The job's in front of them

Incoming governments are like the person with the wheelbarrow.

They have the job in front of them. What to do?

They can only use levers that governments control directly.

On other stuff, they can talk and wring their hands. As we've seen, they do this a lot.

Getting the horse before the cart, what policy objectives should they aim for?

On law and order, stop domestic disobedience and violence. Improve domestic safety.

Stop bleating about 'cost of living'. Do something. Stop unreliables pushing up power prices.

Stop the boats and refugee tourist flights. Be up-front about what they're actually doing.

Ensure domestic policy promotes higher living standards. Plenty to do here. Examples:

Labour market

Above all, try to ensure all those wanting to work are employed, and working the hours they want to work. That means promoting a wage-flexible labour market. There's nothing so unproductive as an unemployed person wanting work. Economy-wide, living standards depend on this.

In a post-pandemic world, as supply chain restrictions dissipate, a wage-flexible labour market will become paramount. We only have two real-world choices. We can ensure wages are flexible. Or we must accept employment will be flexible.

The former supports higher overall employment and overall living standards.

The latter undermines aggregate labour productivity and overall living standards.

Two choices: (i) wage flexibility and more employment; (ii) wage rigidity and less employment.

Product markets

Most like competitive markets. For products. Support for competitive labour markets is mixed.

Most also like the cost benefits from exploiting economies of scale. Today, with new technology, these can be really big. Globally, Australia is a relatively small market. That often means fewer product suppliers are viable than in larger markets. Blindly pushing for more and more product suppliers, if successful, can erode cost benefits from economies of scale. So be careful.

Best option is to eliminate barriers to market entry. Including many government barriers.

We've done these things before. We can do them again. If we want to. Do we?

Aiming for these objectives, there are policy changes we should make. Here are some.

• Hire enough law-and-order officers, with fit-for-purpose mandates and legal protection.

• Remove the ban on nuclear fission. Allow assessment of its merits against alternatives.

• Boost drone and aircraft capacity for coastal monitoring. Not least in the north/north-west.

• Tighten visa processes. Priority to domestic security and safety. Publish actual decisions.

• Apply evidence-based policies lifting productivity. Drop empty productivity rhetoric.

At present, many Australian governments seem lost in ideological mantras. All talk, little walk.

They seem to ignore reality even while reality is catching them out.

Everybody cops the costs of their policy mistakes. Already have.

Ideological ministers are numerous. Here's just one who should know better.

At the Federal level, Andrew Leigh is currently assistant minister for competition, charities and treasury. He's also assistant minister for employment.

These are most serious responsibilities.

Yet he's also author of the childish 'three-eyed koalas' cartoon/meme opposing nuclear fission as a low emissions, 24/7 reliable, power source. No gravitas – let alone objective analysis – there.

Inter alia, he's also author of a book titled The Shortest History of Economics.

I like short economic histories.

I especially like those emphasising how policies need to allow for market responses to them.

Here's my 'shortest history of economics' (in 42 words, not Andrew Leigh's 224 pages).

In economics, if you don't know this, then, sorry, you don't know anything.

It applies, inter alia, to 'Robin Hood' tax grabs. You'd have to be pretty green to propose these.

Goods and services scarce, not free.
Demand and supply set price and quantity.
Buyers and sellers are not sitting ducks.
React to incentives changing results.
Ignore this at your peril won't change what I've said.
Markets reflect it take that as read.