Coalition’s fancy footwork on Gonski leaves policy underbelly exposed
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Version 0 of 1. Tony Abbott would not have had to defy logic to try to justify his pre-election statements on school funding, and he would not have had to then capitulate and find the previously unavailable $1.2bn, if he had only gone to the election with an actual policy on school funding. The only long-term promise about funding his schools policy was this: “We will work co-operatively and constructively with all states and territories to negotiate a fair and sustainable national funding model.” Apart from that, the Coalition said it would match Labor’s funding deals in 2014 and “match the Commonwealth funding for schools committed by Labor over the forward estimates”. Until midday Monday that last statement had an invisible asterix pointing to an invisible rider in small print at the bottom of the page which, had we been able to read it, would have warned us that “terms and conditions apply”. Those terms and conditions were that the funding being matched was the money promised to the five states and one territory that had signed Gonski deals with Labor, and that same bucket of money may now have to cover the two states and one territory that hadn’t signed. Cue the obvious and justified political debate about lies and broken promises and the fact that it was Abbott himself who stressed the need for honesty and authenticity in politics. And then the capitulation by the government to say that the additional money for the non-signatory states would be available after all – at least for the next four years – while the aforementioned new funding scheme was nutted out. But all that discomfort and dancing around could have been avoided if the Coalition had used some of its six years in opposition to develop clear alternative policies in important policy areas, like, say, schools funding. Instead it relied on Labor’s interminable in-fighting and concentrated on two issues – carbon policy and asylum policy – which offered potent ammunition for populist political attack from the opposition benches but which are not really central to the business of running the nation. The schools policy did contain pledges about reviewing the curriculum, and giving school principals and school communities more autonomy. But on the crucial issue of a long term formula for schools funding, it effectively said they’d get back to us. And it wasn’t the only important issue where the Coalition took the “get back to us” approach and is only now figuring out what its position is. As Guardian Australia reported before the election there were a whole lot of things on Abbott’s “figure it out later” list, including tax policy, renewable energy policy, financial sector policy, car industry assistance and foreign investment policy. At least some of the challenges of its early months in government are because the Coalition now has to figure them out. As opposition leader, Abbott said that manufacturing was the "heart of the country" and that "we must be a country that continues to make things". But he also promised to remove $500m from budgeted car industry assistance between now and 2015, which the industry said would ensure its demise. The cabinet is now considering how to bridge that obvious discrepancy and has commissioned the promised Productivity Commission report into car industry assistance. But there is a strong expectation among Coalition MPs that Holden will make a decision on its future in Australia before it even reports. In opposition, the Coalition’s pronouncements on foreign investment were sufficiently vague that the Nationals and rural Liberals were able to argue they would be tougher on foreign investment proposals, while everyone else in the Coalition pointed to the fact that the "national interest test" against which investment bids are assessed would remain the same and therefore nothing would change. The only concrete change was a lower threshold for foreign investment in agricultural land and a register of foreign land ownership. The business community had obviously 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 business of governing always bowls up challenges from left field. But a new government’s response is likely to be more predictable, and less controversial, if it has delivered a clear policy template from opposition. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |