Labor must put rising inequality at the heart of its agenda for the next federal election and consider whether a “Buffett rule” should be part of the policy mix, according to the former treasurer, Wayne Swan.
Swan will use a speech on Wednesday to the national conference of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) to argue Labor needs to seriously consider the proposal – where the highest income earners in Australia would be forced to pay a mandated minimum rate of tax. The pitch puts him at odds with the shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen.
Swan’s arguments at the AWU follow a debate in the Labor caucus on Tuesday about the “Buffett rule” in which three up-and-coming Labor left MPs – Pat Conroy, Andrew Giles, and Terri Butler – told Bowen Labor needed to properly consider the issue in line with a resolution passed at the 2015 national conference.
The three put a similar argument to the proposition Swan will advance on Wednesday – that Labor needs to sharpen its pitch on inequality before facing the voters at the next federal poll.
Bowen has irritated key figures in the left faction by moving in recent weeks to shut down internal debate about the rule. The shadow treasurer has argued that approach “isn’t the best way to address inequalities in the system”.
“We have policies on superannuation, negative gearing and capital gains that ensure our tax concessions are made fairer and sustainable,” Bowen said last week.
Swan, who, like Bowen, is from the right faction, will praise the specific policy efforts the shadow treasurer nominated last week, and argue Labor has been “courageous” in opposing the government’s “$50bn corporate tax cut which is nothing more than a smash and grab on the Australian treasury”.
But he will argue Labor needs to go further. “This is a good start but we do need a thorough discussion of a Buffett rule to give people confidence that wealthy individuals are paying their fair share,” Swan will say on Wednesday.
Swan’s speech to the AWU is a wide-ranging assessment of where Labor needs to line up in an age of political disruption.
He will emphasise the importance of progressive parties talking about an economic agenda for working people, noting that “large parts of the traditional left have been swept away by populist rightwing movements” in Europe, the UK, and the US.
Swan will argue that working people voted for Donald Trump in the recent US presidential contest “not out of any hard-right ideology or an entrenched racial intolerance, but because they no longer saw the Democrats as the party who spoke or acted for them”.
“These experiences tell us we must be unrelenting in defending the economic interests of working people,” the former treasurer will say.
Swan will argue that working people are alienated in the current environment if a progressive party such as Labor emphasises social issues at the expense of economic progress.
“Consider if you’re a truck driver in Logan or a steel worker in Wollongong you’re constantly told to work harder for less while tax cuts go to the top end – you might suck that up for a while because you have to,” Swan will say.
“All the while you see progressive social issues dominate the news. Eventually you reach a breaking point and your job is sent offshore or made casual.
“Suddenly you’re tossed on the economic scrapheap and like a drum of kerosene dumped directly on the smouldering fire your frustration with progressive issues erupts in an inferno of white-hot rage.
“And quite a lot of that rage might express itself with immigration, gender equity or other favoured progressive issues, not because rage by definition doesn’t contain itself very well, but very much because the right will always supply scapegoats of various types – anything to ensure the blame isn’t sheeted home where it really belongs: the policies they designed to fleece working people and redistribute the gains to the top.
“This is what happened and is still happening in America.
“Our party has a proud record of progressive social reform but we must always have at the forefront of the policy battle the economic interests of working people.”
Swan will argue Labor needs to develop a framework that addresses the growing concentration of wealth and income, and the power of vested interests.
“If we are to win the next election we need to sharpen the difference between us and our conservative opponents,” Swan will tell the AWU. “The near dead heat of the 2016 federal election shows that Australians aren’t impressed by the incessant drip of the trickle-down economic experiment of Turnbull and Abbott.”
In addition to arguing a Buffett rule needs to be on the table, Swan will also argue Labor needs to take a platform to voters which emphasises the need for a strong voice for working people through trade unions and through representation on key regulatory institutions and government bodies such as the Reserve Bank, the ABC and oversight bodies such as those for the Australian Taxation Office.
“We have to win the battle of ideas,” Swan will say. “We will only win the next election if we have a clear and bold message about how we strengthen growth and spread opportunity.”
“We have to make the economic case that less inequality and good wages and working conditions for low- and middle-income earners will promote economic growth.”
