Bring It On
Next year will present some interesting challenges and opportunities for mainstream Australia and Liberal politicians. We can’t wait. By Tim James.
Remember Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit? A thousand delegates, 95 scribes and a 400-page report drawn from forests of butchers’ paper designed to "help shape a long-term strategy for the nation's future".
Like so many other grand schemes devised by the 2007–2013 Labor governments, there was an excess of navel gazing but precious little delivery and virtually no real results. It would be an instructive exercise to count how many predictions and policies from the biggest talkfest of 2008 actually came to fruition, a lesson perhaps in the folly of centralised planning.
So what will actually be happening in 2020? Here are some of the things visible in our crystal ball.
The Queensland election on Saturday 31 October will be crucial to the future of the state and national economies. Labor leader Anastasia Palaszczuk remains popular despite her lack of achievements and the nation’s highest unemployment. Palaszczuk’s claim to govern from the centre has been tarnished by her deputy Jackie Trad’s association’s with the far left.
LNP leader Deb Frecklington is likely to enter the contest as the first LNP leader to survive for an entire term since Campbell Newman. Our prediction: the election will be won or lost in South-East Queensland which as a region represents 60 per cent of the seats.
The ACT election on Saturday 17 October is far from a certainty for Labor, despite 19 years at the helm. Our ACT insiders have indicated there is a narrow path to victory for the Liberal Party in this city of public servants, which voted roughly 60-40 in favour of Labor and Greens at the May federal election. National issues are one thing, the politics of everyday life quite another. There are right now real issues affecting ACT residents, not least of which is the cost of living thanks to Labor’s big rate hikes in recent years.
In the federal arena, there are some important events on the horizon:
The 2020-21 Budget will be handed down on 12 May by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Pre-Budget submissions are still open until the end of January 2020 here.
The Retirement Income Review is due to report in June 2020 – and which is still taking responses up to 3 February 2020 here.
The next Intergenerational Report is due in July 2020 and will point the way forward on our demographic and fiscal challenges.
The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, announced in April 2019, will continue its work which is earmarked to take three years. Submissions are open here.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, as reflected upon in this recent article, will issue its final report in November 2020. Submissions are open until the end of April 2020 here.
The work of the Deregulation Taskforce will continue towards improved, lower-cost regulation. And so too will many other commitments in the Australian policy and political landscape.
In the Liberal Party, State and Territory Divisions will mark 75 years in 2020 after the Federal Party was formally constituted at the Albury Convention in December of 1944. Following that meeting 75 years ago this month, the building blocks of the party came to life in branches, conferences and divisions across Australia and it is worth celebrating their founding in 2020. The first branch in NSW, Mosman Branch, was formed on 12 February 1945 and will proudly mark its history in 2020.
In the United States, the most powerful elected position in the world, President of the United States, will be decided on Tuesday 3 November. President Donald Trump’s economic achievements are impressive, and his robust style is far more popular than his critics will allow. Much hangs on the choice of the Democrat contender. Stay tuned.
In so many ways, every year is a big year in politics. 2019 was particularly big, and while 2020 will be different, there are no shortages of elections, policy agenda and events to mark the coming year.
Postscript: As we enter a new decade, it’s timely to remind ourselves that we have just had, according to The Rational Optimist author Matt Ridley, the best decade in human history, marked not only by radical decreases in poverty and disease but also by a net decrease in the use of resources. You read that correctly. Despite the Earth’s population increasing, we are using fewer resources overall thanks to the wonders of modern technology. If only Extinction Rebellion – or the Labor Party, for that matter – understood that.