Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s attempt to “reset” his terrible political situation has had a forlorn quality. His government has been trailing in the polls almost since its election and his own personal standing has been consistently worse than his party’s. His first budget has been stoking public anger for nine long months. His own ministers appear to be briefing against him and MPs are grumbling about the control-freakery of his office.
In the face of all this, the best his brains trust could do was pushing him out in front of the media to promise that he really could change, if only we would give him another chance. This followed a speech to his party room where he promised to scrape some barnacles from the government’s hull (an operation which may soon require a bathysphere). In attempting to rebrand himself in the face of political difficulty, Abbott is following a well-worn path, which is not trod exclusively by conservatives.
Last month, British Labour leader Ed Miliband, himself limping in the polls and suffering leadership speculation, offered a “fightback” speech which was meant to show his nervous colleagues that he had plotted a path to victory. The Tories helpfully pointed out that this was Miliband’s 10th attempt to resurrect his fortunes on the stump, each time with diminishing returns. Like Abbott, he has failed to persuade anyone that a change in communication strategy equates to a more fundamental reorientation. Perhaps his failures are more forgivable: His policies, at least, are popular, and opposition is not a place from which it is easy to control the political milieu.
US President Barack Obama’s recent reset may have a better chance of at least offsetting the problem of his own personal unpopularity. After making the generic speech where he claimed to have listened to the electorate (including those who had failed to vote), Obama actually did something that may energise his base and reassemble parts of his coalition in a way that benefits future Democratic candidates. By using his executive powers to allow millions of undocumented migrants to stay in the country, Obama has banked some support for the future and persuaded core Democratic voters that some values and courage lurk under his caution and pragmatism. Unlike Abbott, though, Obama has the freedom that comes from not having to worry about being either replaced or re-elected.
Abbott’s reset has not changed anything — perhaps it cannot. Part of the problem is the dilemma that while his government’s austerity surprise package has alienated the population at large, his base in the hard right remains unsatisfied. The kind of Abbott supporters present in the @boltcomments are motivated by a desire for social and economic revenge against feminists, migrants, ABC journalists, and anyone else they associate with an intolerable pluralism. Even if Abbott could turn back time, the unchallenged white patriarchy these people want restored is a figment of their nostalgic imaginations.
This makes their thirst for vengeance impossible to slake: Abbott can restrict ABC funding, but not privatise it or shut it down; he can imprison refugees, but not expel every Muslim from the country; he can largely exclude women from his cabinet, but he cannot erase the impact of feminism on Australian life. Another perennial source of support for the Liberals are wealthy people who do not want to pay much tax. A combination of political ineptitude (he cannot pass the savings measures he has proposed) and his own instinct towards a paternalistic state mean that he has not been able to satisfy them either.
Another thing that Abbott cannot change is himself. His attempts to craft a more sober and considered persona have largely failed and may even be feeding into the psychological strain that led him twice to call David Koch “Chris” in an abysmal morning television interview. The reason that people like Kochie and Karl Stefanovic feel okay about using Abbott for sport is that his perennial unpopularity is worsening. Those disappointed with Obama and even Miliband can at least look back to a time when they were capable of inspiration. Abbott’s talent — from his pursuit of Pauline Hanson to the toppling of Julia Gillard — has always been entirely destructive. No one — least of all women voters — has failed to notice that he employs these talents most ruthlessly and enthusiastically against women in public life.
But another problem with “resetting” is that the current crop of Liberal MPs — a much more right-wing collective than even the Howard majorities were — cannot really comprehend the belief that their budget measures were unfair. Despite Abbott’s well-known Catholicism, he shares the secular-Calvinist presuppositions that animate his party, and provide the core belief of the English-speaking right: Namely, that just as the rich deserve their wealth, so do the poor deserve their fate.
Code-phrases like “personal responsibility” express the belief that those who have no job, cannot provide for their own health care expenses or cannot fund their own retirement lack virtues that more successful people possess. Economic values — efficiency, the necessity for “price signals” to deter the undeserving — merely give it a contemporary gloss. It’s possible to stoke the outrage of a minority of Australians with talk of dole bludgers and queue jumpers, but the failure of Abbott’s attacks on the most vulnerable shows that Australia is not at heart a Calvinist nation. The spellbinding catastrophe that was the introduction of the Medicare co-payment shows us all of this in miniature. The negative response to this came not just from those who currently get bulk-billed, but from those who are already paying more than the scheduled fee and who were threatened with further price hikes. It also came from the perception that this was aimed at the most vulnerable members of the community, whom the government thought should be taught a lesson in thrift.
Rather than tossing it altogether, the government has put general physicians in charge of dishing out the price signals that they think are required to enforce social discipline.
For all the promised changes, Abbott seems to be back where he started. In contemplating Abbott’s deep difficulties, the left may consider arguments like John Quiggin’s — electorates simply are not buying policies premised on “reforming” market liberalism any more, and are not willing to trade the remnants of the safety net for a balanced budget somewhere down the track.
At some point, somewhere, someone will have to say that the only way to preserve the budget and a decent social safety net is by raising more money through redistributive taxation. Politicians do not think that people are ready for this message, but Abbott’s failed reset suggests they may be more receptive than we think.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Jason Wilson is a writer and researcher whose work is focused on the intersection between new media technologies and politics.
