Ian McAuley

Ian McAuley. Economic Management, Lobbyists and the Coalition Government.

On Abbotts political departure David Marr wrote in The Guardian Within days of his fall hes looking like a prime minister Australia once had a long time ago.

Most people and organisations who have given him unwavering support ever since his narrow win as Opposition Leader in 2009 were remarkably quick in endorsing Turnbulls judgement that he has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs.

Of course many independent economists had been saying that and more about Abbotts economic management it was indeed disastrous. But the surprising phenomenon was the sudden turnaround by those who had been loyal right up to the end.

This sudden switch was most noticeable among spokespeople for so-called business lobbies (as if business is some homogenous collection of like-minded people with identical interests), but it was also noticeable on the street. In the Essential opinion polling in early September voters gave the Abbott government strong marks on economic management, but journalists roving microphones in the days after the transition found few, if any, people willing to say anything positive about his economic management. As Bob Dylan said of people who so readily switch their loyalty You just want to be on the side thats winnin.

In one of those twists of politics it was only the Murdoch tabloids that maintained some level of integrity in not switching loyalty. Otherwise there was a media scramble to revisionism.

It was reminiscent, in a scaled-down way, of Stalins denouncements. Once Bukharin, Rykov and others had been led away after their show trials, it was almost forbidden to utter their names. Comrade who? was the polite warning to anyone who made the slip of mentioning those who had been purged.

Of course Turnbull is no Stalin, indeed in his liberalism he couldnt be further away politically. But the process takes place almost automatically, best described in Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four, which recounts the story of the hapless Winston Smith, whose job is to re-write newspaper accounts that dont fit with the contemporary political mood. These days his task would be to sanitize web pages. Weve always been at war with Eastasia, Weve always said Abbott was a poor leader.

The right tried to own Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four as a comment on Stalins dictatorship, but its message was directed much closer to home. He wrote it in 1948 when Britain was involved in all manner of rapidly-shifting postwar alliances. (It is in Animal Farm where he deals explicitly with the Soviet dictatorship.)

Having worked behind the scenes as a public servant and an academic, I can recall many instances when executives in business lobbies have been privately critical of Coalition governments, while publicly giving them their fullest support. So I was not particularly surprised by the sudden turnaround in sentiment last week.

But I would like it if our lobby groups could break from that puerile and hypocritical practice of giving uncritical public support to Coalition governments, and, to quote from the Prime Minister respect the intelligence of the Australian people.

Ian McAuley

Ian McAuley is a retired lecturer in public finance at the University of Canberra. He can be contacted at “ian" at the domain “ianmcauley.com” .