Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
Let them eat coal
Clive Palmer on Kitchen Cabinet right now is just... bizarre and surreal.
As its first full year draws to a close, the disarray of the Abbott government is obvious to all, and easy enough to understand in terms of broken promises from a government that came to office almost entirely on the basis of branding its opponents as liars. Only slightly less obvious, but much less well understood is the disarray of the entire political process, reflected in wild electoral swings, the success of ‘anti-political’ candidates and the breakdown of the assumption that a newly elected government can expect at least two terms in office.
This disarray in turn reflects the exhaustion of the project that has dominated Australian politics since the 1980s, and the rejection of that project by the electorate. Variously described as economic rationalism, microeconomic reform and (my own preferred term) market liberalism, the set of policies comprising deregulation, privatisation and competition policy was, in some respects, a necessary response to the economic breakdown of the 1970s. But whatever was useful in that agenda has long since been implemented, along with much that was harmful. What remains is an unthinking assumption on the part of the political elite that adherence to this agenda is the hallmark of good policy, whereas following the wishes of a democratic electorate is irresponsible populism.