Life on the West Island -Time for Gough medicine?

While the new Albanese West Island government has made a solid start, many progressive voters want it to move more quickly on a range of fronts, including effective action on climate change; scrapping tax cuts for the rich; greatly improving child care wages and increasing available places; and getting its planned integrity commission in place. The Prime Minister seems to be holding back on some of these matters because he fears that the electorate might hark back to the criticism from the 1970s that the government led by Gough Whitlam was reckless in its pursuit of progressive reform.

Respected senior journalist Brian Toohey, who now writes for The Australian Financial Review and The Saturday Paper, has strongly refuted this view in a series of articles in recent days. In part, Toohey writes:

As the Albanese government marks its first 100 days, 50 years after the election of the Whitlam government, it’s time for Labor to drop the outdated assumption that it has nothing positive to learn from Gough. The idea that Whitlam tried to do too much has been used since as an excuse to do too little. His crash-or-crash-through approach has been characterised as chaotic, but his government did more to transform the country and had a greater and more enduring legacy of policy achievements than any other since 1950. Against this backdrop, the Albanese Labor government has ample scope to learn from Whitlam and introduce worthwhile policy reforms of its own.

Some of the Whitlam government’s achievements during its three years in power are as follows: It established Medibank, the forerunner to Medicare; it began funding schools on a needs basis; it established the tertiary education assistance scheme and the technical and further education commission (TAFE); it funded local organisations to establish childcare centres. It made a strong start to recognising Aboriginal land rights, gave assistance to sewer-neglected suburbs, passed legislation to protect the environment and the national heritage and established the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Whitlam’s government began implementing equal pay for women, initiated benefits for single mothers, gave Commonwealth funding for women’s refuges, appointed the first women’s adviser to government, passed the Family Law Act and introduced no-fault divorce. It reduced the voting age to 18 and established one vote, one value in elections.

His government implemented a more independent foreign policy than now exists, ended support for the Vietnam War, abolished conscription, gave diplomatic recognition to Beijing as China’s capital, scrapped support for apartheid, granted independence to Papua New Guinea, ratified the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, ended the White Australia Policy, stepped up the process of abolishing appeals to the British Privy Council and replaced the British honours system with Order of Australia appointments.

It introduced the Trade Practices Act and what became the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission; set up the Industries Assistance Commission, later called the Productivity Commission; cut tariffs across the board by 25 per cent; abolished unjustified handouts to industries; put controls on foreign ownership and implemented a national employment and training program.

It increased support for the arts, began construction of the National Gallery of Australia, set up the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Film Commission and introduced freedom of information and administrative appeals laws.

Albanese’s frontbench is the most experienced the parliament has seen in decades. The most senior figures around him have already served as ministers in previous governments. Albanese is well placed to run an effective and reformist government. He just needs to shake the foolish notion that Whitlam was a warning against this kind of government. Look at the legacy: Whitlam should be an encouragement.

So far, Albanese has chalked up some significant reforms, including a greatly increased carbon emissions target and implementation of a range of humanitarian changes to make immigration by refugees easier and quicker. He is making progress with implementing the recommendations of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. His Jobs and Skills summit has been well received and his talented ministers are getting on with many improvements within their own portfolios.

But the jury is out on whether the Albanese Government is prepared to make bold decisions to achieve genuine progressive change, especially in reducing inequality; improving productivity; reforming aged care and child care; increasing women’s participation in the workforce; and tackling the housing crisis. A further test will be whether the government will be able to achieve real labour market reforms in the wake of the goodwill shown at last week’s summit.

Hanging over all of this is the government’s challenge to deal with the rapid rises in inflation and the cost of living. Will Albanese take a leaf from Gough’s book and crash through? Or will a more timid approach mean that the government will just crash, as Peter Dutton is predicting? Next month’s federal budget should give us some clues about where this government is heading. Perhaps, as Brian Toohey suggests, it is time for some radical Gough medicine…