One thing that’s become very clear from the US election season is that there’s a distinct appeal in change and freshness (and yep, they’re empty cliches and let’s hope some substance fills them out). But we might have observed that already from our own election campaign, or indeed Nicholas Sarkozy’s win in France where he ran against his own party and predecessor and business as usual. It’s also a dilemma for Gordon Brown, whose biggest challenge is squaring the circle between experience and change – the horns of the same dilemma that caught Hillary Clinton in its traps.
Poor old Guy Rundle was lampooned a while back for having the audacity to suggest that conservatives in the public arena in Australia had to find at least some point of contact with reality in order to continue to have influence. But he was right. It’s interesting to see some American right wingers, including former Bush acolyte David Frum, realising this – which you can read about in this review by Michael Tomasky (who isn’t confident that the factions that control the GOP will actually take any notice), and this column today from Daniel Finkelstein, a former adviser to the British Tories. As Andrew Elder remarks, the Reaganite right and their antipodean counterparts just don’t get that the public would rather pay for basic services efficiently delivered through tax than often infefficiently and expensively delivered through the private sector:
… there is the waning appeal of small-government rhetoric. In the 1970s, speeches about government being the problem, not the solution, resonated. Now this language is much less potent politically. Government remains often inefficient and too large, but winning support to change it is harder. Conservatives need to show that they can run government, providing services, not merely talking about shrinking them.
And the American right, or at least sections of it, is starting to realise that just blathering on about tax cuts has also lost its appeal. It didn’t win Howard the election, did it?
The significance of Obama’s rise is that people are tired of increasingly pointless debates whose terms were set by those who came to political life in the 60s and 70s, as argued in The Economist, and as Andrew Elder also notes in a quite withering attack on Gerard Henderson. The right needs to stop living in a fantasy world where the times will change to suit them, and start changing to suit the times – and Finkelstein’s comments on moral righteousness are very much to the point. The problem for Australian conservatives is that Brendan Nelson shows no particular sign of understanding any of this, is beholden to the far right anyway, and probably doesn’t stand for anything much himself apart from himself. The early months of his leadership seem characterised by carping negativism, which wasn’t a good look for Beazley, and Beazley had the advantage of being likeable and well known. What the Australian right should do is up to them, of course, but a failure to understand that the political climate of the late 00s is different from that of previous decades won’t see them return to power any time soon.
David Frum was on Jon Stewart’s “A”* Daily Show on Monday. He’s currently advising Rudy “9/11″ Giuli-”9/11″-ani.
*It’s “A Daily Show” during the strike.
Thanks for the lucid summaries Mark.
Unfortunately I feel that all these ****wipes have to do is show up at the next election. Cameron in the UK comes immediately to mind. Without doing much of anything he’s had a windfall swing toward him.
I think if social democrats are serious about sending the Tories the way of the Whigs they have to network better intercommunally.
An immediate project could be to gather everything related to the illegal aggressive war, the illegal torture scandals and the illegal surveillance programs and impeach Bush and Cheney. Then the speaker of Congress could act as caretaker president – or appoint a nightwatchman president like Chuck Hagel.
Rather than waiting for the lunar right to drown we could be throwing them the proverbial anvil. I’d like to see that.
“…the public would rather pay for basic services efficiently delivered through tax than often infefficiently and expensively delivered through the private sector”
Well sure Mark. Who wouldn’t? Back in the real world, it doesn’t help the social democratic cause that the former is massively less likely than the latter. Hope springs eternal. As for blathering about tax cuts, I seem to recall the ALP falling into line on that one.
BBB
Unfortunately, yes, but they probably didn’t need to to win the election, BBB.
As for your former assertion, can you show (for instance) that employment services were better delivered by private entities than public entities when there were still some of the latter operating in the quasi-market (til Abbott decided they were an ideological embarrassment?) or that treatment in a privately owned 24 hour clinic is better than seeing a GP in a public hospital? I think Finkelstein is right – people are less inclined to believe ideological generalisations like that, if unsupported with reference to specific cases or sectors.
Thanks for the link, Jeremy.
There is no shortage of examples of public services being delivered efficiently, Mark. It’s just that the public service is generally up against it, incentive-wise. It’s not their fault. No doubt they mean well. Of course, the likes of the Liberal Party has less than no clue about all this stuff. It’s not as if they’re free marketeers, or real believers in the power of the profit motive.
By the way, I’ve managed to make myself very unclear. I didn’t mean to suggest that inefficiency in the private sector was massively more likely than public-sector efficiency!
Finally, the Amercian right has never been about ‘just’ blathering about tax cuts. As you well know they bang on and on about all sorts of rubbish that has nothing to do with taxes.
BBB
Thanks for clarifying what you meant, BBB.
Referenced twice in one thread – this might be overdoing it, but …
The times did change to suit them, and suited them for some time; now those times have changed.
When Fraser lost in 1983 the free-marketeers had an alternative narrative ready to go. No such alternative narrative exists now – moderates and free-marketeers alike have been so compromised that no post-Howard Liberal narrative is available.
Finkelstein also made the point about getting over the ’60s. This was an aberrant time in history and not some norm which the present departs from or echoes.
I think government actually is the problem more often than it is the solution, although I’m not neccesarily talking about service delivery, which seems to be the focus of the quote you use from Elder/Finkelstein. This doesn’t have to be the case in every circumstance, but it seems to be the case more often than not – including now.
Having said that, I think it depends on the service thats being delivered as to whether government is the best vehicle for it, but I think the community/not for profit sector is better than both government and private enterprise at delivering many services, as long as the ground rules are properly set.
I don’t really care what strategy the conservatives/’the right’ adopt in terms of them getting elected again. I’d rather who ever gets elected, whether they be nominally left or right, actually acknowledges how often government creates rather than fixes problems, as well as how often it gets in the way of the solutions – and does something about it.
Id like to see some examples of the private sector delivering large-scale public services “efficiently”.
Sure aren’t many notable local examples in health, education and transport.
Indeed.
I think this is one of those circumstances where the way one handles ideas or argues about them depends very much on the reality on the ground, and I get the sense that daily life in Australia has some very different features from daily life in America, which would make the treatment of the topic rather different in the two places. I’d like to join in this discussion but I think I would be too often talking at cross-purposes, referencing a very different kind of experience than the ones which you have. Still, it’s interesting to read what people think about it.
What goes around comes around. In particular triangulation. The Repubs are sooooooo fucked because they ain’t got no-one, and haven’t honed into the zeitgeist for change in a good way. Everyone’s sick to death of the Bushite ‘fear factor’ narrative. The GWOT is well and truly over.
As for the Dems, I for one will lose interest the moment Hillary drops out (despite concerns re rotating dynasties). She’s her own person, not beholden to her husband, and quite frankly I think Obama’s got as much weight as a seagull feather.
Regardless of that, Obama’s poised to take the nomination and the presidency because of the same craving that was operating here last November: We’re sick of partisan, fearful crap and would like to see a bit of good government for a change.
Roll on super-dooper Tuesday…
Privatised service provision & the myth of the private advantage. Mmmm let’s see – just a few Oz examples. Electricity generation in SA & Vic – mmm oh look Virginia, higher prices for the consumer. Privatised water provision in SA – oh look Virginia, higher prices to the consumer. Privatised garage collection services in SA – oh look Virginia, significant breeches of pollution laws & higher charges to local councils. Privatised airports such as Kingsford Smith – levies & charges so high that they now more than double the cost of the cheapie tickets. Or perhaps the coal loading facility at Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal (DBCT) as now owned by Babcock & Brown – so efficiently run that coal producers are losing contracts as the facility is unable to meet demand. Or the rail freight services in Victoria & NSW as owned by Asciano which gave producers 6 weeks notice over the Christmas period that all freight would cease saying, “the outlook for the service is poor, and the company can not handle the volatility.” After they had stuck their privatised hand out for $140 million in subsidies in May. We now have major ag producers who have absolutely NO alternative in terms of transportation for the produce – much of which is destined for OS. Arrggghhh yes MR BBB – the happy successes & efficiencies of the privatised service provider….
Nelson still seems to be living in nowhere land. He has hardly done anything to attract votes from Liberal supporters, let alone swinging voters. If one didn’t know any better, one could conceivably suspect him of being an elaborate Labor plant.
The blind faith in the free market and constant push for privatisation is one of the things has disturbed me most about the recent political moves. One can’t deny the way the free market creates profit motives for efficiency and producing something that meets an actual demand, and the elegance of the Darwinistic way businesses must compete against each other. However I find it surprising that the same people who point out that communism failed as a result of the human condition, refuse to see that free market capitalism is vulnerable to it as well. In essence while the free market creates profit motives for being productive within the society, unfortunately it is often the case that it creates greater profit motives to be destructive. Additionally, but comparing our economic environment to the natural one I see a parallel between the power humans evolved to adapt their environment to suit them and the damaged caused, to the power that corporations are gaining over our environment and society.
It’s hard to argue that government services can be more efficient than a competative private sector, but that’s somewhat of a strawman. Most government services are/were delivered where the situation does not produce an adequately competative market. Natural monopolies such as networked service delivery (e.g. power, water, garbage, communications, etc) are one such case. The comparison that needs to be made is between the (in)efficiency of government service delivery and the (in)efficiency of a monopolistic predatory company.
Desipis, the key point in your second paragraph seems well beyond those for whom there is merely a dichotomy between publicly and privately owned assets or delivered services. Still, social democrat confusion between prices and efficiency, and tired talking points on privatised natural monopolies and formerly mis-managed government assets is often the best we can hope for…
BBB
Yes the tide is running out on the whole “the government is the problem” mindset. And there is an anti incumbent mood running. The turnouts in the Iowa and New Hampshire are testament to that, espcially the ratio of new Democrat votes (lots) to new Republican votes (5/8ths of 2/5ths of the square root of not a lot). The Republicans have got to be scared witless by those numbers.
As soon as the current Obama vs Hillary foodfight is over and the polling and media attention turn to the general election the sky is going darken vene more over Republican headquarters, regardless of who the Democrat nominee turns out to be (I’d prefer Obama but I’d be happy enough with Hillary and even happier if Hillary then chose Obama is her VP).
As the last of the big four banks ponders whether to join in with an interest rate rise in response to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, it would be a 1970′s indulgence to imagine what Rudd could do with his/our $15 billion tax cut. Westpac will probably baulk at striking out into unknown territory – at least since the complete bank privatisation era – and not try winning over a lot of nervous homeowning prospects. Of course they blame it all on the cost of money and why should they take any blame for buying into dodgy US credit risks. Yeah it’s an indulgence to think of $15 billion pumped into making capitalism work a bit better for some who really need it.
Admirable, until you realise the extent to which US political consultants (along with their assumptions) shape the campaigns of Australian political parties.
The thread quite recently on the government’s opt-out internet filtering proposal had quite a few commenters suggesting that government very much would be the problem if it butted its nose into this area in this way. That might be outside the narrow area of service provision, but it’s a simple and current example.
It’s true that conservative parties in general need to work harder to convince people that they’re not innately hostile to properly funded and properly run public services (and proper funding is a neceesary but not sufficient criteria for having them properly run), but then most Labor governments haven’t exactly been covering themselves in glory in that area either.
I don’t think it’s a ‘public good-private bad’ issue, or vice verse. Both have big problems at their worst and do great good at their best. Being part of a cheer squad for one ‘side’ or the other tends to mean evidence gets ignored or selectively applied to suit one’s ‘team’. To me, a common feature of when both private and government run things are at their worst is when they ignore the public/community and decide they know what’s best for people. I think it would be a good thing if parties of any colour could actually look at giving more say and control directly to the people where appropriate, and take it out of the hands of bureaucrats, politicians or corporations. Although I don’t know if this is a pathway to winning power/public support or not, which I guess is the topic of this thread – what strategy parties/people should do to get elected, which as I said in my first comment, I’m not so interested in.
“Nelson still seems to be living in nowhere land. He has hardly done anything to attract votes from Liberal supporters, let alone swinging voters. If one didn’t know any better, one could conceivably suspect him of being an elaborate Labor plant.”
Did you mean this Guy?
“He’s a real nowhere Man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.
Doesn’t have a point of view,
Knows not where he’s going to….
Andrew, I’m interested in your apparent preference for third sector organisations to deliver services. What concerns me about that is partly what we’ve seen in the employment services quasi-market where often there is some other agenda (religious for instance) or they play the game in order to cross-subsidise other operations now that the voluntary contributions base of the Protestant charities has been eroded by the ageing of congregations.
In addition, the cost efficiency of third sector organisations is often secured by appallingly low rates of pay for their staff (the charity ethos apparently trumps decent pay). The SACS award was vehemently opposed by most of the sector, and it’s still inadequate. Research/policy gigs in not for profits can be paid as little as 35-40k while public service jobs at the same level would be around 70k. The poor people who deliver the services to the poor often struggle along on 30-35k.
Also, as someone who’s been on the receiving end of the ministrations of both the CES and a not for profit ESP, I think the CES actually did a much better job.
…and isn’t he a little like Peter Garrett.
Finkelstein didn’t say anything about “getting over” the 60s, as if it were a bad hangover that’d pass with time. This is what he said:
Making peace with the 60s, the hardest task of all, says Finkelstein, requires conservatives to ask themselves the question: what do we conservatives want? What is sacrosanct and what is expendable? For a while it looked like the private sector was sacred to consrvatives. But now Finkelstein implies that it is relatively easy for conservatives to dump it.
The hard thing for conservatives is to make peace with the 60s. The 60s blew a hole through the conservative project. for 40 years conservatives have either railed against this challenge to their raison d’etre or they have been in denial about it.
Now Finkelstein wants conservatives, finally, to make peace with the 60s. But note that another term for “making peace” is “surrender on terms”.
If the conservatives ever “make peace with the 60s”, they will have given up their last sacred hopes and ideas.
The Tories fought the 60s, and the 60s won!
Now that’s what I call, in Andrew E’s words, an “aberrant decade”.
Mark / Andrew – I think there’s an important distinction to be made between government outsourcing and community services. Many of the services provided by not-for-profits have traditionally been in the charitable space e.g. homeless shelters. This is not outsourced from government. It never was government.
The Job Network is the only outsourced government function that I could find in an analysis I did last year. My view of the JN is that the problems are as much about the government regulation of this program as it is about the deliverers. It is the most regulated sector I’ve ever come across. A thoughtful paper on the problems in JN was released just before Christmas by the Parliamentary library (warning – it’s a PDF) http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2007-08/08rp15.pdf
But you are right, wages are lower than the public service and this reflects the value society puts on “caring” work.
I’m not sure it deals with the small government approach though. And reflecting a discussion on another current thread, the more of a nanny state we end up with the more government regulators you need to run that. Not surprising that the number of public servants increased under Howard. I see a conflict for Rudd with his razor gang to cut the number of public servants at the same time as developing nanny state interventions like the internet thing.
From Andrew
“But you are right, wages are lower than the public service and this reflects the value society puts on âcaringâ? work”
Not really.
Society, whoever or whatever that is precisely, appears to value ‘care’ work very very highly.
But that sector of ‘society’ that has the political and economic power to set incomes in various areas does not.
To give an example:
A mate of mine was a carer for years but the stress got to him and so did the lack of pay. So off he went to sell used cars for a while to decrease his stress levels and ‘earn’ [funny word that] a minimum of triple his carers income. Then back into the fray of caring for people with various disabilities.
Now I reckon that the respect given to carers is greater than that given to used car sellers but the pay rates are vastly disproportionate.
So its not ‘society’ but something or someone else that is the driving force here.
Profit motive perhaps?