Labor could beat Scott Morrison if their opposition strategy had more bite

This is a measure of their feeling that neither Labor nor its leader, Anthony Albanese, have laid a glove on Morrison since the Prime Minister showed his cack hand with public empathy during the bushfires a year ago. Morrison took stock after these public relations disasters, absorbed some lessons and has not repeated his obvious mistakes. Moreover his government responded quickly, and, by world comparisons, very effectively when the coronavirus began spreading. He and his Treasurer Josh Frydenberg junked years of Liberal ideology and dogma about government debt and deficits, borrowed close to a trillion dollars, and spent it fairly effectively in both assisting people displaced by the pandemic, and, later in providing unprecedented incentives to business to invest and employ workers as the economy got going again. Who can argue against such success in Australia's greatest social and economic crisis since World War II?

Many Labor folk wonder about the party's leadership and its strategy in opposition, indeed whether it has a strategy at all. But the Morrison government has a majority in the House of Representatives of only two - and one of these two is a person absent from the House and given a pair by Labor for a reason that is no longer a good one. It seems unlikely that the absent minister David Coleman, who was granted indefinite leave "for personal reasons" by parliament more than a year ago, will resume his duties. After so long away, it is time that he resigned or retired. It is certainly time Labor withdrew its pair. His marginal seat of Banks in south-west Sydney was traditionally Labor until, in 2013, Coleman won it from Daryl Melham. Morrison would find it a very difficult by-election to fight, not least because it contains unusual numbers of voters whose sense of economic security is not especially favoured by pandemic economic policies.

Labor is not, of course, in bare minority, but the voting patterns of most independents now favour Labor, and Morrison has been reduced to his bare majority several times recently, in part because his style and arrogance, and unwillingness to respond to questions or criticism have thoroughly alienated them. And on some issues there are a number of coalition supporters - for example members concerned with the starvation rates of unemployment benefits to which Morrison seems determined to return - who disagree with the PM's approach, even if it seems doubtful that any would set out to bring the government down.

Yet, as one observer put it this week, both Morrison and many in the media act as though he had a substantial majority able to survive minor revolts. And they have misinterpreted Morrison's "miracle" win against the odds, and against the predictions of many observers (including me) last year. The miracle was in just scraping home, contrary to expectations of a fairly comfortable Labor majority. That was a substantial achievement, unexpected by many of his colleagues, and one probably earning him the gratitude of folk expecting a period in opposition. But the majority is still very narrow, and the sense of gratitude to Morrison is muted, particularly given his character, personality and style. Morrison may fool some of the wider electorate with an aw-shucks daggy Dad marketing effort; that aura, if it is one, is rarely visible at close quarters.

With or without Albanese, the Labor vote indicated by polling (for what that is worth, still a matter in question) does not suggest any collapse in Labor support. Nor is there any evidence, as some coalition members seem to think, that most of the electorate, especially "outside the Canberra bubble" simply do not care about government integrity issues, consecutive administrative fiascos, including robodebt, actual action on climate change and a host of other issues other than the pandemic and the revival of the economy. State premiers rather than the Prime Minister received most of the political dividend for effective public health action against COVID. Morrison's incapacity to direct, or even to lead them, emphasises that it will be by the economic response, and its success in reviving the economy by the time of an election, that the Morrison government would most be judged.

Here's the Christmas break problem that Morrison must contemplate as he ponders ministerial changes, and shifts in political direction. He may well get and deserve credit from the electorate for his overall management of the economy during an unprecedented crisis. Yet the further we move from the crisis, the more it becomes obvious that the responses were coloured by unnecessary but characteristic acts of spite and ideology, with very long lists of people who missed out for no good reason. It cannot be assumed, as some of the Liberal cultural warriors seem to think, that most of the losers were concentrated in inner city seats, or that the logic of the government's differential response was logical (or even explained to voters). Labor, under Albanese, is in with a lot more than a chance.

The economic measures were possible because of the government's abandonment of classic conservative debt and deficit rhetoric, and massive public borrowing. It is argued, quite rightly, that one could not strain too much about a trillion in government debt, particularly because of the historically low price of money. The government judged, probably rightly, that it would have to give enormous incentives to business to encourage them to invest, to go into new forms of business and to employ labour. The handouts are enormous, much of it going to key donors and cronies of the Liberals. But the checks and balances, and public assurance about the probity, transparency and integrity with which that money will be spent are almost completely absent. That would be concerning even in normal circumstances.

But the circumstances were not normal even before the pandemic. This is a government with form over the abuse of public money for partisan purposes, for improper purposes and the transfer of public goods into private hands. The Prime Minister, in particular, and the Attorney-General who ought to stand for good process, good stewardship and accountability, seem to openly deride the concepts. They show no remorse or embarrassment.

Some opposition figures have been chipping away at such issues, without any great signs of an impact on public opinion, yet. But the chipping away is at reputation. At character. At integrity. About an impression not only of a complete corruption of approach to public money, but of a government that doesn't care about standards, about decency, even about consequences for getting caught out when the music stops. This is a long-term campaign with a lot of potential bite.

It is in this context that some of the running sores of bad government, many bearing the fingerprint of Morrison himself, will add to the weight dragging the government down. The robodebt fiasco has neither produced scalps nor even anything in the way of contrition. The idea that the essential scheme was cockeyed and probably illegal was there at the beginning. Contrary to the assertions of Stuart Roberts, the minister standing when the music stopped, the disaster was not a logical development from data matching schemes of previous governments going back to Bob Hawke. It was the extra leavening of bias, malice, inverted onus of proof, major jump of logic and administrative and bureaucratic arrogance that sheets the conception home to Morrison himself.

Assuming that the Morrison government goes more or less to full term - and some senate obstruction should not be enough to persuade a governor-general, even one in a witness support scheme - to grant an early dissolution - Morrison has probably about fifteen months of economic recovery, ordinary economic management, and general steering of the ship of state left before he must face the electors.

His recovery results will be heavily influenced by matters now out of his control, such as the future of trade with China, consciously put in jeopardy for no clear reason. For the moment, iron ore prices may be overcoming, in total value, the losses faced by coal miners (many of the mine owners are actually Chinese), wine, fish, and barley, and any other item chosen for impact on the Australian economy and Australian public opinion. But it is China setting the pace, not us.

Quite separate from that is the impact on the world economy, on the United States, and on Australia, of the continuing trade war between China and the US. It is said that President Joe Biden is as hard-line on China as Trump, but of a somewhat different style, more focused on negotiation and multilateral channels. All that may be so, but one can be sure that the economic conflict, and the "local hegemony" pushing and shoving will be resolved by Chinese and American negotiators in their own interests, and without any regard for Australia's. Nor should we kid ourselves that the cost of going out of our way to provoke China is being negated by a wave of world sympathy for the way China is said to have been bullying us. Deeds, not words, will matter, and all of our traditional trading competitors will be trying to grab Australian market share.

The pandemic has hit many economies very hard. Even with the availability of vaccines, including ones being distributed free, mostly to the third world, by Russia and China, it may take a long time before trade supply and demand and the movement of money and people between countries is anywhere back to normal. An obvious example from the Australian viewpoint involves air transport, and tourist income from overseas. Sooner or later, the Australian recovery is going to bump hard against such considerations, which operate quite independently of our attempts to provoke war with China or the resolution of the trade war.

It is by no means clear that Morrison has the currency or the cred with international players to manoeuvre Australia into a position where we can pick the low-hanging fruit of world recovery. Indeed we may have squandered the hard-won advantage of good virus management and an earlier restart by the way we have become involved in unnecessary quarrels.

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We are certainly not improving our standing with other countries with our position on climate change, loyally maintained by Morrison to the supposed advantage of some tiny constituencies against strong opposition from the wider electorate. Australia is now an international rogue on the matter. Many of our traditional friends, particularly in Europe, Canada, the Pacific and now the US are looking at us with disdain. Morrison is ignoring the advice of some he regards as friends, such as Boris Johnson. Biden has been a good friend of Australia, but has no real relationship with Morrison (or any of his ministers) and plenty of reason to treat them (as Barak Obama did) with a certain disgust. This is not least because of how Morrison tried to associate himself with Donald Trump. If Biden thought about it, and there will be people who remind him, the resentment will extend to Morrison's association with deeply politicised American cults operating rather more as Trump public action committees than in furtherance of religious beliefs. God is not a registered Republican, and nor should any Australian PM be.

Morrison learned from both John Howard, and later Tony Abbott, a certain type of anti-internationalist rhetoric about Australia making up its own mind about international problems and refusing to be bullied by others. It may serve well, up to a point, with an Australian audience when our leaders are getting lectures on human rights from Libya or dealing with critical commentary from the OECD, under present management, on our lack of meaningful or effective action on climate. But Australians do not, by and large, have a chip on their shoulder about being citizens of the world, champions of human rights and advocates of collective action to fight common problems, including pandemics.

It was Morrison in particular who ramped up the rhetoric against refugees, and treated them not as people fleeing war and oppression but as invaders, possibly terrorists engaged in intrinsically illegal activity. Liberal ministers have incited hatred against groups of refugees and confected a law and order crisis - one which was, it is to be noted, repudiated by the electorate.

Morrison and Frydenberg (when the former was Treasurer, the other, minister for the environment) were notionally on the side of Malcolm Turnbull when he was trying to coax some (minimal) action on climate change. But Morrison is now personally one of the most reactionary and obstinate ministers on the subject. He is seemingly unable to make any sort of significant shift, and will not if it makes him look bad.

But his obstinacy does not come from philosophical or scientific opinion - he simply ignores the science and the advice coming to his government that are entirely against him. Nor is he doing this simply from a strongly-held opinion (or detached independent external advice). On matters such as these Morrison is pragmatic and conviction free. If he has any abiding beliefs they cannot be deduced from what he says. Most likely he now recognises the need to move in a significant way, but hasn't yet worked out a marketing trick for making any concessions seem enormous to an outside audience, while minuscule to voters. It's a hard ask, made more difficult every day. Perhaps he fears that a major move would have a few cross the floor - but to vote with whom?

Morrison acts as though he is on top. But carrying on in the way he does can only make his government more vulnerable. Labor might want to avoid being wedged - on national security for example - but should reflect that hardly any of Morrison's views or policies are in the national interest. I cannot think that a smart opposition ought to be assisting him resolve any of his dilemmas, or helping to smooth the contradictions of his policies. It needs more mongrel, not more understanding, deference and discreet assistance. But a winning opposition must do more than inserting more "nots" in government policy statements. It should be imaging, and selling, an altogether fresh view of what Australia and Australians need. It ought to be an entirely different, yet strangely familiar concept of the role of government, the purpose of government, and the way good government is done. In my lifetime not a single alternative Labor government has won simply by promising not to be like the government.