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When things are going badly in politics, even the wins end up feeling like losses


Paul Fletcher is not known for cracking the funnies.

More of an éminence grise, the Liberal frontbencher makes wallpaper seem lively.

But on Thursday, delivery dry as builders’ lime, he pointed out that Anthony Albanese’s diplomatic statecraft this week — in the form of his big China lobster breakthrough — is just more bad news for long-suffering consumers.

“For Australian lobster lovers what it probably means is a bit less lobster on our tables locally and probably paying a bit more for it,” he told the ABC’s Melissa Clarke on Thursday.

What China’s lobster export green light means for Australia

While Fletcher quickly followed up with the observation that China’s apparently generous decision to reopen imports of giant Aussie sea bugs is “clearly good news for the lobster sector”, the exchange offers a gallows-humour view of the prime minister’s predicament.

A week without laughs

When things are going badly, even the wins end up feeling like losses.

Fletcher was clearly joking, but for Albanese and Labor there hasn’t been much to laugh about this week.

A push by the prime minister to secure a bipartisan parliamentary motion marking the one year anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel collapsed on Tuesday.

Peter Dutton said Albanese’s wording — recognising the civilian casualties caused by Israel’s military strikes in Gaza and southern Lebanon — went beyond what should have been a tighter focus on the events of October 7 and its Israeli victims.

In the end, the whole thing produced more division. Dutton accused Albanese of speaking out of “both sides of his mouth”. Labor blamed Dutton for wrecking an agreement for the sake of it.

But to those who care deeply – Israelis and Palestinians – the risk is that the PM is seen to be merely managing another thorny political issue rather than leading.

A few hours later, Albanese stumbled in Question Time, accusing Shadow Treasury spokesman, Angus Taylor, of “having Tourette’s”. The PM ended up apologising. Twice.

To make matters worse, the week saw another bout of negative headlines about toxic workplace disputes in political offices. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Greens senator Dorinda Cox face specific and separate claims, but the odour ends up smearing all politicians in the public’s view. To be clear, the claims do not relate directly to Marles.

Labor tacticians tried to change the subject by confecting a row over whether the Coalition has any plans to privatise the NBN. The ploy – in the form of “urgent” legislation to ban the sale of the broadband internet provider – appears to have fallen flat. Nobody seems to care, and who would buy it anyway?

By the end of the week, Labor backbenchers pushed the government to set up a parliamentary inquiry into nuclear energy in Australia.

Seemingly aimed at exposing the Coalition’s lack of detail around its plans for the energy source, the move saw the opposition cheer the fact that it creates a public platform for its members to showcase the pros of nuclear reactors.

All of these movements kept the politico-media industrial complex in full swing – frantically going nowhere. Like an interminable Seinfeld episode, sans the gags.

The economy is also causing political pain

Meanwhile, in conversations around the nooks and crannies of Parliament House, there’s a growing discussion about the souring economic outlook and what it means for the coming election.

Few believe the economy is in great shape.

Consumers are in a deep cost-of-living funk, GDP growth is anaemic under high interest rates, and business is increasingly ringing alarm over what it condemns as Labor’s productivity-free agenda.

Insolvency data published this week by ASIC showed businesses – particularly in construction, accommodation and restaurants – are failing at the rate of more than 11,000 a year.

A startling graph from the Ai Group shows an even wilder picture of an economy in turmoil.

Based on official ABS labour force data, it records a dramatic 4.4 per cent collapse in private sector jobs, down by 516,000 during the quarter to August from the previous three-month period. This is the largest drop on record, with the exception of the pandemic winter quarter in 2020.

At the same time, government employment leapt by a net 499,000.

Ai Group’s chief economist Jeff Wilson cautions that the jobs data can be volatile. But he adds that nobody has ever seen anything as dramatic as this. And certainly never in an economy that is not shrinking.

The group’s chief executive Innes Willox says the data suggests serious weakness in the economy is being “papered over” by government spending, often in areas like health, aged and disability sectors that do not generate their own income.

“That might work for the here-and-now, but it doesn’t do anything for our long-term prospects or the massive productivity challenge that we face,” Willox says.

“And it doesn’t do anything for investment or business confidence. It’s been remarkably resilient but there are real signs the pressures are starting to crack our economy.”

Willox says the group’s membership of more than 60,000 businesses, with more than one million employees, have been preparing all year for a downturn.

“That’s starting to come to fruition, with restructuring and retrenchments.

“So a seven day week in a factory is operating five days a week; where you were running three shifts a day, you’re now doing two. Those stories are now very common.”

When things are going badly in politics, even the wins end up feeling like losses

(Source: ABS National Accounts, ABS Labour Account, Ai Group Research and Economics)

For Labor, as it prepares to go to the polls in the new year, the outlook “continues to look shaky for the next six months,” Willox warns.

“There are no silver bullets to turn that around but you’re starting now to see the accumulation of a few things; the impact of the industrial relations changes are starting to come through… there’s increasing regulatory burden, the taxing environment at both federal but increasingly state level is causing concern, and there’s the ongoing labour and skills shortages.”

It all paints a bleak picture for a government under pressure, sweating on an interest rate cut to lift voters’ spirits. 

Willox adds, if there is a rate cut – which he thinks is less likely early next year than many think – it will be because of the poor state of the economy.

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Exports under threat

Meanwhile, Labor is running a bold economic experiment, with a heavy reliance on ongoing government spending growth to spur an economy that is otherwise struggling.

At the same time, Australia’s biggest sources of income are facing worrisome global and domestic headwinds.

Weak Chinese demand is blunting what the country and treasury earns from iron ore shipments. Ongoing political pressure to curb fossil fuel exports will eventually chip away at income from coal and gas.

Australia’s third-largest export – providing education to Asia’s expanding middle class – is also under threat, hamstrung by Labor’s mandated university student caps.

Economists are almost united in condemning those caps as an act of economic self-harm that will do little to solve the housing crisis supposedly caused by foreign students.

Across many of the primary sources of wealth and living standards in Australia – whether domestic or foreign – there are signs of trouble.

Albanese will need more than a few lobsters.


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