Security, renewables and asylum could all benefit from proper debates but voters won’t stand for being tricked

Tony Abbott is right – we need more bipartisan solutions. But is he genuine?

There’s a lot of talk about bipartisanship at the moment – but it’s not yet clear whether it’s real or the just the same old political point scoring using softer voices.



Both prime minister and opposition leader have decisions to make.



Bill Shorten needs to decide whether he wants to be an opposition leader like Tony Abbott was, or one who chooses - in the interests of the nation - not to run expedient political scare campaigns.



And Tony Abbott is yet to reveal whether his pitch as the “statesman seeking bipartisan solutions” is actually about real, negotiated, bipartisan solutions, or is just another way of saying that Labor, and everyone else for that matter, should down tools and agree with him.



It’s easy to understand Shorten’s temptation to reject out of hand Abbott’s call for radical reform of what state and federal governments do and how they pay for it.



In the lead up to the last election the coalition originally said, or at least implied, that it would take any plans for tax changes to the following poll, including changes to the GST. But as Labor cranked up a GST-scare campaign, Abbott ruled out any future change to the consumption tax, saying: “The GST will not change. Full stop. End of story.”



The full exchange at an August 12 press conference went like this.



“Mr Abbott, you were definitive last night about not increasing the GST in this term of government so why not rule that out of your tax review and why not now say that you wouldn’t do it in a second term?



Abbott; “Look, I just think it is embarrassing that the prime minister of our country is reduced to this pathetic scare campaign. This government has been in place for six years. Mr Rudd has been the prime minister for about half of that time and the best that he could do last night was to run scare campaigns about this fantasy the GST is somehow going to go up and this fantasy that there are somehow $70bn worth of cuts to the bone; really Mr Rudd give us something substantial, not this kind of fiction. On the GST, look the GST is not going to change, full stop, end of story.”



After the election he then stunned the states by taking $80bn out of proposed future federal funding for health and education, leaving them with little choice but to talk about tax reform and possible changes to the GST.



And now he’s clearly and deliberately opening debate on a GST increase/personal tax cut trade-off as a result of his reviews of taxation and federalism.



In the Henry Parkes oration over the weekend, the new bipartisan Abbott said the federalism debate “needs to resemble the kind of measured debate that we can have over national security or about indigenous recognition rather than the debate we’ve had over the budget for instance or the carbon tax – because reforming the federation is not something that one person, one party or one parliament can determine alone”.

Actually sensible policy to reduce carbon emissions or make fair long-term structural changes to the budget can’t be achieved by one party either, but leaving that to one side, Abbott is right, this is a discussion we need to have. And it does need a bipartisan solution. And if Labor is worried about the fairness of any proposed changes that might emerge, surely that’s all the more reason to participate.



Alternatively Labor could run a scare campaign just as effectively as Abbott ran one against the carbon tax, and probably kill off any chance of change to the current system - acknowledged as dysfunctional by both sides of politics.



Tony Abbott is also looking for a “bipartisan” solution on the renewable energy target.



He originally insisted the RET needed to be reduced because it was “causing pretty significant price pressure in the system”, until his own review, headed by self-professed climate sceptic and businessman Dick Warburton, found it wasn’t causing significant price pressures and his backbenchers discovered renewable energy was very popular with voters.



With uncertainty bringing renewable energy investment to a standstill, the government is now in negotiations with Labor about a “compromise” deal on the RET, but then started the talks with the same position Labor and the industry had already completely rejected.



A deal that allows continued investment in renewables is also in the national interest. It would also help the coalition meet its own promise to reduce Australia’s emissions by 5% by 2020. We’ll find out soon enough whether the government really wants one.



National security, asylum policy, indigenous recognition – it seems everywhere we look there is talk of bipartisan solutions. It would be welcome if it were true. But if it’s just political expediency with a new lick of nice-guy rhetoric, the voters are going to notice.

