Reviewing this week’s Essential Report numbers, I started writing about marriage equality, then – like the bulk of the electorate – became rapidly bored and frustrated in equal measure and decided to write about something else (by the way, over 75% of us want this issue resolved now rather than to wait for the next election).
I came to the conclusion that we should instead discuss inequality – specifically Bill Shorten and federal Labor’s pitch about economic inequality worsening and the need for it to be addressed through social policy and tax reform.
Talking about inequality seems entirely retro and possibly risky for a leader who is a former trade unionist, the first trade union leader to head the federal party since Bob Hawke.
But this week’s Essential Report numbers show the clear popularity of the view that the gap between rich and poor is getting wider and that the economic and labour market structures that exist unfairly privilege the economic elite. Inequality might be retro, but it seems everything old can be new again.
Consider the Essential Report numbers on the issue of family trusts: The Labor Party has proposed to tax the distributions of family trust at 30%, the same level of tax paid by companies. Over 40% of voters approve of this idea, unsurprisingly with far more Labor voters approving than LNP voters.
Indeed, LNP voters are split on this, which is interesting given the traditionally rather anti-tax mindset of that cohort. Even more interestingly voters on higher incomes, $104,000 plus, show stronger than average approval of a tax reform for family trusts with 47% approving of the policy proposal. These voters might be on higher incomes but perhaps they consider lucrative family trust arrangements to be the playthings of millionaires and billionaires rather than the middle class. So in this respect one can’t argue that this policy idea is a product of some sort of class warfare if the middle class is supportive or, at the very least, divided about it. If you look at the data on voter attitudes to Labor’s policy proposals around negative gearing or superannuation reform, you see a similar pattern – a belief that a system, even if it has the potential to benefit “ordinary” middle class, hard working people, is actually exacerbating disadvantage and inequality.
Moving from the tax system to the labour market we again come across this notion that inequality is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. In response to the question, do you think Australia’s industrial relations and work laws favour the interests of employers or employees or do they balance the interests of both, close to 40% believe the power is with employers (with non-LNP voters more likely to agree with this statement than LNP voters). Only a third of voters believe the right balance is being struck between the interests of the two groups, a sure sign that reform is required no matter what position you happen to take. Only 12% believe that employees are favoured by our work laws. The lower your wage the more likely you are to believe that the system favours the bosses. In all the qualitative work I do with workers, especially but not exclusively in the private sector, the discussion since the global financial crisis has been around employment insecurity and wage restraint. Everyone from lawyers and accountants to butchers and retail workers sing a pretty consistent tune around the lack of investment in training, that they have more work with less permanent staff to do it and too few pay rises beyond the regular increase in CPI.
In recent months the Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, has commented on low wages growth and the possible consequences for the Australian economy in a number of public speeches. He has seemed to suggest that workers should muster up the confidence to ask their employers for larger wage increases. This ignores the strong sentiment that we are in a system where employers have the power. While it is all well and good to encourage workers to ask for more wages, perhaps the governor should also encourage businesses to be more generous with their employers.
The growing inequality story is a one that the majority of voters agree with and there seems to be willingness to consider policy options that even a decade ago might have been unthinkable, at least for politicians (I’m waiting for someone to start talking about the death duties any second now). Bill Shorten has signalled very strongly that the inequality story is one he will stick with until the next election. As yet it’s not doing anything magical to his approval or disapproval numbers but, granted, these things take time. The inequality story is not a meme, it’s a Dickensian novel. Hopefully for the electorate, more like Great Expectations and less like Hard Times.
