the CSIRO, TAFE and Research University institutions, with priority funding of sustainable industrial technologies.
- Reduce social dislocation and isolation in rural Australia by maintaining a safe and efficient national road network, and pervasive high-speed internet access.
- Implement policies that encourage sustainable use of Australia’s resources so that we are prosperous today, but not at the expense of future Australians.
- Harmonise laws to remove systemic biases that disadvantage people on the basis of ethnicity, sexuality or religion.
- Reduce the number of pages of taxation and business law to pre-1996 levels.
- Introduce legislation to increase the transparency of government decision-making, reduce ministerial executive powers and strengthen individual rights and freedoms.
- Abolish the tax-and-spend policies of past governments that have seen tax dollars ride a wasteful merry-go-round out of and back into the pockets of families that don’t need to pay so much tax, and who don’t need a handout.
- If there are no feasible public infrastructure projects to which taxes can rationally be allocated, the tax take of the government will be cut accordingly.
At the State and Local Level;
- Improve urban amenity and reduce air pollution by increasing public transport capacity, frequency and reach to the fringes of our large cities.
- Provide health and education services on the basis of local need, so that public services are matched to local requirements.
- Pursue more vigourous and targeted enforcement action against:
- drug-dealers, not drug-users.
- firearms offenders, not firearms hobbyists.
- Promote volunteer-based programs that engage residents to participate together in projects that enhance the social, aesthetic and cultural richness of their local community.
The effect of Australian Progress policies will be to:
- Reduce the total size of federal government as a share of GDP to below 20 per cent, at a rate of 0.25 per cent of GDP per annum, along with a proportional decrease in the absolute size of state governments.
- Increase our prosperity by tapping the enterprising vigour of Australians that is currently strangled by our over-regulated yet under-serviced economy.
- Build a vigourous, prosperous and harmonious Australia that values what each individual can contribute and supports their wellbeing.
Apart from the fictional members of Australian Progress, I wonder who else among us dares to hope that future governments will once again exist to serve the people?
Mercurius, ignoring the many impossible contradictions amongst all of your softly-articulated programme points, the whole basis of your concept of ‘progress’ is anti-political. It’s no wonder that there’s so little hope when intelligent people confuse political engagement with breast-beating about how the terrible, terrible Parties have let the People down. Parties don’t exist to serve, they exist to represent, and it’s a fundamental political difference. If there is a failure of ideological representation, it’s probably reflective of a greater electoral truth.
Parliamentarism might not be pretty or efficient but it’s a great deal more pleasant than Parties established on anti-political grounds. The idea that there can be one programme that uniquely serves an electorate best is a very dangerous one, and it leads very unpleasantly interesting places. If you’ve lost hope in partisanship, I’m sorry for you, but I don’t think you’ll find anything better in programmes of popular salvation.
You want a Party that stands for all of the things you like? Join one, and vote in it. They’re hardly going to turn you down.
Well, apart from your desire to have proper comprehensive health and education systems etc and government funded infrastructure and yet magically have that government be tiny, a lot of what you’re calling for sounds like what the Greens are advocating.
You missed World Peace and being able to control the weather.
And it isn’t costed.
My 2 year old believes in fairies, too.
That doesn’t seem to me to be something that follows at all from the rest, and in historical terms, no government share in a mixed economy has been anywhere near that since even a residual welfare state was invented. I’d also question its desirability for a wide range of reasons.
I’m kinda with Liam on this one, which is one reason why I decided not to contribute to this OLO feature. You can’t have a programme without an ideological basis and without a political vehicle, and I’m unconvinced about the desirability of thinking in these terms.
Me, I’d settle for a party advocating social democracy!
Mercurius I enjoyed reading this and I think what your ‘party’ proposes to do in terms of funding health and education etc. While cutting taxes at the same time is theoretically possible, you would probably have to cut funding to projects like Youth Allowance, rent assistance and Family Tax benefits.
The main issue with your ‘party’ is that the question as to what level of funding for health, education and infrastructure is appropriate seems very vague. Would this party fund private schools? To what degree? Would it provide free university education? Would it allow AWA’s? Where would the tax cuts be focused? Companies? High income people? Low income people?
I’m not trying to be harsh and I know this article probably took ages for you to write but this ‘party’ feels vague to me in terms of what it would physically do and legislate.
“I’m kinda with Liam on this one, which is one reason why I decided not to contribute to this OLO feature. You can’t have a programme without an ideological basis and without a political vehicle, and I’m unconvinced about the desirability of thinking in these terms.”
The Chinese Communist Party has already published this list hasn’t it ?
Strong civil service , work on improving the rule of law and believe me you’re there.
Oh except the bit about drug users and gun nuts- they shoot them.
You really should call your party the Australian Birthday Party. Everyone likes birthday parties.
Looking at your wish-list I can’t see much on it that anyone would disagree with. That is its first problem.
Consider any one of your list of promises and ask yourself whether anyone would seriously pose its opposite. So it’s all just motherhood statements. To give one example:
What party (Pauline Hanson’s aside, and she plays the special role in Australian politics that the Raving Loony Monster Party has in UK politics), would put out a manifesto saying:
“Give up on pursuing mutually beneficial international trade relations” or
“Progress in pursuing international trade relations which are to our advantage but to the disadvantage of others” or
“Progress in pursuing beneficial international trade relations, except with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, which we’ll put on the backburner”.
(I will admit that the second of these would go down well in Europe since that is their trade policy, which disadvantages, among others, Australia and Africa and it gets votes, but it doesn’t work for Australia, hence our role in the Cairns Group).
The second problem is that it is uncosted. While it promises potentially unlimited spending to improve a whole range of public goods at the same time it promises to reduce by 10% the funding to the federal government and state governments (for that is what your GDP measure is) to provide those public goods.
The punters out there are not mugs, despite the views of some here at LP. They are not going to buy it if they don’t know what it will cost them.
But if not the Birthday Party, why not call your party the Greens? It is hauntingly reminiscent of their
wish-listprogram.Hi all
Obviously not the response I was hoping for, but I’d urge you to re-examine your critiques with me. They might not be so final as you imagine.
For those who want costings, I’ve previously outlined where the savings can be made. Clue: eliminating middle-class welfare, about $20 billion a year, would bring the Federal govt below 20% of GDP.
Since most of the critiques seem to stem from Liam’s initial comments, I’ll deal chiefly with those and you can decide how well they apply to the remaining arguments.
First, the hypothetical platform I outlined contains no more ‘impossible contradictions’, ‘softly articulated programme points’, ‘motherhood statements’ or ‘birthday wishes’ than do the platforms of either of the major parties that have shared power for the last 106 years. Have you read their founding statement recently?
Liam, your critique lost me where you claim the platform was ‘anti-political’ and yet was also driven by the idea ‘that there can be one programme that uniquely serves an electorate.’ How can this platform be simultaneously ‘anti-political’ yet also, as you accuse, harbour some sort of hidden totalitarian tendency or an appetite for ‘popular salvation’. Your accusations cannot both be true. Perhaps neither is true?
Mark & Liam, I’m not sure how or why you interpreted this platform as being anti-parliamentary or non-partisan. If that were so, I wouldn’t have called it a “Party” or attempted to outline a platform – I would’ve started a cabal. Either I wrote it badly or you read it badly, but the platform is founded on the assumption that there exists in Australia an appetite for a new broad-based party aligned with neither the right nor the left, is focused on delivering a high level of services, and is opposed to the user-pays mantra of recent decades. I fail to see how such a platform amounts to an attack on parliamentary law-making or is an appeal to “popular salvation”.
Mark, I’m also puzzled by your insistence on ideology, when the party now in government in all States and probably soon Federally hasn’t shown any sign of ideology for around 25 years. Parties driven by ideology have been conspicuously unsuccessful over the period.
And Liam, do you really believe that the best way to participate now is to join a party that stands for the things I like and vote in it? I have scrutinised the constitutions of both the Labor and Liberal parties and they have convinced me that there is zero ability for the rank-and-file membership to influence policy. As for the minors, don’t make me laugh – Only a broad-based party can make a real difference in government, yet the two majors are now so financially and electorally insulated from their membership base that they don’t even have to pretend to need members’ input.
This situations could be remedied by a broad-based party that is constitutionally indissoluable from its membership base in both a policy and electoral sense – and that is what I have proposed.
Some commenters suggested the platform reminds them of The Greens. To be frank, I haven’t read the Greens platform or policies, so I can say with hand-on-heart that any resemblance is purely coincidental. In any case, since they have deliberately and permanently branded themselves as a single-issue movement, they can’t hope to form government, only to worry governments at their flanks. Not a very satisfactory solution, in my view.
*ducks*
Where do you stand on binding party votes? Because if you oppose the major parties’ insistence on binding their members, then where does that fit in with the membership driving policy?
Since it is the middle-class that votes governments in and out of power in Australia your party program is doomed. We are, after all, a democracy and not a benign dictatorship. We vote for what we want, not for what others, however well intentioned, think is good for us. In this we want to be treated as adults and not as children. Whether we are worthy of that self-assessment is for you to debate but it is for us to decide.
That is the nature of democracy.
Mercurius, I can’t make much sense of your argument. By no means all of Family Tax Benefit A or B or childcare is actually “middle class welfare”…
I just don’t see that your claim could possibly be right.
GDP in 2006 is estimated at 644.7 billion.
Government expenditure is 257.3 billion.
You want to knock off 21 billion. (which, as I say, isn’t all “middle class welfare”).
Therefore government expenditure would be 236.3 billion.
That’s way more than 20% of GDP!
I do confess I’m a bit confused by the figures in your article, perhaps because of the “How we spend 10k thing). Do please let me know if I haven’t interpreted you correctly.
As to parties without ideology or a defined social basis, consider the Democrats.
My figures are from the CIA Factbook, I should have said:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/as.html
Thanks for that clarification Mark. The figures you quote are are in US dollars, which at the time would translate as about 30% higher than Australian dollars. However the ratios are still correct and your point is valid..
Thanks, GregM, hadn’t realised that. I guess that only reinforces the fact that snipping $21 billion or a part thereof doesn’t reduce government spending to anywhere near 20% of GDP.
Hi Mark – I might be getting my wires crossed, but as the Treasurer is fond of reminding us, he (sic) runs (sic) a $1.1 trillion economy – and that figure is what the percentages (and the resulting 10K thing) were predicated on. My figures were from the 2006-7 Budget Outcomes papers from the treasury website – from memory there’s actually a table in there which quotes a % of GDP estimate of around 23% to boot for 2006, based on expenditures of around $230bn.
As for the Dems lacking ideology – touche!
Hi Anna – binding member votes in the parliament are probably a side-issue. Only Labor has them. Liberals don’t. Both parties have managed to form successive governments for 106 years. What I’m more interested in is the power of rank-and-file members to bind their elected representatives to anything *at all*, which is something you won’t find in either of the majors.
Mark – BZZZT!
That CIA factbook is really not the best source of info on the size of the Australian economy. For starters, that $644 billion you quote is in US dollars at the 2006 exchange rate (purchasing power parity) – so $weetie’s $1.1 trillion estimate is looking more accurate by the second.
Sorry, I spent a very very sad evening being very sad and reading budget outcomes papers. It was edumacational.
Mercurius, that figure is for taxation receipts of the Federal government and excludes (misleadingly) the GST revenue.
The latest figure for government spending as a percentage of GDP I’ve been able to find is 35.3% in 2006.
So, sorry, your sums don’t add up!
There is something wrong with this. It is practical, logical, somehow ideal. I know what it is! Ah, *gasps*. Idealogues. Idealogues with potentially punitive proposals for programmes of popular salvation. Oh puhleese. Such types, cannot be trusted and must be stamped out immediately! HI! YAH! For they actually be at heart, as anyone with any real nous knows–facists, or communists, or both. You idiot! How could you? . . . It doesn’t even cut it as being political. That’s not even your first mistake. You haven’t even costed it. What kind of joker are you? It has no value, less it is costed. (Rx 10,000). As any moron knows.
The electorate is an ass and it is up to their representatives to represent them honestly. Only this can be right and
fair. . er . . . honest. By hook or by crook, (and probably the two) we will get what we truly deserve, what has always been. Same shit. Differentparty.representatives.Comments crossed.
It’s possible that the figure you’re quoting is for federal expenditure but if your point is that the state percentage of GDP should be lowered (with which I don’t necessarily agree!) you need to factor in state and local government expenditure otherwise the point falls over.
Statement 5 in the budget claims that tax revenue in 2005-06 was $206.8 billion and will be $220.5 billion in 07-08. I couldn’t find papers for the size of the economy however this table shows that last year’s budget surplus was $13.6 billion and was equal to 1.3% of GDP meaning the economy was ~$1046 billion last financial year. This year’s budget surplus of $10.6 billion is equivalent to 1.0% of GDP which would make the size of the economy ~$1060 billion.
Assuming of course all my calculations are right, but you can double check them by looking at the budget papers.
I also point out I’m not sure if these budget figures are simply for tax revenues or also include stuff like fees and fines.
Sure Mark – the figure I was quoting is for Federal expenditure and hence excludes the GST.
My quote of 11% of GDP expenditure for the States includes GST revenues in 2006 of $44bn transferred to the states in the budget papers. It made up just under half of state expenditures.
22% federal (no GST), around 11% state (with GST). Total government activity is around one-third of the economy.
My call is for *federal* expenditure to drop to 20% of the pie from its current 22-23%. Around $20 billion will do the trick. I haven’t proposed anywhere to touch state expenditure.
Figures remain intact. Point unfalls over. Perhaps I should’ve explained all this in the original post, but I thunk (wrongly) that it wasn’t necessary to do so.
Why though, Mercurius? Surely the belief that it’s virtuous somehow for the state sector to shrink is an *ideological* one?
And I still don’t see how all of what you claim to be “middle class welfare” actually is. Sure, it might be better to target it, but there are lots of people who get childcare rebates, and Family Tax Benefits A and B who aren’t middle class. Anyway, if memory serves, Family Tax Benefit A is means tested, isn’t it?
I don’t think it’s a side issue at all. A party that is run by membership is a different thing to a party that allows its elected representatives to vote according to their conscience.
I think that this may be in part what Liam was getting at – many worthy aims, but they start conflicting with each other, which leads to compromise, which leads to – well – Parties.
Both FTB A and B are means tested in different ways – Part A is based on family income, Part B on the lower-earning partner’s income.
Giving it to fewer middle class families can only be achieved by creating even greater effective marginal tax rates, which in itself is a problem.
Dear Mr Mercurius,
I join with my distinguished colleague Generalísimo Liam Diablo in noting that your premise is universally acceptable to everyone everywhere. In fact once I finish restoring much needed stability in my fair land, I plan to implement every point that you have made so eloquently here.
Starting first though with a worldwide global international competition to create stirring and relevant new lyrics for our new national anthem.
First prize is the national Subaru franchise, second prize the duty free concession at the Nabakov Taylor Freedom and Fraternity International Airport and third prize, appointed Minister for the Arts, Sewerage Infrastructure and Tourism.
On behalf of freedom-loving peoples everywhere, I await your freshly baked cake in the rain.
Uhuru!
Hey Mark – heh, yes, there may be some ideology behind the desire for government with a smaller overall footprint in the economy (in which case, would you like to revisit your original critique that the platform lacks ideology?).
My disenchantment with the current Australian situation is that the Federal government in particular seems to have a rather large footprint, but only because it has adopted the role of being some kind of poker-machine-in-the-sky for voters (vote and win!) and not because it has much interest in delivering services. It’s almost as though because the Constitution devolved so much to the States, the Federal level has simply kept inventing reasons for itself to exist, few of which are all that productive. Power abhors a vacuum, and all that.
Anna – in describing binding votes as a side issue, I mean that the hypothetical founding members of this hypothetical party could debate and discuss whether to include bindng votes in the Party’s constitution. It’s not something I believe needs to be written into a statement of broad principles such as that outlined here. This party doesn’t yet exist. There would be a lot for founding members to participate in and work out – including a constitution that is renewable, reworkable, revisable and member-controlled.
Going way back to Liam’s first critique – I envisage a great deal of scope for member participation, voting and influence in a party of this kind. A number of commenters seemed to suggest that I’m anti-participation or looking for some sort of “benign dictatorship” – when in fact it is the constitutions of the current major parties that specifically disempower and alienate the members.
Thanks everyone – I’ve genuinely appreciated the critiques and the debate.
Although it might perhaps have saved time to simply reply “nobody” to the rhetorical question with which I concluded the article.
I’ll have customs and drug interdiction thanks. Excuse me for a few hours, I’m off for my uniform fitting.
Ummm, much as it may pain you to admit, Mercurius, that agenda you’ve got up there is pretty solidly a leftish one. Leftish, or so vague and broad as to be all-encompassing, as GregM pointed out.
Hi Mercurious
In answer to your final question: me.
There are probably hundreds of specific criticisms one might make of the APP’s platform, but I want you to know that one person at least was able to recognise the key word here.
Together in hope,
Captain Oats
First of all, well said GregM:
Mercurius, your programme is anti-political because it’s meant to appeal to the idea that established democracy as instituted in the Party system is the root of social problems. I’ll take you at your word that you’re not of an authoritarian bent, though I’ll leave you to consider the similarity between your language (ie. “serving the Australian people instead of serving itself”) and those of other famously anti-partisan pro-national progressive “political” movements.
Which leaves the alternative: you could just be about setting up a Party of cliché, bluster and fluff, in which case I recommend to you Meg Lees’ Australian Progressive Alliance. If it’s still around.
As for Caroline’s despicable effort:
*That* is an outright anti-democratic viewpoint.
What’s your Defence Policy?
Or is that too nasty?
Despite what some have posted, this programme differs from that of the Greens in one huge and simple respect – an (almost) total failure to address the imperative of ecological sustainability, which will be a major (if not the major) source of both constraint and opportunity on all political programmes in this century.
I take this opportunity to state that I have come to the conclusion, albeit on a “balance of probabilities” basis, that overcoming global ecological crises will require the replacement of global capitalism with a workable alternative during the coming 93 years.
Alternative to what exactly Paul? Does “global capitalism” actually exist in any form that could be pinned down long enough to give it a noogie?
Paul Norton,
“Despite what some have posted, this programme differs from that of the Greens in one huge and simple respect – an (almost) total failure to address the imperative of ecological sustainability, which will be a major (if not the major) source of both constraint and opportunity on all political programmes in this century.”
That is probably because they have stated the following goal:
“An Australia that faces the future with hope instead of suspicion and fear.”
The fear campaign being lead by the Goracle is patently at odds with not wanting to live in fear.
Personally, I’m hoping the message gets through soon so that I can by some prime water front property at bargain basement prices.
As I still stand accused by Liam of being “anti-political”, I can only reflect that far more seasoned and knowledgeable political researchers than I (Ian Marsh, Ian Ward, Rodney Smith, John O’Mahoney) have, with considerable justification, likened the electoral, policy and financial behaviour of the two major parties to that of a cartel.
Liam, I still fail to see how attempting to bust a cartel is “anti-political”, totalitarian, anti-parliamentary or any of the other aspersions that have been cast this way.
Gosh, you’ve got me there, Razor. I propose a general statement of principles, and with the exception of Captain Oats and I, am still 498 members short of official registration, and you proudly wheel out a “gotcha”. Yep, our fully-costed defence policy is yet to be released. For shame. I guess you showed us, Razor, well done.
For what it’s worth, I suppose a policy might converge on something like the following principles – but even this would be up to the hypothetical members: Australians need to be adequately protected both at home and abroad. This requires the maintenance of a ready military capacity in the event of direct and immediate threats. It also requires that security services at home have the resources they need to fulfil their responsibilities without infringing on the rights of citizens. Defence of the Australian land mass and coastal regions will be the overriding priority of this portfolio, which need not concern itself with adventurism in far-flung regions.
Meh. Folks, I really don’t think we should get too het up about this hypothetical fishing expedition. I’ve dipped me toe in the LP-reader waters, and it’s clear to me that the temperature is ice-cold.
It is effectively a duopoly because the single member electorate system makes it so. And duopolists naturally form cartels as it maximises their benefit at the expense of the consumer/voters. If we had the lower house elected by proportional representation from multi-member electorates you’d be more likely to have a number of smaller parties represented in the lower house where government is formed and hence governments made up of genuine, and no doubt shifting, coalitions, as is common in Europe.
Perhaps you should consider adding that reform to your party’s program