We are living in uncertain times. As this edition goes to press, federal votes continue to be tallied, with an outcome still not in sight. An excruciatingly long campaign has ticked over into an excruciatingly long wait for a result.
Malcolm Turnbull’s grand plan to cleanse his kingdom of the lingering memory of Tony Abbott and flush out the two houses has proven to be a drastic misstep – resulting in nothing but a rickety Senate and no clear mandate for either major party.
To again reference George Megalogenis and his keynote at last month’s National General Assembly, the only current certainty is that political volatility is now nothing unusual.
On the whole, the electorate is less loyal than we once were. Both major party’s rusted-on voting base has declined over the last few decades; swinging voters are now the largest voting block. Where today’s politicians were raised believing a government was all but guaranteed two terms in power, we live in a context where leaders have to claw to hold on to even a single term – with much of the pressure angled at them by their own party.
This instability is not specific to Australia, of course – obvious when casting an eye over the rest of the globe (see the disarray of Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump).
Uncertainty in government means uncertainty for everyone. Business becomes more cautious, understandably sitting on its hands while the parliament flails on decision-making.
Local government, too, is left in the dark over much of its fate – question marks hang precariously over the issues of Financial Assistance Grants, infrastructure spending and regional development.
The cornerstone of the Coalition’s pledge to assist local government is the $50 million Smart Cities policy; Labor has made a point of offering reassurance on the restoration of the indexation to Financial Assistance Grants and re-establishing the Australian Council of Local Government (ACLG) for better federal-local communication.
As the result hangs in the balance, further speculation is fuelled over leadership spills – on both sides of politics. By the time this paper lands on desks across the country, we may have a new government, or we may not. (The AEC has warned it could be a matter of weeks!) Whatever the outcome, confidence at the federal level has been drastically eroded.
With local government elections approaching at the end of the year in some states, it seems more pertinent than ever to offer local voters assurance they have representation within at least one level of government – that their values will be reflected, and there is at someone to act in their interests – the local campaigns that fair the best will likely be those that offer some optimism in the midst of chaos.
