Eastern Labor

When the Coalition proposed the stage-three tax cuts back in 2018 our economics columnist called them “garbage”. Nearly six years on Greg Jericho outlines why the uncosted plans were so egregious and why Labor has made the right decision. “You can pretty confidently say that 85% of income earners are better off under this new stage-three arrangement,” he writes.

The old stage-three cuts are dead. Long live Labor’s new policy, which 90% of Australians will cheer | Greg Jericho The Coalition will shout about a broken promise. But that argument is unconvincing when you look at the numbers

Albanese government secures further gas supply before meeting on cost-of-living relief Deal aimed at keeping energy bills affordable will see 260 petajoules supplied to gas-fired power stations in Australia’s south-east coast until 2033

This past week Trumpism landed in Australian politics.

In suburban Brisbane in the early hours of Monday, the words “5 days 26 Jan Aussie Oi Oi Woolies f**k u” were graffitied on a Woolworths Metro store and a lit flare pushed under the door.

It followed Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s call on the previous Thursday for a consumer boycott of Woolworths – part of Australia’s biggest retailer, Woolworths Group – over the company’s decision not to stock Australia Day merchandise.

That’s the Trump playbook. First, make febrile statements about your target. Then wait to see what your wingnut followers do to them. Next, bask in the menacing afterglow while claiming it has nothing to do with you.

It was a historic low in the political conduct of conservative parties in Australia – and it occurred with barely a ripple in the media.

That’s the crucial final element in the Trump playbook: media willingness to turn away from, and thereby tacitly enable, rage-farming of exactly the kind Dutton is known for engaging in. First “African gangs”, now “woke Woolworths”.

When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese raised Dutton’s boycott call on ABC Radio on Monday, not long after the Teneriffe store was damaged, the interviewer fended him off with an “I’ll come to supermarkets if I get a chance”.

Albanese pressed on, trying to exact some public accountability over Dutton’s ploy. “He needs to explain whether that boycott is forever or whether it’s just until Australia Day, and what the impact [on] those people who work for these companies will be,” the prime minister said.

“We’ll see if we get a chance to get him on the show, Prime Minister,” the interviewer responded, again blocking Albanese.

On Tuesday, Fortitude Valley police charged a 40-year-old man with one count each of wilful damage and wilful damage by graffiti. That night neither the national capital’s 7pm ABC TV news bulletin, nor the 7.30 program, reported the arrest or its boycott call backdrop at all.

The extent of self-policing by many, though not all, ABC journalists has become grim. When even good journalists hesitate to engage with, let alone ask, the hard questions, there’s a problem.

Threatened industrial action this week over the sacking of ABC presenter Antoinette Lattouf shows ABC staff are getting restive.

Under Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, the kind of ABC leadership renewal needed to restore historic norms of strong, independent, quality journalism is happening at the same pace as leadership renewal at the Department of Defence under minister Richard Marles. It’s not evident the government has a plan to remedy this.

Dutton’s verbal attack on Woolworths and the subsequent physical attack on the Woolworths Metro store in Brisbane mark a historic break in Australia’s political culture, one that requires urgent public discussion.

Speaking on 2GB last week, Dutton felt it was okay to traduce Woolworths Group chief executive Brad Banducci, alleging he was “very friendly with Anthony Albanese” and subscribed to the same “left-wing ideology”, driven by the “woke agendas” of “industry super funds who are investing into Woolworths and ASX companies”.

“That’s why I’ve said repeatedly that the modern Liberal Party is the friend of the worker and the small business owners and employees in that business,” Dutton said. “We’re not the party of big business, and I don’t pretend that we are.”

By implication, the 190,000 employees of the Banducci-led Woolworths Group can go to hell.

Woolworths supported the “Yes” case in the Voice referendum campaign, and Dutton’s 2GB interview shows how much this still rankles with him.

“Brad Banducci … was very forward-leaning, as they say, when it came to the Voice, and remember, Big W stores were broadcasting not just a Welcome to Country when the store opened but also preaching that you should vote for the Voice,” he said.

Attempting to exact public reputational damage on Banducci and Woolworths is a classic Trump-style move. Trump makes prominent attacks like this to scare others into line.

Spectacles prompted by such attacks, such as the damage inflicted on that Brisbane Woolworths store, amplify the drama. The verbal sally followed by the physical action it inspired is the essential “one-two” of the angertainment complex.

Dutton has stopped short of donning a MAGA cap but in other respects he emerged this week as an antipodean Donald.

The minimal media coverage the Woolworths gambit drew might make it seem like a Dutton fail. But Dutton will have judged it effective. It reminded those who’ve forgotten the defeat of the Voice referendum that he’s back and throwing punches again, with a bonus “patriot acting out” sequel this week.

Dutton is testing, and pushing out, the boundaries of acceptable public discourse as part of a new configuration in Australian politics, of which the “No” campaign was the harbinger.

There’ll be more of it. Much more.

The difference is that he’ll be doing it in a different capability context.

Before the referendum Dutton had to rely on the threadbare resources of opposition with assistance from friendly media. Now he’s part of a right-wing ecosystem aided by what is being referred to behind the scenes, in progressive ranks, as the “Advance machine”.

Until the Voice campaign, the hard right was fragmented.

Clive Palmer, for example, would spend tens of millions of dollars to do down progressives and undermine support for progressive policy positions – but spend it ineffectively. Gina Rinehart would pour money into the Institute of Public Affairs with unremarkable political dividends. Bibs and bobs were happening here and there.

The “No” referendum campaign welded the forces of the hard right together. They’re now willing to work through one organisation – Advance – infused with imported Trump-style political expertise, loads of cash and 300,000 people on its supporters list.

The “Yes” campaign spent more than $40 million and lost the referendum. The “No” campaign spent just over $5 million and won.

“Advance and the IPA built the machine and can now point it at various targets,” one progressive activist said this week, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The way they’re connecting with audiences just blew the progressives away.”

Advance knows how to concentrate on negative messaging and monetise it, just like Trump.

Research suggests Palmer and pretty much everyone on the right is getting behind what’s working. Progressives don’t yet have an answer and remain fragmented and, as the referendum result showed, outmuscled by Advance.

There is some mildly good news for the government.

Plenty of anecdotal evidence has emerged over the summer break that affluent, educated, cosmopolitan Liberal and teal voters like Albanese and think he’s doing a good job, while they detest Dutton. The prime minister’s quest to win the middle class by not scaring the horses can, in the main metropolitan centres at least, likely be declared “mission accomplished”.

His persistently mild manner and lack of fight in public engagements can be frustrating for supporters who would prefer a more firebrand Labor leader. But those pondering how to deal with the Advance machine know one of the few proven effective tactics against extremism is to inoculate people before they succumb to such views by attaching them to mainstream ones. This is something on which Albanese works consistently.

Failing to join the rage-farming game does have the massive benefit of not escalating it. That said, Australians are about to endure the hardest part of this brutal cycle of tight monetary policy: the bit towards the end where all hollow logs have been emptied and all favours called in to survive to this point. Yet many more months of financial stress remain to be endured.

Given that, the coming months will be highly prospective for Advance to expand its hard-right supporter base. Which makes the prime minister’s hints this week that more cost-of-living relief may be offered ahead of the May budget sensible and welcome.

Mojo comes. Mojo goes. Visible energy and policy action are what matter right now if the Albanese government is to be competitive come election time.

Peter Dutton is bringing Trumpism into Australian politics This past week Trumpism landed in Australian politics. In suburban Brisbane in the early hours of Monday, the words “5 days 26 Jan Aussie Oi Oi Woolies f**k u” were graffitied on a Woolworths Metro store and a lit flare pushed under the door. It followed Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s call o...

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