Is Rudd a dud?

There are always high expectations placed on any new centre-left political leader. After all, the tendency of centre-left political parties to be populist through a greater willingness to be all things to all people, at least when compared to their centre-right opponents, creates a perception at times that they can best solve new and old problems.

Just as many Americans look to Obama to resolve complex issues confronting the US in 2008, so it was that many Australians looked to Rudd at the 2007 federal election after almost 12 years of Coalition government.

Of course, leading the support for Rudd on behalf of the Left were Professors Manne and Brett in The Monthly, although Rudd could not fool a more astute Phillip Adams as he correctly suggested that Rudd had merely out manoeuvred Howard as a “doctor of spin” (The Australian, August 20, 2007).

As Rudd and his front bench announce more policy proposals alien to the Labor tradition one wonders why any astute commentator could have ever fallen for Rudd’s rhetoric. This is in reference to policy suggestions such as punishing parents on welfare who do not send their children to school; or tying education funding to the performance of each school with underperforming schools running the risk of closure or merging as parents vote with their feet.

Rudd’s biggest failure, however, is not his lack of real policy solutions rather, Rudd disappoints on the basis of displaying a level of intellectual dishonesty greater that any Labor or Coalition leader of recent years.

It is not hard to see why Rudd had great appeal to many of the Left with two feature essays in The Monthly (October and November 2006). Any talk of: “a proper balance between the rights of capital and labour”, a necessary debate “between neo-liberals and progressives, concerning whether the balance of our national values lies with the individual or with the community”, and a quest to uphold “social-democratic values” as “a check on rampant individualism”, was always going to send those merely interested in the possibility into an excited frenzy.

While Rudd wrote in The Monthly about his 20th century hero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian, pastor and peace activist who defended a minority (the Jewish population), and was executed by the SS for his role in the plot to assassinate Hitler, he hardly shares Bonhoeffer’s capacity to speak and defend the truth.

In fact, all Rudd did in his two essays in The Monthly was to discuss the appropriate level of government intervention on many issues, while downplaying the difficult task faced by Western governments today.

Rudd described Howard as “a clever politician who often succeeds in masking the essential self-interest of his political project with a veneer of ‘duty to the nation’”, as suggested by the Coalition’s promotion of AWAs (Australian Workplace Agreements). However, it is Rudd who has been dishonest as Labor has benefited from the Coalition doing much of the dirty work in recent years in response to an increasingly competitive international economy.

So let us examine the reality of Labor’s policy response thus far as measured against Rudd’s rhetoric in 2006.

Industrial relations

Does Labor really want to save the trade union movement, or is it happy for that key interest group to experience further decline?

While the trade union movement’s expensive advertising campaign helped Labor win the 2007 federal election, Labor in 2008 has publicly urged trade unions not to push for wage increases above inflation rates. Labor has also allowed unfair dismissal provisions to remain for small businesses with up to 15 employees; has said it will maintain the Australian Building and Construction Commission (established to oppose trade union militancy) until 2010; and legitimised any AWA with a lifespan up to five years as long as it was negotiated before Labor’s anti-AWA legislation was passed in 2008.

In other words, Labor also supports the further deregulation of Australia’s labour market, although it has tempered the speed of reform.

Social welfare

In terms of social welfare assistance, Labor has adopted some important reforms in line with its centre-left traditions. This includes a commitment for greater funding for education and health; a savings scheme to aid first-home buyers; means-testing the Family Tax Benefit B to exclude single parent families with an income of $150,000 or more; and increased the income threshold for a family from $100,000 to $150,000 before those without private insurance have to pay an extra 1 per cent Medicare levy.

But Rudd’s attack on the mean-spirited Howard government in 2006 actually gave way to support for many of the Coalition’s policy approaches in 2007 and 2008. This included a commitment to 90 per cent of the Coalition’s proposed $34 billion of income tax cuts; the health insurance rebate and the Medicare safety net (despite Labor having opposed such policies in recent years); mutual obligation for social security recipients, although it indicated during June 2008 that it would soften the rules; government intervention in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory; funding arrangements that aided private school enrolments; and a $22 billion surplus to establish three new funds for infrastructure, education and health (worth around $40 billion) to meet capital shortages.

For Rudd, supposedly inspired by Bonhoeffer to help the vulnerable, it did not matter that there was considerable public support to reverse some recent policy trends as expected of a centre-left government. For instance, a Newspoll (May 12, 2008) found 65 and 57 per cent support for means testing the baby bonus and childcare rebates.

And what is to become of the Coalition’s decision to exempt superannuation payouts from taxation given that it was another policy which clearly favours the rich?

What should be done about Commonwealth assistance for primary and secondary schools given that funding for private students when compared to government students has increased from $3.50 for every $1 in 1996 to $5 for every $1 today, as noted by Ross Gittins (Sydney Morning Herald, February 6, 2008).

Why won’t Labor introduce means-testing for first-home buyers, although most attending interest group representatives on SBS’s Insight program (March 25, 2008) suggested that such assistance helped force house prices up.

Of course, Labor has addressed some important social concerns. This includes apologising to Australian Aborigines for past treatment by the Commonwealth; ratifying the Kyoto Treaty; withdrawing troops from Iraq; implementing a strategy towards an emissions trading scheme (ETS); reversing the Coalition’s bid to cut Australia’s migration zone by relaying almost exclusively on the so-called Pacific Solution; and increasing foreign aid levels to 0.35 per cent of GNP by 2009-10.

However, while Rudd assumed himself to be morally superior to Howard in terms of motivation and purpose in The Monthly (2006), it remains to be seen just how generous Labor will be on many other issues. This includes the ETS - in terms of assisting or penalising polluters and compensating those most in need of assistance from the higher costs associated with cleaner energy. It also includes resources to aid the promotion of necessary infrastructure or the promotion of renewable energy, and compensation for pensioners and other battlers given much higher prices for rent, food, utilities and petrol.

As I argued in Quadrant (April 2007), policy limitations have become increasingly evident in recent decades as all national economies have been forced to become more competitive in line with a greater commitment to freer trade, meaning that a Labor government will not be dramatically different to the Howard government.

While Labor milked Howard’s statement in March 2007 that “working families in Australia have never been better off” for all its political worth, Labor may choose to make some controversial decisions which reflect the reality that resources are limited, at least until a time when the wider public demands that greater resources be spent.

At a time when Australian governments appear determined to keep government outlays at a similar proportion of GDP, it is hardly surprising that Labor has supported higher fees to help fund the expansion of TAFE education, despite Rudd’s comments during 2006 about the skyrocketing costs of tertiary education.

It is also hardly surprising that Labor reduced the solar energy $8,000 rebate for families whose incomes are in excess of $100,000 after the growing popularity of the program exceeded budgetary allocations.

In the end, Rudd is not a remarkable politician inspired by the great Bonhoeffer. He is a politician with policy shortcomings - as measured against his rhetoric - and has brought Australian federal political leadership to a new low in terms of promising the world but delivering little. This is why Rudd gradually shifted his persona from being a social democratic to fiscal conservative during 2007, although Rudd will argue that he can be both.

Rudd’s 2006 essays in The Monthly may have indeed highlighted shortcomings associated with neoliberalism, but his inability to find effective solutions for many struggling Australians in a world of competing nations also struggling to balance national and international considerations, proves why he is hardly revolutionary in social terms even when compared to a conservative Howard.

It remains to be seen how successful a Rudd Labor government will be, but I am not holding my breath.

If Rudd is concerned with leaving a legacy to match his ego, he should uphold the traditions of Labor to shift the balance of assistance to those most in need, even if the demands of the international economy continue to force Australian governments to give ongoing attention to competitive taxation levels and flexible labour markets.