Every once in a while, usually before federal elections, the country experiences a bout of particularly poor policymaking. Although not yet six weeks old, there are signs that 2007 could be a bumper year for mediocrity.
In a sense, Kevin Rudd and John Howard have been as bad as each other. From Labor we've had things like the promise to scrap Work Choices. From the government we've had confusion over the future of Qantas and a water plan that looks like it was developed on a Post-it note.
Before the business community takes this as proof that there's no real difference between the parties and therefore there's no risk in them switching their emotional and financial support to Labor, it should remember one thing. Rudd hasn't actually done anything yet. And what he has pledged to do if he were prime minister would be a disaster for business.
The most important domestic policies of Howard's prime ministership (far more significant than the GST) and what's done more than anything else to ensure Australia's prosperity are the coalition's industrial relations reform -- which are an anathema to the Labor Party. Business leaders are engaging in wishful thinking when they say things to the effect of "Rudd will be OK on everything except industrial relations".
While it's far from perfect, if Work Choices is undone all the productivity gains of the past decade will be at risk.
When stacked up against what Labor could do, the government's policy travails are relatively minor. Nonetheless, they provide cause for concern.
If this week's comments from the Transport Workers Union are to be believed, nine out of the 10 coalition MPs lobbied by the union support government conditions upon the Qantas takeover that would limit job losses.
Even discounting this claim by 90 per cent, if even one coalition MP has sympathy for such a position, there would be a problem. What's frightening is that it appears that ministers might bow to this pressure.
The whole reason why anyone would want to buy the airline is precisely so that staff numbers could be reduced and costs cut. In the long term, those who benefit from a more efficient, better-run company are consumers.
It would be interesting to know if, before they pledged their allegiance to the Transport Workers Union, the relevant coalition MPs paused to ask themselves what they were doing on the non-left side of politics.
It would also be nice to know whether those same MPs have even a basic appreciation of how an economic system based on free enterprise capitalism is supposed to work.
The downside of such a system is that sometimes businesses go broke, sometimes businesses get taken over, and sometimes people lose their jobs. The upside is that no other method of economic organisation has such a capacity to improve individuals' quality of life.
Trade unions have at best an ambivalent attitude to market economics and they can be forgiven for protecting the conditions of their members.
Coalition MPs, on the other hand, should have at least a nodding acquaintance with the concept of "the national interest".
Perhaps some form of government financial assistance for job retraining (structural adjustment) might be appropriate in the wake of a Qantas takeover, but for MPs to demand the government interpose itself in the commercial operations of a public company in such a way as is being suggested is entirely misconceived.
If, in the 1980s, Labor had taken the same approach to job losses in the clothing and textiles industries as coalition MPs are taking in relation to the airline, the tariff wall would never have come down and the cheapest pair of socks would now cost $60.
The Prime Minister's water package has seen the abandonment of one of the long-held rules of Canberra politicians and bureaucrats: never use a large, round number, because people will automatically be suspicious.
There are many other reasons to greet with caution a promise to spend $10 billion of taxpayers' funds. The development of the policy was at best cursory and there's been little or no calculation of the opportunity cost of this expenditure.
The water package might have fixed a political problem for the government; however, it is far from clear whether it is in fact the appropriate policy solution.
In an election year perhaps we can expect little better from our political leaders -- but maybe we should.
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