Rudd puts a different kind of economic future on the cards

Next year if they do nothing, each New Zealander will have an additional 4 per cent of their wages paid into their super accounts. They’ll be able to opt out - to complete a form electing not to save the extra 4 per cent. But the research suggests that many of those who are too apathetic to save enough will be too apathetic to opt out thus increasing savings - perhaps substantially and certainly relatively painlessly.

I’ve argued along with others, including the members of a Federal parliamentary committee, that Australia should follow suit - indeed we used to be policy innovators like New Zealand is now. Labor should embrace default super as a policy. But if it did it would be a one day wonder - with a brief story in the middle of paper.

But - and here’s the point - who says governments have to adopt the policy for it to be implemented? Rudd could proselytise the policy’s virtues and campaign for businesses to adopt it as an expression of their own corporate social responsibility - as some firms have done in the US.

If only a few did so, Rudd would be showing us, not telling us. He’d be doing, not saying. And with each firm that signed up, he’d ask why others weren’t signing on. Before long it might even interest the pundits - as a symbol of a political struggle. And the Opposition would be effecting worthwhile change before it took office.

I’ve also argued that, while we debate how much to deregulate labour law we might pay some attention to a huge labour market failure - namely this - you usually don’t know what it’s like to work for a firm before you start working there! Yes, yes I know - it’s not a mainstream talking point. But imagine a market for houses or cars where you knew almost nothing about how they performed until you bought them and it gives you a whole new insight into how inefficient out labour market is now.

We can improve it. Right now most large firms circulate questionnaires to their employees, seeking information on a range of factors governing work satisfaction. The best managed employers have an interest in standardising this information to make it comparable across firms and publishing the results. Why? To attract the best employees. So the Opposition might be able to encourage a few firms to take the plunge. If so, how much more influential might it be in office? A good question for Labor to pose in an election.

These are just two examples, but Kevin Rudd’s penchant for that old Christian standard of doing well by doing good could be a formidable political weapon.

And even if he loses, he’ll be true to his pledge in his maiden speech:

I do not know whether I will be in this place for a short or a long time … But … I have no intention of being here for the sake of being here. Together with my colleagues it is my intention to make a difference.