It’s like Hayley’s Comet has come early. The once-in-every-75-year appearance of a periodic comet is an easy reference to rarity, and current ratings for the Albanese government’s economic management fit the bill. Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer Jim Chalmers have untied the Gordian knot that’s been a perennial problem for Labor in government and opposition.
Labor’s curse was present in the decades leading up to the last visit of Hayley’s Comet in 1986 and pretty well has been ever since.
Any poll reading demands caution but this week’s Resolve Political Monitor in the Nine papers does provide seldom-seen, eye-catching results.
On economic management, Labor had a nine-point lead (rated as a better performer by 37% of respondents, to 29% for the Liberals) and had a five-point advantage on managing the country’s finances. Performing best on jobs and wages — 45% to 22% for the Liberals — is expected, given Labor’s usual strength in this area.
However, the result that really demonstrates how Albanese and Chalmers are owning the economic debate is the indication of who is best placed to keep the cost of living low. On this metric, Labor has a formidable 12-point lead — one in three Australians say Labor is best on this front while just one in five give any credit to the Liberals. In a historic and contemporary context, these are remarkable numbers.
For the party long regarded as the best to manage the economy, the price is still being paid for the Morrison years — and the aftermath is steep. The failure of Peter Dutton to make any inroads on this front points to an untethered economic understanding and lack of competence seldom seen during the past half a century.
Dutton is not helped by Angus Taylor, who is the weakest Coalition economic spokesperson since Julie Bishop’s few months in the job more than a decade ago.
Labor’s superiority on all these numbers has increased in the months since the election — through a budget that warned of tough times ahead, sustained rhetoric from Dutton about broken promises in energy prices, and general gloomy national and global outlooks.
The probable reasons for these findings include the non-threatening, inclusive nature of the Albanese government — an ambition in which the prime minister takes pride — and the best-in-government communications skills of Chalmers.
The treasurer has shaken off any traces of the bad lessons all politicians learn when told to stick to the talking points. He explains things in relatable and easy to comprehend ways, he has a natural authenticity and can easily show empathy. He’s also one of the smartest custodians of the Treasury portfolio in our nation’s history.
Anyone who’s spent time with Chalmers knows of his broad and eclectic reading interests — and not just contemporary political and economic theory and practice. The summer before the last election he took in Mark Braude’s The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba, a thriller and physiological exploration of one of history’s best-known characters.
Chalmers’s “big brain” approach to politics and government will be closely examined when The Monthly publishes his 6000-word essay next week. The ambitious essay covers how Australia might recover and reemerge from the rolling crises of the 2020 pandemic and its economic and health fallouts.
These are the big themes: a series of global crises — the GFC, the pandemic and the current energy and inflation shocks — leave us more vulnerable to uncertainty and upheaval.
Discussing these ideas with Crikey as he moved between Australia Day events on Thursday, Chalmers highlighted the policy and leadership vacuum of the past 10 years, which he reckons don’t just threaten to leave people behind but place democracy itself in danger.
While he’s working on the first proper Albanese government budget, due in May, Chalmers has three overarching priorities: energy and climate, technological change and opportunity, and how we reform and improve the caring economy.
He sees all of these as central to one of his many policy passions: the future of work. Chalmers wants to find out where the jobs are going to be and what they will look like.
Just as financial deregulation was central to the reform agenda when Hayley’s Comet was last in the sky, energy and industry policy are the foundation of much of what’s required today. Chalmers says Australia needs “a blueprint for building prosperity in the post-pandemic era” by better aligning our values with our economy.
“This can be achieved through getting the clean energy transition right, making smarter investments in skills and training, recognising the centrality of well-being to our economic success, and restoring and renovating our democratic and economic institutions,” he told Crikey.
Along these rivers of policy and innovation flow the possibility of job opportunities, the health and well-being behind a reimagined care economy, and the opportunities of technological change.
In Chalmers’ thinking, all this can fit into a story about the other lesson from the most recent set of crises: supply chains.
Throughout the economy and reaching overseas, there are massive unmet needs exposed by the lack of raw materials and value-added goods during the first months of the pandemic.
Chalmers thinks that with enough imagination, cooperation between public and private sectors and reshaping and reforming markets to make them work for people, tomorrow’s challenges can be met.
Of course, there will be some massive demands — money for new programs in service portfolios like health and housing as well as the bill for what’s likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime shopping list for defence.
Labor strength in economic management and competence has been hard to achieve, manifesting itself rarely. However, on the hierarchy-of-needs scale, these are what the community wants before permission is granted to smell any other policy roses.
Holding on to the mantle of best economic manager is done through constant care and consideration. Given the myriad crises abroad in 2023 — dubbed a poly-crisis by economist and historian Adam Tooze in his newsletter Chartbook — the degree of difficulty in the year ahead couldn’t be steeper.
If Chalmers and his colleagues can maintain community support for economic and financial management through this year they should be well pleased — and possibly thinking of an early-ish election.
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