SCUM AT THE TOP

Are you an "ordinary Australian", by any chance? Although I keep my eyes peeled, I've never actually managed to spot one. But there must be a lot of them about because our political leaders keep referring to them.

"Ordinary Australians can see through this opposition's lies and deceit." "The government's policy backflips will not go down well with ordinary Australians." And here's a favorite: "People in the media are out of step with ordinary Australians."

You can imagine the conversation when political strategists meet: "The boss wants to believe in it, but he needs convincing. I think it has legs ..." "Yeah, but which way is it walking? We'd better run it past some ordinary Australians."

So who are these hapless individuals, and where are they hiding? Clearly, they're not to be confused with the "elites", whoever they may be; nor, presumably, with those members of the political class - politicians and their spin doctors - who take themselves far too seriously, managing to perceive themselves as extraordinary and perhaps even superior. (Funny view of leadership, that: apart from being offensive to the rest of us, it flies in the face of every principle of democracy and egalitarianism.)

Perhaps it's these so-called "ordinary Australians" who are impressed by the elaborate mythology currently under construction by a Federal Government in its death throes.

There's something vaguely Orwellian about the direction now being taken by this government's political propaganda. As Boxer put it in Animal Farm: "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right." The question is: are ordinary Australians as acquiescent as Boxer?

Here are a few examples of the new mythology. See if you're ordinary enough to swallow any of them. The first is that the tide turned against the Coalition only at the beginning of this year, and its drubbing in Western Australia and Queensland was a shock. An integral part of this myth is the claim that petrol prices caused the slump in the Federal Government's fortunes.

It's true that the petrol-price saga hasn't helped, though it's not the prices themselves that are the problem; it's the fact that a specific promise about the impact of the GST was broken. Faced with the electorate's hostility over that, the government reversed a policy previously declared to be irreversible, then waited for us all to be impressed ... and waited, and waited. (Did they really think most Australians would read that reversal as anything other than the cynical move it was?)

No, it's not about petrol prices. The government's stocks are low for two reasons: its own lack of social vision, and its GST.

This has never been a popular government; it was only ahead in last year's polls because Labor didn't look like a credible alternative. The fact that the government struggled back into office in 1998 with a minority vote was symptomatic of the low esteem in which it has always been held.

It signed its own electoral death warrant by the rushed and ill-conceived introduction of the GST - now resented not only by consumers who are paying higher prices but by the business community, farmers, charities, pensioners and self-funded retirees. A popular government offering inspirational leadership might just get away with introducing an unpopular tax; this one will not.

Another gem from the myth-makers is that the Labor opposition is "policy lazy". It might be, for all I know, but this particular government has permanently disqualified itself from making any such charge. It was the Coalition, after all, that created the "tiny target" strategy of 1996, creeping into government in the shadow of Labor's unpopularity and refusing, until the last moment, to present any coherent, detailed policy proposals.

That was a historic strategy, for two reasons. First, it amounted to a declaration of the breathtakingly undemocratic belief that policies (assuming they exist) should not be subjected to extended public scrutiny and debate. Second, it worked, thereby tempting others to give it a go. Far from criticising any opposition for being slow to release its policies, the Coalition should be flattered by the imitation.

Finally, have you noticed that the Prime Minister is starting to prepare the ground for his gracious- in-defeat concession speech? He's decided to position this as a "reformist government" and to take the martyr's line that reformers are bound to attract criticism.

Reformist? Our universities are bleeding, socio-economic gaps are widening, unemployment is rising, the ABC is crippled, relations with Asia are in some disarray, the "reformed" tax system is more complicated and regressive than the old one, and our symbolic journey towards the twin destinations of reconciliation and the republic has stalled. Even deregulation represents a mere continuation of an established policy direction.

Reformist? You'd have to be a very ordinary Australian to fall for that one.

Hugh Mackay is an author and social researcher.

MacKay's article in The Age

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