Tag Archive for 'Andrew Norton'

“Great new tax on everything”

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Climate change, Economics, Elections, Federal Elections, Howardia, Politics and Polls
. 54 Comments

The government has released modelling showing the effects of the CPRS on household incomes, demonstrating that many low income earners will, on average, be better off financially.

Predictably, this disclosure has added fuel to the fire of complaints from the right about its evils.

In the circles Tony Abbott moves in, redistribution is a dirty word.

That, of course, ignores the fact that everything governments do in tax, benefits, and allowances of whatever kind is redistributive. That includes all the Howard era tax/welfare transfers. It’s not as though Labor has some sort of evil socialist agenda and Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard are socialist wolves in sheep’s clothing, much as some might like to entertain such fantasies.

It’s no doubt right to say, as Andrew Norton does, that Abbott’s shift in the Coalition’s position to opposition to the CPRS (matched with vague promises of costless emissions savings) exposes the detail of the ETS to more debate. That may not be a bad thing, though it would also be a good thing if its ineffectiveness in achieving its ostensible aims were the focus of the debate. That’s not likely to be the case in the headline election year debate, as Abbott’s move switches attention to hip pockets.

However, anyone who followed the design of the CPRS from the start would be well aware that the government had already anticipated this line of attack. Continue reading ‘“Great new tax on everything”’

After Copenhagen II: Whither progressive politics?

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 3 weeks ago
in Climate change, International, Policy, Politics and USA
. 26 Comments

A predictable response to the Copenhagen fail has been calls from Australian business for *even more* ‘compensation’ as a condition for continued support of the Rudd government’s ETS. I’ll save the domestic politics of the Copenhagen washup for a later post, but I think it’s also worth reflecting on what underlies the sort of political and policy thinking which leads to bills such as the CPRS.

In my previous post, I reproduced Brian Davey’s piece from Open Democracy, which expressed skepticism about the capacities of the political system to deal with complex phenomena, permeating all sectors of the economy and lifeworld, such as climate change. I agree with the diagnosis, but I think that a different mode of politics could find solutions.

There are three similarities between the design of the CPRS and the American Health bill (and for that matter, the US cap and trade bills):

(a) Both started out with an ambit, seeking to find the limits of giveaways and concessions to political and particularly corporate constituencies; rather than from the position of a solution;

(b) Similarly, both come with implicit rhetoric that any action is a good start, and a messy compromise can later be made purer and more effective;

(c) Both seek to accommodate existing interests and shift behaviour only at the margins, rather than constructing a new frame which would require actors to reconfigure behaviours, and create new actors (and destroy or reshape old ones).

In short, this sort of approach to governance is inherently conservative, in that it seeks to match political imperatives to already existing situations, rather than to transform the situation politically. This tends not to work, for reasons which are fairly obvious. Yet, notions like ‘nudge’ and using quasi-markets to achieve social ends are the hallmarks of postmodern progressive policy wonk-dom.

Continue reading ‘After Copenhagen II: Whither progressive politics?’

Clive Hamilton and Higgins

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 3 weeks ago
in By-elections
. 146 Comments

The Greens are running Clive Hamilton in Higgins.

As Andrew Norton observes, Hamilton criticising seems to be a politically ecumenical practice in the blogosphere.

Guy Rundle puts a contrary view.

I’m by no means enamoured of some of the ideas Hamilton has put forward over the years, but I don’t know that judging him on that basis is necessarily the most appropriate mode of evaluating his prospects as a political representative. I was also struck by Guy Beres‘ comment:

It’s all a bit incestuous when you think about it. The Greens famously courted Peter Garrett on numerous occasions before his controversial decision during the (pre-explosion) Latham era to join the Labor Party. In years past, high-profile players within the Labor Party organisation seriously entertained the idea of Malcolm Turnbull joining the ALP’s ranks. One does wonder whether Clive Hamilton would be considered an asset as a candidate by the Labor Party. Clearly his strong views on the nature of modern capitalism, climate change and stringent opposition to nuclear power paint him as more of a natural Greens candidate. Leaving aside the much debated travails of Peter Garrett for a moment, just what sort of impact could a few high-profile leftish intellectuals have on the parliamentary Labor party?

My other observation would be that I’m not sure that high profile candidates necessarily fare better in by-elections, where the name of the game isn’t really to attract national media attention, but grass roots campaigning on the ground. I have no knowledge of the degree to which Hamilton has or has not been involved in community politics and campaigning on a local level in the suburbs encompassed by Higgins, but my general view would be that such a candidate would be a good bet for an increased vote. In light of the commentary around the Higgins by-election as a barometer on climate change policy, The Greens might have been thinking that’s the better tack to take.

It’s going to be an interesting contest, whichever way it pans out.

Previously on LP: A couple of earlier posts on the Higgins contest.

Update: Legal Eagle.

Update: Hamilton on Hamilton.

Update: En Passant.

Update: Since this post has largely focused on Hamilton rather than electoral strategy and the likely outcomes in Higgins, I’ve put up a new one on that topic, linking to a recent analysis from Antony Green.

Does Turnbull have a (viable) political strategy (at all)?

Published
by
Mark
10 months, 3 weeks ago
in Howardia, Politics and Polls
. 90 Comments

There’s an interesting debate (so far one sided) between Possum and Andrew Norton on the question of Malcolm Turnbull’s and the opposition’s prospects. Possum, after making a statistically derived argument about what factors drive voting, suggests that Malcolm Turnbull’s only strategy is “constant negative harping”.

Norton disagrees, and something like his position has been put to me recently from another quarter, so I suspect he’s accurately portraying what the opposition think they’re up to:

Simply agreeing with what the government is doing will get the Opposition minimal current credit with the electorate in the short term at the price of a clear long-term message about the Liberal alternative. There is a difference between what Liberal state oppositions have done, which is just ‘constant negative harping’ without a real theme or sense of an alternative, and a strategy which goes against the current mood to establish a message that could resonate at a later time.

There are at least two problems with this.

First, I’m not at all clear that any political alternative is being argued – some musing about ‘Liberal values’ is pretty content free, and doesn’t cut through in any case. Kevin Rudd has framed what the Liberal party stands for at the moment. So pervasive is the ‘back to Howard’ narrative. The Libs have played into this with their obsession with ‘defending the legacy’. It’s backward looking, not carving out some positive territory for a future when Labor goes off the boil. There’s really no getting around the fact that there’s just no political contest whatever at the moment – the Libs may as well be on Rudd’s payroll, as someone remarked here recently.

Secondly, you have to pick your battles in politics. Continue reading ‘Does Turnbull have a (viable) political strategy (at all)?’

The vigilance of (il)Liberalism never sleeps

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 2 months ago
in Activism and Elections
. 32 Comments

Probably one of the most laudable steps taken by the Rudd government has been the attention given by Senator John Faulkner as Special Minister of State to cleaning up the electoral system. Admittedly, this isn’t one of the funky and sexy issues the media likes to highlight, but the importance of the Green Paper on Electoral Reform is profound.

But while most Australians probably had other things on their mind, John Howard’s former Workplace Relations advisor and Alexander Downer’s replacement as Mayo MP, Jamie Briggs, found time on Boxing Day to denounce third party campaigns as a “a growing cancer in our democracy”.

Briggs named GetUp! and the ACTU’s Your Rights at Work campaign as examples of what he was talking about.

I don’t have any particular problem with disclosure of funding for third party campaigns, though I would object to caps on donations. But the hyperbole from Briggs (and no doubt his views are shared by Nick Minchin and others) is absurd and dangerous. Props to Andrew Norton for sounding the alarm. Norton refers to Briggs’ call for disclosure and observes:

Continue reading ‘The vigilance of (il)Liberalism never sleeps’

Expectations about unemployment

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 3 months ago
in Economics, Markets, Polls and Sociology
. 17 Comments

Andrew Norton has posted on some interesting findings from Roy Morgan’s employment perceptions survey. Basically, there’s something of a disjunction – with 70% of respondents believing unemployment will rise over the next year (the highest since the last recession, and the third highest since the survey began in 1975) while 80% think their own job is secure (the same number as last year’s survey). 63% believe they could easily find another job.

These sorts of surveys demonstrate one of the weaknesses of opinion polling – we’re left to speculate on the reasons. It really would be extremely helpful if polling groups were to supplement such research with qualitative forms of enquiry such as focus groups, or qualitative aspects to the survey instrument.

But since we have to speculate, my guess would be that one or more of the following factors might be in operation:

Continue reading ‘Expectations about unemployment’