Contest, compromise and cooperation are the meat and spuds of democratic politics. The most effective practitioners know when to acquiesce, when to push back, when to negotiate a compromise, and when to use authority or numbers to force a result in the face of resistance. They also know – or they should – that they need to take the people with them.
Politicians would generally agree that decisions of policy and law should serve the national interest first, not the interests of parties or individuals. But what’s in the national interest depends on who you ask. The other two are generally about power, influence and sometimes money. But as long as the beholder’s eye defines it, those others will always dress up as the first.
Exhibit A: the whole week. The opposition, the Greens and some Senate independents combined to block legislation that would cancel the private health insurance rebate for insured people aged 65 and over, so a furious health minister, Mark Butler, introduced it again, unchanged. The bill implementing a budget measure raising tax on discretionary trusts has no friends. On the digital duty-of-care legislation, the government acceded to an opposition demand, aiming to secure support to pass it.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was caught out dictating, via staff, what a supposedly independent parliamentary committee should advise him in a letter, which it seems he solicited. And then he rebuked Treasurer Jim Chalmers while claiming credit for overruling the Australian Tax Office and delaying a ban on paying tax debts by credit card.
That last one shows how quickly a backflip portrayed as responsive government can expose deep political sensitivities and become a stage for personal power games. It flowed from the Reserve Bank deciding retailers, service providers and payment receivers can no longer add credit-card service fees to clients’ bills. Declaring he ordered the intervention and implying Chalmers resisted, Albanese effectively confirmed it was the problematic politics of hypocrisy around who should have to absorb the fees (small business) and who shouldn’t (the ATO) that drove the delay Chalmers announced last Friday. Albanese revealed a private exchange with Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief Andrew McKellar, seemingly just to deliver an unsubtle and extraordinary public backhander to his treasurer.
“Andrew did text me last Thursday morning and by Friday morning we had an announcement,” Albanese told the chamber’s annual dinner on Tuesday night. “And that was an example of a relationship that takes time to develop – that trust, where you can have a discussion saying: ‘It’s in hand. I agree with what you are saying and I’ll get it done with the early announcement this time tomorrow.’”
On Wednesday morning, a bristling Chalmers refuted the implication that Albanese had forced the move, saying they had discussed the issue last Wednesday.
“He had a view and I agree with it, that we needed to step in to provide this longer transition period to allow the ATO the time to get it right,” Chalmers told journalists. “We had the same view.”
Incidentally, it’s not the first time recently that Albanese has taken personal credit for something – more clearly in the other case when it wasn’t due. In New York last month, he joined leaders from 20 other countries in signing a statement calling for AI regulation, then suggested he’d been instrumental in its formulation.
“Australia played a central role in the statement,” he told journalists. “I was in direct discussions with President Stubb, and we continue to engage with our neighbours.”
In fact, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre initiated it, working with Finland’s President Alexander Stubb to negotiate the text and marshal support – a point acknowledged by the UN secretary-general who praised the instigators. Their names appeared first on the list of 21 signatories, ahead of the Finnish prime minister’s. Albanese was first among the rest – because the remaining countries were listed in alphabetical order.
The tax-change claim was more of a bully-brag, which Albanese walked back a bit in parliament on Wednesday afternoon before insisting on Thursday that Chalmers was “doing a great job”. The tensions are being seen in the context of Chalmers’ leadership aspirations. Lately, media reports have appeared touting Butler – Albanese’s close factional confidante – as an alternative. The prime minister insisted all’s well between him and his treasurer. Sure. Of course.
Before that controversy erupted, Albanese had dispatched another one, forced to deny making patsies of Labor backbencher Jo Briskey and Liberal frontbencher Jonno Duniam, chair and deputy of a joint committee inquiring into artificial intelligence. They had written to Albanese on the committee’s behalf, recommending urgent measures ultimately designed to facilitate frontier AI companies moving their model training to Australia. The committee comprises six Labor members, three Liberals, one National and two independents, and the letter was sent on behalf of all of them but without incorporating comments from one – independent senator David Pocock. The electronic draft sent to Pocock still had track changes on, which revealed edits were made in the prime minister’s office. In other words, Albanese’s staff wrote some of what the committee proposed to him. Not good.
The digital duty of care legislation was tied to the same imperatives – and urgent timeline – as the recommendations in the letter. The bill aims to give social media users more control over the algorithms driving the content they see and require tech companies to protect users from harmful content. The government wants that legislation through fast, before any big tech companies move operations to Australia.
On that, it gave ground, with Communications Minister Anika Wells removing the provision that would empower the minister of the day to determine what constitutes harmful content. Wells had initially said the bill would not affect political content. Then, curiously, Albanese suggested while in New York that political content might be covered. That was red meat to the free-speech Coalition and to the Greens, which both vowed to oppose it. Now, as a concession, Wells has dropped that specific ministerial power plus another provision on portrayal of illicit drug use. She’s added measures restricting non-consensual intimate images, including fakes, and material inciting gender-based violence – all of which are already covered in other law. The opposition is under pressure to support it but the changes have also reopened talks with the Greens. It’s almost like certain clauses are proverbial straw men. Come in, spinners.
Its budget legislation overhauling the tax on trusts faces Coalition refusal and a possible Greens-driven Senate inquiry. The private health rebate clawback bill has also stalled. It aims to remove the extra rebate given to privately insured over-65s and divert the estimated $3 billion savings to aged care – where, incidentally, some providers are using recent law reform to charge residents extra for basics such as having TV in their rooms.
On this legislation, the government is digging in. So is the Senate majority opposing it. The government says it can no longer justify giving the older cohort a discount of up to 8 per cent more than what’s offered to younger people, and everyone should get the same.
It doesn’t mention, though, that those who’ll be affected were 39 or older back in 2000 when the Howard government introduced what’s called lifetime health cover – a penalty for anyone who waits until after age 31 to take out private cover. That measure was designed to force people into private insurance and ease costs in the public system. After it started on July 1 that year, anyone over 31 taking out private cover was charged a penalty based on their age at the time – an extra 2 per cent for each year beyond 31 that they delayed joining, for a maximum of 10 years. So taking it out at age 40 meant paying up to 20 per cent more on top of the premium, which also kept rising. After 50, a decade of cover cost – and still costs – an extra 40 per cent. That rises to, and is capped at, 70 per cent extra over a decade if taking it up after 70 or older. Those over 92 don’t pay it.
Figures from the prudential regulator suggest about 87 per cent of the three million over-65s who have private insurance got in before the scheme started, avoiding the penalty. But some, who haven’t yet had it 10 years, are paying it on top of their insurance. How much they’re paying is based on their age when they took it out, but, by definition, they must have been aged over 55. That’s at least an extra 40 per cent on top of the premium, which, as ever, keeps rising. It somewhat exceeds the 8 per cent rebate they receive that the government is trying to remove. Leaked health department figures suggest about 78,000 are likely to cancel their insurance if the rebate is axed.
Maybe members of the government are ignoring how much older people have already paid through lifetime health cover provisions. Or maybe they just haven’t focused on it because only one member of the executive, Trade Minister Don Farrell, is aged over 65. Either way, they’re not talking about that. Thus far, the Senate is saying “no”.
Let’s see who blinks first. On Wednesday, the opponents didn’t vote the bill down; they voted to discharge it from the notice paper. The government has returned it to the Senate unchanged. If government senators force it to a vote that they know they’ll lose and then withdraw it, the legislation starts to look like a potential future double-dissolution trigger. Doing the same again in three months’ time would turn it into one.
It’s been a week of much democracy. How much of it is in the national interest? It really depends on who you ask.