The New Politics Monday Brief – 23 March

Your weekly guide to the issues shaping Australian politics this week.

This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: the fallout from Labor’s massive victory in South Australia… cost-of-living and fuel prices… Australia pays the price for being too close to the US… and retail politics of immigration.

The collapse of the Liberal Party and the take-up by One Nation

The South Australian election result has revealed something far more than just a bad night for the Liberal Party – winning only 19 per cent of the primary vote and just four seats – it reflects the continuing crisis on the conservative side of politics. What we are seeing is not just voter anger, but a fracturing of the identity of the centre-right in Australian politics. The Liberal Party is increasingly being caught between its traditional base – economically liberal but socially conservative – and a more volatile, grievance-driven electorate now drifting toward One Nation. Which of course, makes sense: One Nation offers a culture of complaint but not much else, except for more doom and gloom for the Liberal Party.

Collectively, the Liberal Party and One Nation gained 41 per cent of the primary vote, but so far have only won five seats out of the 47 on offer. There are still nine seats in doubt, but this is an awful result for both Liberal Party and One Nation, in contrast to the way the mainstream presented this election as a “surge” for One Nation. Although coming second in the primary vote seems impressive, elections are based on the number of seats won, and having one seat in a general election is actually a poor result, even if One Nation might end up winning several more seats by the time counting is completed.

For years, radical elements within the Liberal Party – federally and within South Australia – have flirted with the culture wars, empty flag-waving nationalism, and anti-establishment politics, partially because there the members such as Senator Alex Antic who want to drag the party in this direction, and partially to neutralise threats from the right. But the election results show that this strategy is backfiring. Voters on the right, when given an option, are opting for the “real thing” rather than a softer version of the far-right. The rise of One Nation is less about coherent policy and more about an expression of discontent, from the parts of the electorate that are feeling economically insecure, culturally anxious, and are politically disengaged.

Yet One Nation’s 22 per cent of primary vote that resulted in just one seat – at this stage of the counting – is a reminder of the limits of this style of protest politics within Australia’s electoral system, but also the limitations within the preferencing system. Without a broad and sensible appeal or better political strategies, One Nation will remaining loud but ineffective. That might change over time, but as the Queensland electorate found out in 1998, when One Nation won 11 seats, but was shown to be a disorganised rabble – which is a consistent factor in its electoral history – the politics of grievance and complaint can only take you so far.

And in case people didn’t realise because of the media’s focus on the Liberal Party and One Nation – two parties that won five seats between them on the night – the Labor government was returned with 38 per cent of the primary vote, and 33 seats, with an estimate 65 per cent share of the two-party preferred vote.

However, despite the crushing victory, Labor also has to understand that political fortunes can change very quickly, remembering that just four years ago, the Liberal Party held government federally, and in South Australia, they’ve gone from holding 25 seats, down to four. Historically, the Labor Party has found itself in this situation before, and while looking at the political horizon at this moment might makes this suggestion seem implausible, events in politics can change very quickly, and when they are least expected. It seems that volatility is the key defining feature of Australian politics and what is now afflicting the centre-right of politics, can easily start to affect the centre-left.

The increasing cost-of-living and fuel prices

The global fuel shock which is linked to the war caused by the United States and Israel in the Middle East is now affecting Australia’s economy. The warnings from Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Energy Minister Chris Bowen about supply disruptions and rising prices are, on one level, to be expected from political leaders, who are always keen to make that link between economic pressures and external events they have no control over, but it seems to be a prudent way of letting the public know the likely effects of this futile war on Australia.

The bigger issue is that it does show that not much structural resilience has been built into the economy by successive governments over the past few decades. Encouraging people to work from home and use public transport to ease fuel demand is a sensible course of action, but it also sounds like that familiar shifting of responsibility, from governments and markets over onto individuals.

As we keeping point out, many of these issues are the product of decades of market liberalisation, privatisation, and an ideological commitment to treating energy as a commodity and geopolitical tool rather than a public good, not just in Australia, but all around the world.

We’re at the endpoint of neoliberalism, and with the United States led by President Donald Trump – who is also the end product of this market liberalisation – it’s like the thrashing about of a violent beast on its last legs, using its remaining energy to fight the wars that it’s never going to win, rather than conserving its power to stabilise itself, save itself, and accept that it’s no longer the king of the jungle. But that would require political wisdom, and this is a commodity that’s in short supply in the United States at the moment.

Politically, perception will be everything. Even if fuel shortages don’t fully materialise in Australia, the psychology of scarcity – the panic buying, rising transport costs, creeping inflation – will dominate local headlines and influence voter sentiment. The opposition will inevitably frame this as a failure of long-term planning, but that’s a critique that will need to be very short and selective, remembering that the current Liberal Party leader, Angus Taylor, decided to store Australian oil reserves in the United States in 2020. While this oil was released or sold off in 2022 by the Labor government, there’s no prizes in guessing what would have happened to that oil if it were still in the United States under the current regime.

Australia and the Iran conflict: Are we at war or not?

Australia’s involvement in the United States and Israel’s war on Iran is slowly becoming one of the more consequential, but least clearly explained, military developments in recent years. The Australian Defence Force has made a deployment of reconnaissance aircraft and military personnel to the Middle East, yet the Albanese Government continues to avoid describing the situation as a “war.”

If Australia is participating in a conflict, even in this limited capacity, then questions of parliamentary oversight and democratic accountability need to be cleared up, and this risks making the same mistakes of the past, where the language of avoidance resulted in incremental military involvement, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and governments keep obfuscating the truth to obscure the reality of these engagements. Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong are showing that on this issue, they are up there with the likes of Scott Morrison and John Howard when it comes to distortions of reality.

On the weekend, Chris Bowen announced the cancellation of six fuel shipments that were destined for Australia, and it seems that more cancellations will continue to occur. If the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz continues to affect Australia in this way, we need to start re-evaluating that close relationship with the United States and, more specifically, Donald Trump, to see whether becoming a part of war that’s been initiated by American and Israel is really in our interests.

The Iranian government has suggested that nations that are not a part of the hostilities against Iran will be allowed safe passage of ships destined for their countries, but it seems that even if the Australian government is not going to frank with the public, Iran will decide for us: yes, we are at war. Australia has assisted the United States in a war against Iran, as well as expelling the Iranian ambassador to Australia on spurious grounds, that seemed to be at the behest of Israel. The question for the Prime Minister and the Australian government is: has this support for the United States and Israel been worth it, when all it’s doing is creating damage to its own people and the Australian economy?

Immigration and the retail politics that leads us nowhere

Immigration keeps appearing as a political issue, and is likely to keep coming up as certain parts of the electorate keep looking for a scapegoat for the deeper anxieties about identity, national security and belonging.

The remarks by One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce comparing migration to “buying cattle” soon after he was asked if his party is racist, were not just offensive, but revealed the true character of Joyce. Reducing people to cargo animals and stripping them of dignity, their history, or understanding the social complexity of immigration, is a classic example of the retail politics of Joyce, and the views that he wishes to represent: again, it’s the culture of complaint, and the politics of no solutions. It might rile people up and get them to vote for One Nation, but where does it leave us all?

If the Labor government decided to act against One Nation – and so far, it’s more interested in attacking the Australian Greens – all it would need to do is highlight Joyce’s record in government.

As deputy Prime Minister, leader of the National Party, and as minister for agriculture, water resources and infrastructure, his tenure was marked by a long list of self-serving actions, many of these bordered on corruption, sexual harassment, and inappropriate drunken behaviour. His record offers a clear indication of what life in Australia might look like under a government led by One Nation, so why doesn’t Labor attack this, instead of constantly being fixated on the “Greens Political Party”?

The Labor government is also attempting to walk a careful line – paying lip service to supporting diversity, while tightening migration policy and national security. But it’s a balancing act that’s becoming harder to sustain.

The hostile reaction by the Islamic community to Albanese and Tony Burke appearing at Lakemba to commemorate Eid al-Fitr and the end of Ramadan – which should be a part of Labor’s natural constituency – shows a government that’s struggling to maintain credibility across different communities. Albanese has provided endless and unlimited support to the Jewish community – and based on their own hostile responses to his presence at the Bondi memorials – it has been a support that has provided him with no political benefit at all.

Of course, Albanese should have provided this support to the Jewish communities after the Bondi terror attacks, there’s no question about this. But the neglect of the Islamic community and in some cases, outright hostility, by his government, has resulted in the Prime Minister receiving the worst of all worlds. If only he had decided to do the right thing by all communities, instead of just acquiescing to Israel lobby and Zionist groups, he would have avoided all of this political pain, but we do have to remember that Albanese is a managerial politician who deals with problems when they appear, rather than making sure the problems don’t arrive in the first place.

Meanwhile, the right will continue to weaponise immigration as a cultural wedge, while Labor frames itself as a defender of multiculturalism, however wimpishly it might do this. But unless either side of politics engages honestly with the structural drivers of these issues – housing, wages, the economy and foreign policy – this debate will remain stuck in that endless loop of culture wars, grievance and political opportunism.