The Coalition came unstuck over four policy areas: nuclear power, the $20bn regional Australia future fund, strengthening the universal service obligation in the provision of telecommunications, and increased powers to force Coles and Woolworths to divest.
The National party room required the Liberal party to commit to them as a condition of a renewed Coalition agreement, and Sussan Ley would not. She had promised her party a root-and-branch review of its policies and did not want this pre-empted.
Talking to David Littleproud on the ABC’s 7.30 program, Sarah Ferguson described these policies as minor and was puzzled as to why they had blown up such a longstanding political alliance. But each is on the fault line between the Liberals and the Nationals over the role of government provision. Each advocates a more active role for government than many Liberals feel comfortable with.
The policy the Coalition took to the election was for seven nuclear power stations to be built by the government. The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has now suggested the more modest aim of lifting the ban on nuclear power to make it possible for the private sector to build the plants but this is not yet the party’s settled policy and some, including Matt Canavan, are holding out for government to take the initiative and make the investment.
Putting aside questions about the feasibility of nuclear power, the Coalition’s policy was at odds with the Liberals’ commitment to the market and private investment and their belief that government should only supply those things the private sector cannot, and should not compete with an efficient private sector. So it is not surprising that the Liberal party, embarking on a review of its policies, does not want to be held to this.
The purpose of the regional future fund is to provide government-funded infrastructure and services to rural and regional Australia, especially in areas where the population is too thin to support private provision. The National party and its predecessor, the Country party, have always argued that people living in Australia’s rural and regional areas are entitled to the same levels of service as those available to city dwellers, despite these being much more expensive to deliver, and that if the market won’t deliver them then the government should.
The universal service obligation dates back to federation when the postmaster general’s department was given monopoly control of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, with the obligation to provide these to the country and regions. During the 1980s and 90s the Nationals fought hard against the privatisation of Australia Post and Telecom. They lost but they did succeed in ensuring the continuation of this obligation in the two living descendants of the PMG.
Australia Post is obliged to deliver letters for a standard price to anywhere in Australia, regardless of losses on delivery. Telstra is obliged to ensure that standard telephone services and payphones are reasonably accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis, wherever they work or live. The demand now is that this be extended to mobile services. The divestiture policy is newer but it too requires the government to interfere with the workings of the market.
Australia’s three foundational parties, Liberal, Labor and Country/National, differ in the balance each strikes between public and private provision, between the role of the state and the market in the distribution of the nation’s resources. Where the Liberals have tilted to private and the market, Labor has tilted to public and the state. And so has the Country/National party.
It was once common to talk of Country party socialism. Although farmers hated the unions, they shared with Labor a faith in government to compensate for the failures of the market and provide them with a fair share of the country’s wealth.
That is why I called my 2011 Quarterly Essay, on country and city in Australia, Fair Share.
It is quite understandable that the Liberals do not want to pre-empt their forthcoming policy review by committing to policies that give such a large role to government.
This fault line between the Nationals and the Liberals has always been there, albeit obscured of late by the culture wars in which both parties espoused adherence to family values and traditional settler nationalism. The Liberals’ devastating loss on 3 May has turned it into a rift.
Judith Brett is a political historian and biographer, and an emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University. Her latest book is titled Fearless Beatrice Faust
