In the immediate aftermath of the spill, I was arguing for time. Turnbull had taken the leadership, but the party hadn’t changed and he needed time to prove he could manage the functions as well as the furbelows of more intelligent government.
He’s had time and has, in some ways, fulfilled the promise of a calmer, more nuanced debate. His response to the Paris attacks was certainly more mature and responsible than the militant hysteria we would have had under Abbott.
These things matter in that the set the tone of public debate. Abbott’s hard right conservatism gave voice and mandate to a minority hard right section of the electorate far in excess of its actual representation, as was demonstrated in his crushing unpopularity and the huge poll bounce Turnbull’s leadership gave the government.
But a suave manner and benevolent bonhomie with the press gallery can only take him so far. He needs to lead a difference in substance and well as style to overcome the damage Abbott did to the electorate’s perception of being dealt with unfairly by their government.
The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) was the government’s first opportunity to prove to Australia that the Turnbull/Morrison team is smarter, fairer, and more in tune with the public mood than the denizens Abbott/Hockey government. And they squibbed it.
Morrison’s insistence that there is no revenue problem meant he concentrated only on savings, and despite making a few of the right noises before MYEFO, nothing was actually done to address superannuation reforms. And cuts were made to government money for the sick, the elderly and the unemployed, without doing anything to close corporate tax loopholes or multinational tax dodgers.
Major savings include close to $2 billion in welfare integrity measures, $930 million in changes to family day care, $650 million from discouraging bulk billing for diagnostic services such as pathology, $317 million by capping Green Army environmental projects and $472 million in savings from aged care.
Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars are still being poured into the hellholes the government calls detention centres and nothing is being done to address the litany of abuse and sexual assaults committed against the unfortunate souls imprisoned there. It’s pretty much Abbott-lite without the weird tongue thing.
Turnbull made a huge song and dance about his support for women, but again, it’s panache without push. The huge shortfall in funding for community legal services and women’s refuges hasn’t changed, it locks in Tony Abbott’s $44 million cut to crisis shelters and his $12 million cut to community legal centres to take effect in 2017. The superannuation changes are minimal and do nothing to address the massive gender disparity in retirement savings – there’s no point tweaking the system women to “catch up” when they return to work if nothing is done to address the reduced income over a lifetime of work. Cuts to childcare funding for low income earners will inevitably lead to more women dropping out of the workforce, which perpetuates all the problems of welfare, superannuation and workforce participate that affect long term government spending.
The Parliamentary Budget Office confirmed the government would save $38 billion over four years by addressing entrench tax lurks for the rich: negative gearing, capital gains tax discounts and public subsidies for fossil fuels. None of those things made an appearance in MYEFO.
Turnbull took a calculated risk in not going to an election immediately after the spill and riding the wave of his government’s newfound popularity into a mandated government in its own right. That risk could well have paid off if he’d used the time to prove his credentials as a man-of-the-people in a sharp suit, and given Australia what it wants from its government: basic fairness and not too much to complain about. If he’d done that he could have twinkled and sparkled his way into the next election and cut all ground out from under an increasing depressed looking Bill Shorten. Now it looks like all he’s going to do is give Shorten enough time to find firm ground to stand on and a clear argument that Labor might be the better option.
Truthfully, I expected better from Turnbull. Not because it would be the right thing to do, but because it would be the smart thing to do. That was supposed to be the difference.