John Brumby might be in the Labor Party, but there's more than a hint of Jeff Kennett about him. The new Premier has already marked himself as different from his immediate predecessor. Brumby has promised to be decisive. Practically the only thing that Steve Bracks was decisive about was his indecisiveness.
Bracks has universally been acclaimed as nice, and indeed he was. But being nice will only get you so far. Brumby is more likely to make the decisions needed to secure Victoria's prosperity. However, his elevation contains an element of political risk -- for both parties.
Brumby is not afraid of concepts such as choice and competition, and he doesn't fear the private sector or the free market. That's an ideological position not necessarily shared by all his colleagues. If Brumby is to deliver on his promises to improve social services, particularly education and health, he'll eventually have to confront sections of his party's left-wing. For him to succeed he will need to display all the political skills he has demonstrated as Treasurer.
He understands more clearly than most other Labor MPs that simply spending more money is not the solution to the problems in our schools and hospitals. For example, if government schools are to compete with non-government schools they must have the same sort of flexibility as that enjoyed in the private system.
Around the world this is the direction in which education policy is heading and it's a concept Brumby is comfortable with. However, it is anathema to the teachers' union.
It ought to be remembered that in 1999 it was the power of the teachers' union in the Labor caucus against Brumby that forced his resignation. Brumby had promised that if the ALP won the election it would make government schools more responsive to the needs of parents and introduce new accountability measures for teachers.
There's no sign that in the intervening eight years Brumby has changed his mind. If anything, the experience of being in office has probably strengthened his commitment to undertaking the necessary fundamental reforms. It would be no surprise if under Brumby performance pay for teachers was introduced.
To his credit, Steve Bracks was a strong advocate of population growth for Victoria, and Brumby will follow the same strategy.
Providing for the housing and infrastructure needs of new arrivals will be a major task. The anti-development lobbies, such as those opposed to the dredging of Port Phillip Bay or against the building of new freeways, will be forced to become acquainted with some new facts of life. Brumby realises that the only way to ensure environmental sustainability is to ensure economic growth -- a point that eludes too many environmental advocates.
While John Thwaites was environment minister, Labor's priority was to placate the Greens. Such a strategy is likely to be discontinued as environmental arguments will now be decided on their merits. With Brumby as Premier there's a good chance the ban on growing genetically modified food will be lifted, a move sure to infuriate the Greens.
He will also prove less willing to sacrifice the jobs of workers in the coal and timber industries to save a handful of voting preferences from the Greens at election time.
On the surface at least, Brumby's policy agenda sounds like something from the Liberal Party rather than the ALP. And this is precisely the problem for Ted Baillieu. It will be hard for him to find things that Labor does that he disagrees with. Even at the level of their personal philosophy both can be characterised as socially liberal, compared with Bracks, who made no secret of his conservatism on social issues.
While Bracks was in power, the difficulty for the Liberals was that there wasn't too much for them to complain about. Labor inherited the benefits of the Kennett reforms and thanks to John Howard and Peter Costello, the state enjoyed the burgeoning tax revenue that came with a booming economy. Meanwhile, because Bracks avoided the tough decisions, he didn't make enemies.
The opportunity for the Liberals rests on the fact that when a government actually starts doing things it will inevitably make mistakes. The question for the Liberals is whether they are content to rely on this as their election-winning strategy.
ADVERTISEMENT
No comments:
Post a Comment