Tony Abbott would not have had to defy logic to try out to justify his pre-election statements on school funding, and he would not have had to then capitulate and locate the previously unavailable $ 1.2bn, if he had only gone to the election with an real policy on school funding.
The only long-term promise about funding his colleges policy was this: “We will operate co-operatively and constructively with all states and territories to negotiate a fair and sustainable nationwide funding model.”
Apart from that, the Coalition stated it would match Labor’s funding bargains in 2014 and “match the Commonwealth funding for schools committed by Labor more than the forward estimates”.
Till midday Monday that last statement had an invisible asterix pointing to an invisible rider in tiny print at the bottom of the web page which, had we been able to read through it, would have warned us that “terms and conditions apply”. People terms and conditions were that the funding becoming matched was the cash promised to the 5 states and a single territory that had signed Gonski discounts with Labor, and that exact same bucket of income may now have to cover the two states and 1 territory that hadn’t signed.
Cue the evident and justified political debate about lies and broken guarantees and the reality that it was Abbott himself who stressed the need to have for honesty and authenticity in politics.
And then the capitulation by the government to say that the extra funds for the non-signatory states would be obtainable after all – at least for the following four years – although the aforementioned new funding scheme was nutted out.
But all that discomfort and dancing all around could have been prevented if the Coalition had used some of its 6 many years in opposition to develop clear alternative policies in critical policy places, like, say, schools funding.
As an alternative it relied on Labor’s interminable in-fighting and concentrated on two problems – carbon policy and asylum policy – which presented potent ammunition for populist political attack from the opposition benches but which are not truly central to the enterprise of running the nation.
The colleges policy did contain pledges about reviewing the curriculum, and offering college principals and school communities much more autonomy. But on the essential issue of a long phrase formula for schools funding, it efficiently explained they’d get back to us.
And it wasn’t the only essential concern where the Coalition took the “get back to us” approach and is only now figuring out what its place is.
As Guardian Australia reported before the election there had been a complete whole lot of factors on Abbott’s “figure it out later” list, including tax policy, renewable energy policy, fiscal sector policy, vehicle industry help and foreign investment policy. At least some of the problems of its early months in government are because the Coalition now has to figure them out.
As opposition leader, Abbott mentioned that manufacturing was the “heart of the country” and that “we need to be a country that continues to make items”. But he also promised to remove $ 500m from budgeted automobile market assistance amongst now and 2015, which the market explained would guarantee its demise. The cabinet is now thinking about how to bridge that clear discrepancy and has commissioned the promised Productivity Commission report into car market assistance. But there is a robust expectation amid Coalition MPs that Holden will make a selection on its potential in Australia just before it even reports.
In opposition, the Coalition’s pronouncements on foreign investment have been sufficiently vague that the Nationals and rural Liberals were ready to argue they would be tougher on foreign investment proposals, while absolutely everyone else in the Coalition pointed to the truth that the “nationwide curiosity check” towards which investment bids are assessed would stay the identical and as a result nothing at all would alter. The only concrete alter was a decrease threshold for foreign investment in agricultural land and a register of foreign land ownership.
The company local community had clearly been listening to the Liberal side of the pre-election positioning and was therefore shocked when Joe Hockey blocked Archer Daniels Midland’s bid for GrainCorp.
The tricky enterprise of governing often bowls up problems from left area. But a new government’s response is probably to be much more predictable, and less controversial, if it has delivered a clear policy template from opposition.
Coalition’s fancy footwork on Gonski leaves policy underbelly exposed
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