Labor can fill a major gap in the Morrison government’s strategy by spending its big cash splash on visionary reforms.
Who won the historic debate over economic policy that has played out in Western, and especially Anglophone, countries since the 1980s?
Until 2019 the answer was obvious: the right. Economic orthodoxy was that free trade, inflation targeting, a floating exchange rate, enterprise-level bargaining, a preference for private over public provision of services and, most of all, low taxes, small government and fiscal discipline delivered the best economic outcomes.
Many of these were honoured in the breach in Australia — we’re not the free traders we claim to be, and the Liberals have always been the party of high taxes. But they were minor details.
Can Labor expose the Coalition’s weak points? Bernard King has a few suggestions. Read on.
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