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August 15, 2010
An English cartoon about the conservative heritage---but Margaret Thatcher is a touchstone for Australian conservative ideologues and their dislike of ghastly foreigners. Gillard Labor's "moving forward", was designed to suggest that the Coalition's politics and morality are regressive, misogynist and a little too religious.
The starting point of the Coalition conservatives in this election is private sector good, public sector bad. The right simply cannot abide publicly funded institutions, even ones that manifestly contribute to Britain’s social, economic and cultural welfare. If it’s funded by taxation, they start from the assumption that something is profoundly wrong.
The Coalition have also returned to Treasury think circa 1920: namely the notion that public spending is crowding out private investment, and that if public spending is cut the private sector will rush to take up the slack.
Tony Abbott doesn't talk about David Cameron's big society versus a 'big state.' There is no mention of Edmund Burke's 'little platoons', and they run a mile from the republican tradition's emphasis on civic engagement and bottom up democracy. Its more about welfare reform (reducing welfare dependency) and more for stay-at-home mums.
What the Conservatives share with Labor is getting back as quickly as possible to business -as-usual: short-term policy wonkery that takes us to the golden future of ever-rising material prosperity, fuelling and fuelled by ever-rising consumption, both public and private. The world for both of them is one of more and more growth, affluence, materialism, consumerism.
Gillard Labor has increasingly sounded like the Coalition on asylum seekers and education whilst its commitment to its reform tradition of Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke and Keating does sound hollow , given the way that focus groups, polling data and stage-managed pragmatism are now centre stage.
Update
In Just a lot of hot air in The Age Waleed Aly questions Labor's appetite for reform:
The accidental magic of ''moving forward'' is that it simultaneously captures the spirit of Labor's past and its present. It summarises Labor's reforming tradition, and its present timidity. Much like Labor's reforming zeal, the slogan is now an empty shell.There is something odd about this. Today, it seems the Coalition is the more ideologically driven force. It is the team more likely to adopt unpopular reform positions, then argue relentlessly for them until it gets its way
He adds that perhaps the question is not: is Labor still reformist? Perhaps it is: how can it be? How does one implement reform when cyberspace and digital or cable television is ready to pounce on even the slightest mould-breaking thought?
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Richard Teese in the National Times says that the largely bipartisan schools policy views public education as a broken sector:
Labor's reforms in education are short-cuts solutions devised in response to a faltering public system, neglected in favour of choice.