Richardson: The boomerang effect
There’s an old saying – “be careful what you wish for” – which may or may not refer to this column’s epic and fruitless search for an Opposition policy.
I was, admittedly, unconvinced by their first real foray into the policy arena, which was to establish a panel named Infrastructure SA to assess and advise on any major building project, to depoliticise the entire process and remove the unsavoury whiff of partisanship from every decision.
It was, I argued, less a policy than a push to outsource decision-making to unelected appointees.
Steven Marshall, who doesn’t much care for criticism, sat me down and gave me an earnest sales pitch, assuring me that he was not only genuine but passionate about the Infrastructure SA concept. He gave me the whole stern spiel: how the recent history of major projects has been undermined by spending more geared to electoral success than genuine need. This, he argued, would end all that for good.
So what are we to deduce now? Now that the Libs have finally, unambiguously, entered the policy fray, and have not only done so by way of a drop to the company formerly known as News Ltd (a PR practice about which I have had a particular bugbear ever since … well, ever since I stopped working for News Ltd) but by way of a major financial commitment to a highly contentious and politically-loaded infrastructure project.
South Road, arguably the state’s worst motorway, has been the lost highway of political promises for many a year. It’s little wonder the notion of tolls is catching on; anyone who uses South Road regularly would probably happily throw a few coins away each day if it could ease the congestion on the north-south corridor.
A few years back, then-Infrastructure Minister Pat Conlon told us building a Darlington Interchange was the single most important step towards doing just that. This point was then downplayed a few years later when a contracting budget dropped it off the to-do list.
It remained an aspirational priority until roughly three months ago, when the Government informed us it had actually bothered to do a cost-benefit analysis on the whole thing and that actually a completely different stretch of South Road between Torrens Road and the river was really far more urgent. Unfortunately, this happened the exact same week that Tony Abbott pumped up his local cred by announcing he’d finally get the Darlington project out of the slow lane.
You might like
It was reminiscent of that time the state Libs tried to trump Labor by rushing to announce they’d duplicate the Southern Expressway, only to find the costings they’d painstakingly researched (ie they’d lifted a number out of an old quote on the subject from Pat Conlon in the Messenger) were well south of the mark.
Only this time, the Libs stuck doggedly to their guns. And now Abbott finds himself as Prime Minister, with an under-researched commitment to renovate Darlington and a State Government already well-entrenched in spending his predecessors’ promised cash on the Torrens-to-Torrens project.
He has an ace, of course. He pledged to run any final decisions past Infrastructure Australia, which would – if Labor is correct – vindicate a dignified policy reappraisal. But instead of that, Marshall (he of “depoliticizing infrastructure commitments” fame) comes loping in like Rambo without a jockstrap promising to back the most blatantly political use of taxpayer funds since Adelaide Oval.
I can’t quite imagine how this “policy” could have been arrived at. Surely they didn’t sit around in a meeting going:
MARSHALL: I think it’s great the way we’ve stuck to our guns and kept our powder dry despite the likes of Richardson demanding we release our policies now. I’m proud as punch.
ADVISOR: Yep, good job Steven.
MARSHALL: Hey, why don’t we release a policy? Right now!
ADVISOR: Great idea, Steven!
MARSHALL: South Road’s pretty topical. We could throw a heap of money at that!
ADVISOR: Brilliant Steven! Um…you don’t think anyone would think it’s hypocritical that we keep on bagging Labor’s profligate spending?
Stay informed, daily
MARSHALL: No. I reckon the media want us to announce something Infrastructurey. This is just the ticket.
ADVISOR: Genius, Steven. Just one thing…wouldn’t we have to run something like this by Infrastructure SA first?
MARSHALL: What the hell’s Infrastructure SA?
ADVISOR: You remember? That other policy we have?
MARSHALL: Ah yes. Well, that was months ago. No-one will remember that!
ADVISOR: Great! Well done, Steven! Leave it to me. I’ll give the story to just one media outlet – that’s sure to go down well.
Or somesuch.
It appears the Opposition’s policy manifesto (if and when it ever appears) will be a bit like the Bible: they want us to take every element reverently and seriously, despite the fact they all contradict each other.
But while the Liberals blow their credibility before they’ve even earned it, the Government’s kamikaze fervour is doing Labor no favours either.
Faced with the prospect of a weekly disaster at the hands of the newly-minted child protection committee, Jay Weatherill and his cohorts are bringing out the big guns – they are writing lots of letters. First there was John Rau, advising the committee of its legal rights and obligations (duly noted), then the Premier reminding the inquiry that it was a “circus” before which he wouldn’t be allowing his staff to give evidence. To which the committee effectively gave a two-fingered salute and summonsed them anyway.
T’was as if the Premier had hurled his political boomerang at the unsuspecting committee and, as boomerangs are wont to do, it veered back and whacked him in the face.
In any case, it suggests a serious failure in political judgment by the Premier or his advisors. The committee was, presumably, always going to be made aware of the fact it had the power to compel ministerial advisors to give evidence, which would then turn the blowtorch back on the recalcitrant Government. In the event, as the Attorney-General pointed out on ABC radio, Labor wasn’t about to get into a legal wrangle over the inquiry’s powers, given that would merely amplify the public perception that the Government has something to hide.
It does not, it insists; it merely doesn’t recognise the legitimacy of the committee. But having made that point, trying to protect staffers from scrutiny is only ever going to come across as secretive and self-serving.
But if the Government was guilty of a lapse in judgement, it was only one of many. Labor’s peculiar “policy theme weeks” have been running in earnest since the Federal election. The very notion is slightly comical – outline a major(ish) policy gambit after cabinet of a Monday, then call media conferences to enunciate minor variations on the same theme every day as the week progresses. So, we had “Economy Week”, beginning with the pie-in-the-sky prognostication of a Future Fund, and ebbing away from there. Then we had “Jobs and Skills Week”, whose big-hitting Monday centrepiece was such a grab-bag of re-announcements and window dressing it barely even got reported amid the fallout of another Education Department child protection failure, which left the follow-up announcements a little redundant. This week was “Public Transport Week”. On Monday came the announcement of cheaper fares for commuters, thanks to the flexibility provided by the near-universal take-up of the MetroCard. That gambit seemed to go down well, so on Tuesday we had the imminent innovation of “real-time” data on Adelaide Metro’s website, allowing prospective passengers to keep tabs on when their ride was due.
By Wednesday, the determination to maintain the theme saw the Government trying to piggyback on a slight reorganisation by Transit Police that allowed them to shuffle manpower onto buses, where drivers and passengers had been the target of anti-social behaviour of late. The Thursday nadir saw the Transport Services Minister sharing an umbrella with the Adelaide Lord Mayor (even the Premier had bowed out of proceedings by this stage) to announce they were integrating city loop bus services, including the green Tindo solar bus so beloved of my two-year-old son.
The trouble is, on no given day does the Government deviate from the script according to changed circumstance. If every reporter and his dog is chasing the latest Education Department crisis, doggedly reciting soundbites about free interconnectors seems a bit, well … silly. I guess, though, I only have myself to blame. After all, I did demand a genuine policy debate. Be careful what you wish for.
Tom Richardson is InDaily’s political commentator and Channel Nine’s political reporter.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
