The recent instability within Canberra and massive swings in the Queensland and Victorian electorate highlight the fickle nature of politics but also highlight the demand the general public are putting on our politicians to show leadership. What we want in our leaders, at both State and Federal level, are decisions and action that will give us quick impact on our economy.
Queensland is an interesting case. Just over four years ago the nation looked on as Queensland went through devastating floods. Then premier Anna Bligh earned high praise for her management and performance during that time. Her handling of the disaster and the media during that time was, in the eyes of most Australians, inspirational. Roll forward 14 months and that respect stood for nought as she underwent the heaviest defeat in the state’s history. Interestingly, it appeared it was the policies of the Labor party around privatisation of public assets to reduce state debt that delivered the killer blow.
After 14 years of Labor government, and with such a massive swing, Campbell Newman would have been forgiven for thinking his job was safe for at least two terms. And it probably should have been. It appears Campbell Newman’s sin was his arrogance, Jeff Kennett style. The difference between Newman and Kennett was that Kennett made things happen quickly enough through the 1990’s that he got away with his egotistical style for a number of years and is now looked upon as a Premier that had the wherewithal to get the job done. Interestingly, Newman’s pre-election proposal of a series of asset privatisations to reduce state debt seems to be the killer blow. Maybe he should have just made it happen during the three years he had in power.
The message seems to be crystal clear – the people are willing to throw out a government that won’t listen, won’t change and won’t act. And so we come back to Labor and the mammoth task that now faces Annastacia Palaszczuk. She could also be forgiven for thinking she has six years in the job. Of all Australian states and territories, Queensland has the highest net debt per capita by a country mile, followed by Western Australia. Addressing this is going to require strong plans and policies that can be implemented quickly. It will be interesting to watch whether Ms Palasczcuk has the strength to force change, deliver outcomes, reduce debt and, dare I say it, ignore the inevitable opinion polls and media scrutiny that will no doubt come.
Whilst Victoria’s debt, relative to Queensland, might be said to be under control, it still needs a government prepared to make the tough decisions and to act – quickly. Victoria needs its freeways joined up and a train to the airport. Outgoing Premier Denis Napthine’s promise of East West Link was a decision that he made and went to the electorate with. If he would have made the decision at the start of his term rather than the end of it, the project would have started. What we have ended up with now is a mess. A huge fight over compensation payouts, no project and hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly a billion, of wasted taxpayers’ money. There is no doubt in my mind that East-West Link will go ahead – probably now not for another decade – and will end up costing twice as much as first thought.
Herein lies a fundamental issue with our political system. Whenever we have an election or a change of government there are these lengthy caretaker periods or handover periods that simply waste too much time, money and resources. Our government terms are too short to have this amount of time spent on non-productive effort.
New Labor leader Daniel Andrews has a clear mandate to get on with providing a manufacturing environment that allows business to generate job growth. Yet four months into his term most government programs targeted at helping Victorian manufacturers are still on hold. Governments simply must act quicker when they get into power.
At Federal level we have a number of examples of this. Following the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd fiasco of late 2013, during which our levels of business confidence dropped to all time lows, it was expected that the Liberal Party under Tony Abbott would provide the impetus to our manufacturing sector that would reinvigorate it. Yet almost half way into his term, we have seen many government programs held up and a number of initiatives stymied, not to mention the less than satisfactory effort to keep our automotive industry alive.
A really good example of the slow decision-making process is around Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs). A proposed Innovative Manufacturing CRC has attached to it $41m cash and $162m in-kind support from industry and research participants over a seven year period. The vision of the IM-CRC is to accelerate Australia’s rapid transition into high value-add, high knowledge-based manufacturing. It has met all the requirements that a CRC needs to, the government mechanism and funding is available and yet is has been with Minister Ian Macfarlane for over eight months. It is further being held up by a review of the CRC Program and an uncertainty over how CRCs and the proposed Industry Growth Centres (refer to my column on page 74) will work together. Meanwhile, the participants committed to the CRC have to just sit around and wait, rather than getting on with reforming our manufacturing sector.
Governments at all levels must act quicker and more decisively, particularly in the first year of their terms.