It's OK to be White and other dogwhistles - the Australian politics thread

Never Mind the B*ll*cks Political Bollocks
9324

The trouble with this definition is that we don’t acknowledge the fact that this window also varies radically from country to country, yet today we have easy access to the political discourse from another country - thus people point out online that American “leftists” would probably hardly meet the definition of centrist in Australia and even might be centre-right in France or other Euro political spheres.

I’ll add a caveat to that, the policies parties of government will take to an election aren’t reflective of the full window, even within Australia. A truly left-of-centre policy would address the failures of privatisation and the power of gentailers who have gamed the transition away from coal to generate super profits for peaking gas plants. But even the Greens haven’t picked that battle, yet.

9325

Which is why its definition specifies a populace, because you’re 100% right about how it varies. It’s also true that other countries Overton window shifts impact ours.

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9326

Gee I love SFCU – there are very few places that discuss politics as sensibly, reasonably or fairly as this. Sure, things can get heated at times, but people rarely lose their heads and go all ShitCock (remember that jubal1 cartoon of a decade or so ago?).

It’s one of my favourite places for political discourse.

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9327

I was watching Gruen Transfer this week and there was a bit about what the Liberals need to do to win back seats. Russell, correctly, pointed out that the Liberal logo has not changed since the 1980s, looks dated and is overdue a rebrand. Others pointed out that the Liberals have a women problem and a city problem in that they do not have enough women in leadership positions, and they are struggling to win seats in urban areas. They need to look at the Teals to see what could have been.

I don’t disagree with any of that, but I think if they focus solely on how they sell their product and don’t rethink their product (politics) then changing their brand and salespeople will do nothing to win back voters. So, what has to change?

The most successful Liberal leader is John Howard. If I may grossly overgeneralise, his career was basically socially conservative and economically progressive with the economics being his principal concern. As Treasurer under Frazer, he tried to implement reforms to the Australian economy which, in the 70s, had not significantly changed since colonial rule by Britian but he could not overcome opposition principally from John Stone, the then Secretary of the Treasury and enjoyed little success.

When the Hawke and Keating defeated Frazer, they started implementing many of the reforms that Howard had, earlier, tried to implement and they were successful in large part because Howard, as Opposition Leader, supported the reforms. The Hawke - Keating partnership won five successive elections and whilst Howard mostly opposed many of the socially progressive policies they tried to implement, he mostly supported the economic reforms.

Then, in 1993, Howard finally won an election and went on to win the next three to become the longest serving Liberal Prime Minister. largely on the back of exceptional national economic growth and prosperity.

The Howard approach to opposition and government, of supporting some things and opposing others, came to an end when Tony Abbott became the opposition leader. From that day to the present the Opposition has opposed everything, and their fortunes have steadily declined.

In conclusion, the Liberals need to cease their opposition for opposition’s sake approach to politics and need to become a Loyal Opposition, like they used to be which should be a natural position for a Conservative party. Unfortunately, the latter approach is a long game requiring intelligent analysis of issues and a willingness to compromise, approaches that are ill suited to both a world dominated by vexatious social media and the far-right parliamentarians that seem to dominate the Liberal party today.

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9328

The Overton window is as flawed as the left right spectrum in general. Marriage equality is a great example of that. A socially progressive idea became more accepted in a period where Australia generally slid “right” in most areas.

9329

There are a couple of problems I see with that analysis:

  1. The Overton window can be issue-by-issue - views might move one way on one issue and another way on another, and

  2. I hear sentiment like this a lot

and it’s taken as a something that’s obviously true, but I don’t see great evidence for it.

It’s not like Paul Keating and Bob Hawke were massive lefties. They deregulated banks, slashed income tax and sold off Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank. And on social issues, there were still sodomy laws on the books in Tasmania until the 90s, and there are various other areas of major progress socially.

Imagine acknowledgements of country being routine in the 90s! When I worked in politics from 04-08 it wasn’t even commonplace.

The hard right is more vocal and certainly more organised, but I don’t think that is necessarily true of the population.

9330

Yeah that’s the exact point I was making. It’s always framed within the left/right context - and that left right context is utterly flawed.

Except the 7 elections won by the coalition to 2 by labour (now 4). No evidence there.

Decades of deregulation, privatisation & the commodification of essential services, the continued targeting & dismantling of collective labour. Of tax cuts for the wealthy. Of increased wealth inequality because of those policies. No evidence in any way of a drift right (continued or otherwise).

9331

The reference point matters here. In my lifetime there have been 16 elections and Labor has won 9 of them (with an asterisk over 2010 of course).

Before 1983, there was a period of 14 elections from 1949 to 1980 in which Labor was successful in 2.

So Labor is 11/30, with vastly more success in the last 40-odd years.

But wait…

When was there a period of left wing dominance?

Whitlam had a period in which he achieved some good stuff and was dynamited out of office after less than three years.

The most successful Labor governments of Hawke and Keating were all in on deregulation and privatisation. They deregulated the banks and telecommunications, floated the dollar, sold Qantas and CBA, introduced enterprise bargaining, brought the top tax rate down from 60%…

Many of these things can be argued to simply be modernisation - it’s not that hard to argue that governments should in most cases be a regulator rather than a market participant.

What’s more, Labor wouldn’t have been in a position to win had they not moved there. At the same time they built Medicare, expanded access to parenting payments, expanded higher education, established compulsory super, established ATSIC… This is the social wage that came with economic reform and deregulation.

This current government’s biggest achievement will in future be seen to be the reforms to the electricity grid to fully embrace and facilitate the renewable transition. It’s a combination of industry policy and infrastructure that sets us up to slash emissions and create jobs. It’s not sexy, it’s not “left” as such, but it’s absolutely vital for progressive policy in energy and the environment.

9332

I for one am grateful of the extra money Labor has put into GPs.

I was able to book a GP appointment online today, a Sunday, within an hour and be bulk billed.

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9333

I don’t think this is correct. Any given issue has a place in the Overton ‘continuum’ the window does not shrink or expand, or shift ‘left’ or ‘right’ particular positions shift within the contunuum, sometimes being inside and sometimes being outside the ‘window’ of acceptability.

9334

But do we know what the Overton Window is made out of?
My bet is on a special kind of dark matter glass

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9335

I think there’s a certain usefulness to the “window” framework but I don’t think it captures everything about how policies or political viewpoints are formed and how they are perceived by others.

Asides from anything else, the window kinda assumes everyone is a rational actor. Yet the Greens losing their seats, in part, came down to clever campaigning by the far right. Right wing group Advance heavily pushed on a “put the Greens last” campaign which accounts for why a lot of the Liberals preferences flowed to Labor, who a lot of Liberal voters usually put last since they see them as a bigger “threat”.

The Greens policies hardly shifted since 2022, if anything being pro-renewables has gotten closer to the centre, and they had only moderate swings against on their primaries. But people were influenced to preference them lower by a campaign that made it sound like they were the reason for inflation, etc

9336

It doesn’t capture anything about how viewpoints are formed, it’s a snapshot in time, but it absolutely does capture how they are viewed by others, it’s pretty much the only thing it does, and in our complex preference voting system it definitely doesn’t accurately predict how people will vote beyond simplistic correlation of policy popularity.

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9337

Completely agree. Which is why use of simplistic “left and right” or even political compass L/R economics and A/L social policies, doesn’t really explain the election result or what policy directions Labor should take from the election.

What is pretty clear is anti-renewables and pro-gas and nuclear arguments were a major misstep by the LNP. Constance in Gilmore, especially, shot himself in the foot by following the party line on it, and those were the kind of seat by seat battles the Libs needed to win to hold Labor to a minority government and tie their hands completely on policy.

9338

I didn’t say there was.

You then went on to detail a lot of the stuff I mentioned. Deregulation. Top end tax cuts. The idea that the government shouldn’t be part of the “market”. I.e. the continued and commoditisation of every aspect of our existence. If you’d prefer I frame it as a drift into the neo-liberal right or the new right from more old world conservatism then no problems.

9339

Perhaps my issue is just with the way it’s discussed. However that there is this single window of “acceptable” views at any given point just doesn’t work in my head. For the most part every person gives different weights to issues at any given time right? Election to election, year to year, phase of life etc etc. It’s millions of ever shifting arrays that don’t fit neatly into a simple frame.

Fuck I’m just as guilty talking that way. My back and forth with Dibo now is over me referring to “rightward drift”.

9340

From the far left edge of the window, on the ALP’s Greens take down.

9341

I really really dislike Tim Wilson.

9342

Yeah there doesn’t seem to be any even semi likeable Liberals running for the top
Job

9343

FTFY