ALP should forget light on hill and follow Hawke

THE last federal election to produce a hung parliament was in 1940. On that occasion, the incumbent government limped on but the prime minister faced growing party dissent. The opposition, previously in disarray, looked increasingly like a credible alternative government. Eighteen months later, after a parliamentary vote of no confidence, the independents changed sides and the new government won a landslide at the next election, held at the normal time.

In her Chifley lecture on the weekend, the Prime Minister invoked this 1940-43 parliament as one of Australia's finest. One detail she failed to mention, though, was the mid-term baton change to a new government. Less surprising was the kinship she claimed with Ben Chifley, given the resemblances between bank nationalisation and National Broadband Network.

What matters, regardless of the state of the parliament, is the government's preparedness to address the country's problems. In this respect there's a fundamental difference between the Gillard government and other governments (such as Bob Hawke's in 1984 and John Howard's in 1998) that lost seats in their first bid for re-election. Unlike the current one, those governments had embarked on culture-changing reforms in their first term. They weren't poor governments that had been judged harshly but reforming governments that were prepared to risk a backlash against policies that they believed were right for Australia.

It's possible that the Gillard government could follow the trajectory of Hawke or Howard rather than that of Robert Menzies in 1940, but only if it changes its character. It's too early to declare that Julia Gillard will be a worse prime minister than Kevin Rudd but the government's performance certainly went from bad to worse after it changed leaders and has deteriorated further in the four weeks since the election.

The revised mining tax began to unravel almost as soon as it was announced and is now subject to the Greens veto. The East Timor asylum-seeker processing centre will never be built because the Prime Minister neglected to ask the East Timorese before she made her announcement and it's now been superseded by the new onshore processing centres that, during the campaign, she denied would happen. The citizens' assembly that she announced during the election has subsequently been dumped in favour of a parliamentary committee pre-programmed to support a carbon price, most likely the carbon tax that the Prime Minister also ruled out during the campaign.

Everyone who wants the best for Australia is hoping that it will be better government this term than last. For Australia's sake, it's important that the government has learned from its near-death experience. Unfortunately, it's hard to see any new-found attention to detail in the 10 changes to the ministry made between its announcement and its swearing in. And it's hard to see rediscovered respect for the public in the declaration that election commitments don't need to be kept by a minority government.

Cobbling together a majority by the skin of its teeth seems to have persuaded the Labor Party that there's almost nothing that it can't spin away. There's been fake Julia and real Julia; make-promises-Julia and break-promises-Julia. The government thinks it can win the next election by lowering expectations but voters won't be satisfied by spin.

During the coming term, they'll expect real tax reform to ease the burden on families and small businesses, serious job creation in viable industries, significant progress on long-term environmental problems such as water, a more assured future for regional towns and overdue infrastructure improvements in outer suburbs. Political management skills won't save the government if it can't address these problems.

For our part, though naturally disappointed, the Coalition accepts the election result as the outcome of a system of government that we profoundly respect. We rededicate ourselves to the task of opposition and are determined to be even more effective in the coming parliament than we were in the last one. Where the government delivers for the Australian people, we will give credit where it's due. Where it fails, we will be unrelenting in holding it to account, because that's what people expect of an opposition.

We are determined to be the party of ideas and of policy innovation against a government that's trapped by its alliance with the Greens and in a fiscal straitjacket because it's incapable of cutting its own spending.

When a government lacks authority and has no mandate, a strong opposition can help voters to keep their faith in the political process. Someone has to have positions that can be relied on when the government doesn't. The Coalition will continue to oppose the mining tax because it threatens the goose that keeps laying golden eggs for Australia. We will oppose a go-it-alone carbon tax because it won't help the environment but will inflict enormous damage on our export industries. We will oppose the NBN because there are better, cheaper ways to improve telecommunications services.

Unlike Labor, the Coalition's instinct is not to see bigger government and more public spending as the answer to every problem. Government's job is to empower individuals and communities, not just to take on more responsibilities itself.

An opposition that's only a couple of by-elections or two independents' change of heart away from government has to be more than just a critic.

The Coalition took strong policies of its own to the election and will outline more in the months ahead. Almost the first task of government is to respect taxpayers' funds; hence our determination is to return to surplus by the high road of reducing wasteful spending rather than the low road of imposing new taxes.

We want direct action to improve the environment rather than new taxes dressed up as environmental benefits. We support community control of schools and hospitals. Above all, we want to foster an opportunity society rather than a welfare state by providing incentives to seniors and young people to move off welfare, and a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme to help families and to keep mothers in the workforce, if that's their choice.

Tony Abbott is Leader of the Opposition. This is an extract of a speech given yesterday at the Menzies Research Centre.

SOURCE: The Australian