Lenore Taylor, political editor Thursday 22 January 2015
Voters want a clearly articulated plan for the year ahead. ‘Being a bigger and more effective skite’ just won’t cut it
Tony Abbott insists his first year in office was ‘solid’. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
Here’s the prime minister’s analysis of his government’s woes.
It’s not his record – he insists his first year was “solid” and urges voters to judge him on it.
It’s not the policies he’s pushing now – his government will persist with the Medicare co-payment and higher education deregulation, which have been rejected by the Senate and, according to opinion polls, by a majority of voters
Nope, the big problem is that the prime minister doesn’t boast enough. He needs to be a “bigger and more effective skite”, he told Melbourne radio, and he also needs to “break out of the left mindset in talking about things”, whatever that might mean.
Here’s a tip. This is not how his colleagues are analysing his problems. They are judging the government on its record and they think it should be more substantial by now than axing the carbon and mining taxes, “stopping boats” and clinching some trade agreements. They are truly despairing at all the mixed messages in recent weeks about dropping, or maybe rethinking or maybe persisting with the health and education policies. And they see no credible plan for the government to fight its way out of its troubles.
As the cycle of anonymously backgrounded leadership stories begins all over again, Abbott quashed any suggestion that he might stand aside if things don’t improve. He says, quite rightly, that the Coalition learned a lesson from the former government’s endless leadership woes.
But the idea that boasting a bit more will solve his government’s problems just doesn’t wash. The electorate, and many of his own colleagues, want a clearly articulated plan.
The government’s priority this year would appear to be a families package, paring back the paid parental leave scheme still further and redirecting some of the money into broader and more flexible childcare subsidies. But given the still-increasing budget deficit and the Coalition’s other priority – budget repair – it’s a package likely to create at least some losers. And changing payments to families immediately raises questions about the tax system. It remains unclear how far the government is prepared to take that debate in its current political circumstances.
Given that the last budget was rejected primarily because it was seen to be unfair, whatever policies are unveiled in the government’s next make-or-break budget will be judged by the same yardstick, even if that is what the prime minister was referring to as “the left mindset in talking about things”.
