By Shaun Crowe Posted Thu 14 Nov 2013
Photo: Only one day into the 44th Parliament and the usual suspects are already saying the usual things. (Getty Images: Stefan Postles)
While the Liberal Party may have enjoyed watching Labor cleave itself in two over the past six years, it's quickly learning that its own house isn't as ordered as it seemed in opposition, writes Shaun Crowe.
We're only one day into the 44th Parliament and, predictably, the usual suspects are already saying the usual things.
On Monday evening, Maurice Newman, the head of the Coalition's Business Advisory Council, used his platform at the Centre for Economic Development of Australia to announce that our wages are too damn high.
In the speech, Newman argued that "while any discussion in Australia about industrial relations evokes screams of outrage and spectres of Work Choices, we cannot hide the fact that Australian wage rates are very high by international standards and that our system is dogged by rigidities".
Specifically, Australia's minimum wage – $US33,500 to the United States' $US15,080 – represents an "enormous [international] disparity".
Newman isn't the first member of the business community to make this argument.
Since 2010, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has criticised each yearly raise in the minimum wage, complaining most recently that 2013's extra $15.80 a week represented a "body blow to Australia's small and medium business community".
Such cage-rattling is to be expected in a political system with parties that grew out of industrial conflict, but it is especially difficult for the contemporary Liberal Party.
Tony Abbott's economic agenda, an agenda we'll generously describe as 'still developing', has so far lacked coherence because he leads a government founded on contradictory impulses, a government being pulled in a number of different directions.
Firstly, this is because Tony Abbott's opposition to Labor was based primarily on a material objection to the carbon tax. The tax wasn't just a lie, it was a lie that added to Australia's 'cost of living'.
To prosecute the case more forcefully, he frequently alluded to Australians that were "doing it tough", unable to handle the carbon tax's financial burden.
Importantly, unlike Howard with Keating in 1996, Abbott's central message was not that Rudd and Gillard were elitists who were out of touch culturally. He instead appeared to be suggesting that Labor misunderstood the economic pressures facing Australian voters, ignorant of the 'Electricity Bills' and cost-of-living pressures he argues are "going up and up and up".
As Eric Abetz implicitly conceded when responding to 2011's rise in the minimum wage, this is very shaky ground on which to fight a battle over income growth.
"I fully understand some businesses who are suffering substantial reductions in their business income and that will be a huge concern to the small business sector", he accepted, "but I also know that a lot of people are facing cost of living pressures".
Secondly, the Liberal Party is still clearly getting over its last foray into industrial relations, Work Choices.
While Tony Abbott argued in Battlelines that the legislation "wasn't all bad", he did admit that it was a "political mistake". Specifically, he conceded that the changes alienated the government from the so-called 'Howard Battlers', "undermining their faith in the Prime Minister's goodwill".
While we haven't yet got 'Abbott's Aspirationals', the Liberal Party is still deeply conscious of the need to cultivate these voters. And somewhat unsurprisingly, its first act of 'goodwill' is unlikely to involve cutting their pay or penalty rates.
For now, Peter Reith's demand that "Abbott must act before unemployment worsens" will most probably be met with silence.
Finally, Abbott's economic agenda will need to deal with the contradictory forces within his own Coalition. The Prime Minister may have disingenuously promised that "under no circumstances" would he lead a minority government, but the Liberal Party's alliance with the Nationals is already muddying their economic waters.
In contrast with many in the Liberal Party, a number of National MPs are deeply sceptical about free markets, with Barnaby Joyce even speculating in 2006 that "maybe I'm an agrarian socialist".
This surfaced most recently over the proposed sale of GrainCorp to an American company, with Nationals threatening to leave the Coalition if it's allowed, and Joe Hockey responding that he won't be "bullied" over the decision.
Like the Liberal Party’s position on the carbon tax and Work Choices, the government's policy on agricultural investment forces them to recognise the Coalition's internal contradictions.
Abbott is tied between two horses walking in different directions, unsure of which rope to cut.
While the Liberal Party may have enjoyed watching Labor cleave itself in two over the past six years, it's quickly learning that its own house isn't as ordered as it seemed in opposition.
Watch this space.
Shaun Crowe is a PhD student in Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University. View his full profile here.
Can Abbott keep his party in order? - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
