Opinion A major chance for renewal - if Labor can sell it
The Albanese government faces the biggest economic challenge of any incoming government since World War II.of likely global stagflation ahead – that is, high inflation combined with low growth pushing up unemployment – confirms the Coalition couldn’t have left Australia debt-exposed and with an expensive, outdated energy platform at a worse time.Paul Jeffers
To shift those expectations and expand the government’s scope for action, he’ll likely look to the Hawke government playbook – specifically the way previous Labor prime minister Bob Hawke and treasurer Paul Keating wove a powerful story legitimising big policy moves that would otherwise have been impossible.
Tinkering with better market monitoring and other “embroidery on the policy fabric”, as Keating would say, won’t cut it with voters for long, if at all. EVs are so common in Canberra now that people joke Teslas are the new Toyotas, and if you’re lucky enough to own one, your car fuel costs aren’t going up either.Albanese will save taxpayers a packet living at the cheap renewable energy-powered Lodge in Canberra instead of the harbourside Kirribilli holiday house favoured by his Coalition predecessors.
Abolishing market distortions that the Coalition used to slow the transition to renewables is a necessary complement, as is fixing thefor cars blocking the big shift to electric vehicles in Australia occurring in other industrialised economies. But it’s going to take self-reflection about its failure in opposition, including during the election, to cut through with the crucial message that Labor is the party of cheap energy, to drive the search for a more impactful approach.
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