Dutton goes after corporations as Jim Chalmers gets philosophical

In case you have been questioning, we’re residing in Australia’s fourth economic system — a minimum of in response to Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

In a speech titled “Patterns of Progress”, Chalmers argued yesterday that Australia had first a colonial economic system, then an industrial one, then the open buying and selling economic system of Hawke and Keating. Now, after a wasted decade of Coalition rule, we’re in a fourth economic system — of renewables, providers, and AI (as a result of it’s now obligatory for politicians to invoke AI). Chalmers added fragmentation, not a lot as a result of it match together with his neat Nineteen Forties/Nineteen Eighties/2020s schema however as a result of it gave him an excuse to assault Peter Dutton as divisive.

Dutton, in the meantime, was in Queensland campaigning on the price of residing — and fortunately fielding questions in regards to the Nationals going after Bunnings through a Senate inquiry into “large field retailers”, with accusations the {hardware} chain was value gouging. “Our position isn’t to make sure margins for large companies, it’s to be sure that customers are getting {hardware} objects and grocery objects at affordable costs,” Dutton stated. “We are able to’t have value gouging, notably the place you’ve acquired market focus … we wish a free market to function successfully, and a free market isn’t the place customers are being ripped off.”

Nicely! That left the Monetary Evaluation apoplectic that Dutton was betraying the Liberal Social gathering’s core values in one of many funniest editorials from the enterprise tabloid in years — and one riddled with fundamental errors. “Clear fault strains within the relationship between large enterprise and the occasion of free markets first appeared in July when Opposition Chief Peter Dutton backed the decision by the neo-Marxist Greens and the agrarian socialist Nationwide Social gathering for a divestiture energy…” it ranted, earlier than including that not even Kamala Harris (presumably the AFR’s yardstick of Soviet-style command economic system coverage) wished a divestiture energy.

That is perhaps as a result of, erm, america has had a divestiture energy for properly over a century, chaps.

And the “fault strains” between large enterprise and the Dutton-era Liberals have been apparent on the primary day of Dutton’s management when he stated “I believe the Liberal Social gathering in recent times has change into fairly estranged from large enterprise and I wish to deal with small enterprise.” It’s taken the AFR this lengthy to work out that Dutton — who hails from the Queensland LNP, not the NSW Liberals just like the previous 5 Coalition leaders — is completely happy to go after massive companies (besides on industrial relations, the place he nonetheless toes the employer line).

The AFR blames Dutton’s antipathy to large enterprise on large enterprise itself — they’ve been too mouthy on tradition battle points just like the Voice referendum and too quiet on demanding a return of WorkChoices and firm tax cuts. “Look what you’ve made him do,” is the AFR’s resentful lament. However Dutton’s antipathy is extra reflective of a transition that started through the Coalition’s years in workplace, and which complicates Chalmers’ “fourth economic system” argument.

Definitely, the Coalition’s three phrases have been wasted when it comes to the transition to renewables. However the dramatic enlargement of Australia’s well being and caring sectors Chalmers touched on in his speech was the product of expanded funding below the Coalition for well being care, baby care and residential look after seniors, and the runaway expenditure on the NDIS that marked the Morrison authorities. If Chalmers believes ageing and providers are a attribute of the “fourth economic system”, that started below Malcolm Turnbull and continued below Morrison — the well being and social care workforce consisted of round 1.5 million individuals when Tony Abbott was dumped; it was over 2 million when Morrison was defeated.

The opposite transition was the political outbreak of resistance to neoliberalism, led by the fitting, initially centred on free commerce and open borders. Hostility to open borders helped propel Brexit and Donald Trump in 2016, with Trump happening to embrace protectionism for US manufacturing — all of it a response not merely to globalism however perceptions of an financial system stacked in opposition to strange individuals.

The response was slower to set in right here as a result of Australia has a stronger security web and derives a big proportion of nationwide revenue from exports to China. However once more it was the Coalition that did it with a everlasting enhance to the scale of presidency to properly above 26% of GDP below Morrison, a degree solely beforehand seen briefly on the peak of the Rudd authorities’s stimulus bundle. Underneath Labor, that bigger position of presidency can be pushed not solely by persevering with investments in well being and caring, but in addition by an embrace of producing — much less damaging than Trump’s however each bit as illogical — courtesy of the Future Made in Australia program.

If there’s a fourth economic system in place, it’s not fairly as simple as Chalmers suggests. It’s an economic system in restoration mode from three a long time of neoliberalism, with each side of politics not content material to maintain authorities on the sidelines whereas free markets and enormous companies do what they like. It’s an economic system that’s, and can be for many years but, characterised by fixed development within the well being and caring workforce — a workforce that can rely closely on immigration as a result of Australia, like different Western economies and China, goes to begin operating out of staff, shifting bargaining energy away from employers, who till lately have loved a three-decade lengthy enhance in energy below neoliberalism. And regardless of the transition to renewables, it’s going to be an economic system routinely affected by the upper prices inflicted by the local weather emergency, which gained’t be halted whereas governments like Chalmers’ are dedicated to increasing fossil gas exports.

If Hawke and Keating certainly ushered in Australia’s third economic system, testifying to the position particular person politicians can play in main transformations, the fourth economic system is one that can proceed pushed by demography, local weather and the seething discontent neoliberalism generated. Particular person politicians like Dutton — or Trump — will attempt to exploit that discontent with tribalism and racism, however in the long run it’s not about particular person politicians.

Is Dutton proper to go after price-gouging companies? Ought to Labor comply with swimsuit? Tell us your ideas by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please embrace your full identify to be thought-about for publication. We reserve the fitting to edit for size and readability.