By Mick Le Moignan
IT is a truth universally acknowledged that governments and bureaucracies grow at about the same speed as taxes. I wonder if there might be some connection?
World-wide, incumbent governments are battling to get re-elected. Voters blame them unjustly for inflation and the rising cost of living caused by “quantitative easing” in the pandemic. Economics depends on supply and demand: if you print a load of extra money without increasing the supply of goods available, prices will go up. No surprises there.
How much government and bureaucracy do we really need? Politicians generally prefer to spend our money on new services, rather than cutting old ones. Faced with the question “which budget would you prefer to cut, Health or Education?” they can be trusted to say “Neither”.
Jersey has the population of a medium-sized town and a government and bureaucracy big enough to run a small nation. But not very well.
I don’t want to be one of those old codgers grumbling how much better things were in the good old days, but I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that the calibre of Jersey’s politicians has dropped catastrophically in the past half century. I grew up in the era of the Le Marquands (Cyril, John and JJ – my personal favourite), Ralph Vibert, Gwynneth Huelin, Reg Jeune and others, who were in a different league to the current incumbents, with a few exceptions.
In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, representing the community in the States was an honour and a privilege. It was not seen as a full-time job, but an opportunity to serve and give something back. States Members were people who had done well enough in their own professions and wanted to improve the lot of their fellow Islanders. They were shrewd judges of people and prudent with public funds, because they didn’t want to increase the burden of taxes. They sat at the pinnacle of the honorary system and were respected accordingly.
I fear many of the current representatives would struggle to earn as much or even to survive in the competitive world outside the Chamber. They don’t trust their own judgment (perhaps rightly), so they employ “expert” consultants to advise them, at considerable expense. It’s all about increasing debt and delaying decisions. They want to be seen as achieving something, so they spend public money as if there is no tomorrow. I’d love to be proved wrong – but I’m not holding my breath.
I was relieved to learn that they failed to dump the Bailiff as Speaker. The sooner they restore all-Island representation for senior Members as Senators, the better. Calling themselves ministers seems unnecessary self-aggrandisement. The very worst mistake they could make would be to team up with their cronies and form political parties. That way, endemic corruption lies. The electorate were pretty clear on that in the last Island election.
Australia seems to be moving away from the two-party system that has prevailed for most of our short history. Green Party candidates and “Teal” independents won more than 30% of the primary votes at the 2022 election – almost as many as Labor and the Liberal–National Party Coalition, whose first preferences hit record lows.
Of course, we have transferred preferential voting, rather than the primitive “X” system, where most votes for third-party candidates are wasted. If the first preference is unsuccessful, the ballot is given to the voter’s second choice, and then third, and so on, until one candidate accumulates more than half of the total votes cast.
They say here that oppositions don’t win elections – governments lose them, and that is certainly borne out by recent history. As Leader of the Opposition, the current PM, Anthony Albanese, kept a low profile while his predecessor, Scott Morrison shot himself in both feet. Albanese, a rugby league fan, said he was aiming to “kick with the wind in the fourth quarter”.
The trouble is, he has continued with the low profile as PM, to the point where most voters don’t know what his government stands for. He seems wary of offending anyone and lacking a vision for a better future.
Labor promised to set up a national anti-corruption commission with public hearings, to ban gambling ads and set up an environmental protection agency (EPA). The anti-corruption commission will only sit in private and the gambling ads are in the too-hard basket. He ditched his Environment Minister’s deal with the Greens to set up an EPA, apparently because the Labor Premier of Western Australia warned him that the miners would be upset.
These are not the actions of a decisive leader. Labor’s administration has been good, investing in affordable housing, subsidising power bills and childcare and reining in the ballooning costs of the National Disability Insurance scheme. He has pleased parents by promising to ban under-16s from social media, but the committee tasked with working out how to achieve this won’t report until after the next election in mid-2025.
His gifted, articulate and charismatic Treasurer, Jim Chalmers (a future Labor leader and the best Treasurer since Paul Keating) has delivered two budget surpluses after a string of failures by Coalition governments.
The Opposition leader, Peter Dutton, models himself on the odious Tony Abbott and Dr No. He pretended to consider supporting last year’s Referendum on giving Indigenous Australians a Voice to Parliament, then ran a vicious campaign against it based on ignorance and prejudice: “If you don’t know, vote no.”
Dutton’s latest wheeze is to abandon renewables and go on mining coal until seven nuclear power stations can be built – hopelessly expensive and impractical, but his paymasters in the fossil fuel industry love it and Rupert Murdoch’s press and TV outlets are all for it.
The one ray of sunshine in Australian politics is provided by the Teal Independents, seven professional women who think issues through, consult their electorates before voting and have produced all of the most promising initiatives of the past three years. They remind me of the Le Marquand boys of yesteryear.
