The decision by our Prime Minister to bestow Phil the Greek with a knighthood has served as a lightning rod.
It’s all rather bizarre.
Even that other noble monarchist, John Howard, wouldn’t have been suckered into that.
The big news now is that PM Abbott’s judgement is suspect, and he’s on his last chance.
It also seems that the cumulative effect of silly decisions is being brought into sharp relief because there is no ocean of well-considered long-term agendas by which these bloopers can be played down.
For example, as I said last month, long-term development agendas in the industry and agricultural field are scarce.
Similarly the long-term education and employment agendas are unclear.
Meanwhile social policy is about to be turned on its head by incoming Minister Morrison.
Health policy and Medicare is also very confused, and immigration and border control policy and environment are a long way from being settled.
The only areas where there is policy consistency and a level of bipartisan support are foreign affairs, defence, trade and infrastructure.
Why is this?
The lack of long-term policies could be due to the LNP’s innate conservatism.
But on the other hand the Fraser and Howard Governments laid out solid long-term programs.
It could also be due to the antics in the Senate.
However the core reason is arguably the lack of independent policy ideas from portfolios outside the power troika of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Treasury and Finance.
I don’t get any sense of a significant volume of research and policy papers coming out of think tanks, industry associations, universities or learned academies.
It may be because their resources have been pared too heavily, or perhaps they’ve decided it’s a lost cause.
The sole source of strong policy direction is from the Commission of Audit, and this is proving to be a very dangerous straightjacket. The LNP must break out and start tapping the expertise of those around them.
Hawke got it right
By contrast, a core feature of the Hawke-Keating Governments was long-term policy development.
It was de rigueur.
Business leaders, union leaders and government officials were actively feeding in ideas.
This was encouraged by Hawke and Keating, who although they had egos you couldn’t jump over, saw the value of tapping the ideas and building a support base through consensus.
Hawke was especially good at this, as was his Industry Minister John Button.
I remember in the mid 1980s Button had to get a crucial submission for car industry support through Cabinet, and he asked the Department to invite the CEOs of the then five car manufacturers to a dinner in Melbourne.
There were no papers circulated, nor instructions as to the reason why Button wanted the meeting.
The only other person at the table was my source, who later explained that Button asked the five CEOs to give him the ammunition to win the Cabinet debate.
They delivered, and the Minister won the Cabinet debate.
Hawke, Keating and Button also had a permanent reservoir of good advice from the Australian Manufacturing Council and thirteen industry councils underneath it, covering automotive, textiles-clothing-footwear, paper & printing, heavy engineering, basic metals, metal fabrications, forestry & forest products, IT, chemicals and plastics, aerospace and food.
The mandate of each of these councils was to develop policies for the long-term international competitiveness of the industries concerned.
Each council had about a dozen members drawn from industry, unions, universities, and federal and state agencies as appropriate.
There was a real air of excitement and adventure as each council got to work, and over time a valuable convergence of policy thinking emerged.
Significant parts of the industries covered by those thirteen councils have now disappeared.
However the collaborative process is still valid.
A new collaborative machinery?
A new machinery might comprise four to five councils that would investigate the big issues.
Examples that immediately spring to mind are:
- value-adding our agricultural resources
- building global value chains
- drought-proofing our most valuable agricultural areas
- re-engineering our manufacturing sector
- reversing the mounting youth unemployment problem
- nurturing creative hubs at the local level
- fostering ethnic and religious understanding
- developing best practice disaster relief systems
- creating Lighthouse Projects to give effect to the new Free Trade Agreements.
These are the issues that voters expect a federal government to be pursuing in an open way with the key interest groups.
As you can appreciate, there is plenty of scope for local government to be involved.
And the universities and unions have a place – rather than treating union leaders like pariahs, the Abbott Government could at least be seen to be developing inclusive, rather than divisive, agendas.
Currently cowering federal bureaucrats could also be brought out from under their desks to engage with the real world, but the most important advantage is that Abbott would be bringing forward well-considered policies.
Dumb ideas – like knighthoods, Paid Parental Leave, Japanese-made submarines and unfettered defence spending, would not survive this process.
How about some of you councillors floating my proposal with your local federal member?
Rod Brown is a Canberra-based consultant and lobbyist specialising in industry/regional development, investment attraction and clusters, and accessing federal grants. He also runs the Cockatoo Network.
Phone: (02) 6231 7261 or 0412 922 559
Email: apdcockatoo@iprimus.com.au
Blog: www.investmentinnovation.wordpress.com (750 articles)
