It will be 100 days on Monday since Anthony Albanese and his ministers were swept into power, so it’s a good time to assess how the new Labor government has gone so far.
100 days in, how is the Albanese government doing?Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Some portfolios are easier to mark than others.
In foreign affairs and defence, they have made a good start and you can pinpoint the work that has already been done.
In areas such as the economy and cost of living, they face perilous headwinds and it is still difficult to see how they will navigate a path through.
On Indigenous affairs, they have chosen the bold course of putting up a referendum on a Voice to parliament in their first term, and everything hinges on whether it succeeds or fails.
But, apart from the Voice, the prime minister is hamstrung by the modest suite of policies he took to the election. In too many portfolios, there is a lack of vision.
The economy and cost of living
Out of everything, this is where Albanese has been dealt the most difficult hand by events overseas, and missteps by the Reserve Bank and the former government.
The picture is bleak: skyrocketing inflation, soaring interest rates, falling real wages and a budget in structural deficit.
There is a lot hanging on the October budget, but there is only so much Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers can do. They didn’t take a bold agenda of economic reform to the election, fearful of adopting the big target like they wore in 2019.
The review into the Reserve Bank is a big move. If there is change inside the bank, and in its outlook on the economy, that is something that will have repercussions for decades.
Apart from cracking down on tax avoidance by multinationals, there is not a lot of significant policies to begin the process of repairing the budget.
The stage three tax cuts will cost the budget $243 billion over a decade, but Labor is reticent to delay or alter them because it wants to avoid breaking an election promise.
A temporary levy on high-income individuals could be floated, but this also may be seen as too politically sensitive.
The big question is whether Labor wants to tackle the billions of dollars stored away every year in trusts, superannuation, negative gearing and capital gains concessions.
They are haunted by 2019 when the Coalition ran an effective campaign against their negative gearing and franking credits policies, but expect Labor to tackle at least one of these areas as they head into the next election. Grade: B
Employment and Industrial relations
The Fair Work Commission’s decision to raise the national minimum wage by 5.2 per cent, which had been backed by Albanese, was a big early win for the government.
With Australia still enjoying record low levels of unemployment, the big issue is pay not keeping up with the cost of living.
Albanese made the snap call to support a 5.1 per cent rise during the election campaign, and he was vindicated for this position, but the tricker questions start now.
Clearly, the industrial relations system has failed to deliver real wage growth and something needs to be done.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions is pushing for sector-wide bargaining rights at this week’s jobs and skills summit.
Unions say the measure is crucial to lifting real wage growth and resurrecting the collective bargaining system, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton claimed the proposal would take Australia back to the widespread strikes of the 1970s.
Dutton has already latched onto Labor’s decision to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission, and will be looking for other issues to paint Albanese as a puppet of the unions. Grade: B+
Foreign affairs
It’s hard to see where Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have put a step wrong on the international stage.
Within 24 hours of being elected, both were on a plane to Tokyo for a meeting with the Quad leaders of the United States, Japan and India.
This was an important first move. Given the first iteration of the Quad died under the former Labor government, Albanese needed to demonstrate his support for the quasi-alliance.
Wong’s extensive travel to the Pacific, along with Labor’s stronger commitment to tackling climate change, has gone down a treat in the region.
The reset of relations with France – which was blindsided by the Morrison government’s decision to junk a $90 billion submarine contract in favour of the AUKUS agreement – was also a welcome move.
However, we must be careful not to over-applaud Albanese and Wong. A lot of this is low-hanging fruit.
Deft diplomacy wasn’t the Coalition government’s strong suit, but it did get the big national security calls right: reorienting the China relationship to a more realistic footing, banning Huawei and enacting foreign interference laws. Labor hasn’t had to make any big calls yet.
Also, Labor is quickly finding out that good diplomacy can only get you so far, especially as it relates to China.
If the Solomon Islands-Huawei deal had occurred under Scott Morrison and Marise Payne, there would have been a lot more criticism. Grade: A-
Defence
It was refreshing to hear Defence Minister Richard Marles, days after the election, concede that there is likely a capability gap between the nation’s current fleet of submarines decommissioning from 2036 and the arrival of nuclear submarines. Defence’s insistence that there wasn’t a capability gap always lacked credibility.
The decision to conduct an external review of Defence – which will basically look at everything except the nuclear submarines – was also a good decision.
But appointing former defence minister Stephen Smith, along with former chief of the Defence Force, Angus Houston, could backfire. Considering some of the acquisition problems date back to Smith’s time as minister, the opposition was right to question whether he is the best person to lead the review.
The government has also ordered a review into Chinese company Landbridge’s ownership of the Port of Darwin. Labor was heavily critical of the former government for letting the port fall into Chinese hands. It now has to make the tough decision about what to do next. Grade: B+
Immigration
The government needs to raise the annual migration cap from its current level of 160,000 to deal with the massive shortage in workers.
The shortfall in permanent migration is compounded by a lack of temporary migrants, with tens of thousands of overseas students leaving during the pandemic.
As revealed by The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age, the government is considering raising it to somewhere between 180,000 and 200,000, with skilled migration remaining at about 70 per cent of the total intake. This is a sensible move, but it can’t be done in isolation.
To ensure the increase doesn’t come at the expense of workers’ pay and conditions, the government will need to do more to crack down on the exploitation of foreign workers.
Much more also needs to be done to adequately fund skills, training and education.
The government should better utilise foreign citizens who are already here, but are either choosing not to work or aren’t able to work in the areas they are qualified.
The government has said it will do all of these things, but landing on policies that achieve this will be difficult.
Releasing the Murugappan family from immigration detention was a welcome move.
Labor has done an adequate job in beginning to address the significant visa backlog of almost 1 million applications left by the Coalition, but more needs to be done. Grade: B+
Social policy
Both Government Services Minister Bill Shorten and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth have had a busy 100 days.
Shorten has forced out key Liberal appointees at the National Disability Insurance Agency, ordered a review into fraudulent NDIS payments, and called a royal commission into the robo-debt scheme.
Rishworth has introduced legislation to ban the cashless debit card and implement domestic violence leave, and has vowed to tackle online gambling.
Labor deserves criticism for dropping its pledge to review the JobSeeker rate prior to the election.
Australians cannot be expected to live on the base rate of $46 a day, and a Labor government should be doing something about it.
Its policy to increase childcare subsidy rates and expand it to more families is audacious, but still a work in progress. Grade: B+
Climate and energy
Enshrining emissions-reductions targets for 2030 and 2050 with the support of the Greens and crossbenchers was an important early win.
This followed a decade of climate wars and proved Labor could negotiate with the new parliament to get something done.
But after approving more offshore oil and gas exploration, the government is finding medium- and long-term aspirations are conflicting with present reality.
As concerns mount about a gas shortage, the government will also need to consider whether it pulls the trigger on export controls.
After the previous government left a mess by hiding the expected increase in gas prices, there are positive signs that Resources Minister Madeleine King and Energy Minister Chris Bowen are working together on some coherent policies. Grade: A-
Indigenous affairs
The commitment to hold a referendum on establishing an Indigenous Voice to parliament within the first term was a bold move by Albanese.
If he pulls it off, it will be the greatest leap forward for Indigenous rights in this country since the High Court’s Mabo decision. If the referendum doesn’t get up, it could set the cause back decades.
Albanese’s address to the Garma Festival in the Northern Territory was a genuinely powerful moment, but he needs to keep the momentum up.
The government faces the difficult question of how much detail it will put forward before Australians vote on the Voice proposal. Not enough detail, and Australians will rightly be suspicious; too much detail, and opponents will find something to exploit.
While it is way too early to assess whether he will succeed, Albanese deserves credit for his courage. Grade: A
Health
There is an inconsistency with some of the government’s messaging on the pandemic.
On the one hand, Albanese and Health Minister Mark Butler want to emphasise that COVID-19 is still with us and Australians need to remain vigilant.
On the other hand, among the first things the government did was end pandemic leave payments and decide not to extend free rapid antigen tests for concession cardholders.
At least Albanese reversed his position on pandemic support and extended the payment.
While many of the issues in aged care relate to the former government’s lax approach, COVID-related deaths in residential aged care have increased by nearly 40 per cent since Labor took over.
And after rightly criticising the former government for being too slow to secure COVID-19 vaccines, they have now found out there are supply issues with monkeypox vaccines. Grade: B-
Parliament and leadership
Albanese has so far demonstrated he can get the numbers in the parliament to pass contentious legislation.
His time as Leader of the House in a minority government has probably put him in good stead.
He enraged crossbench members by reducing their staff allocation from eight to five, before a small backtrack by allocating an additional one for some MPs.
Crossbench anger hasn’t yet translated into legislative defeats for Albanese.
However, we have only had two weeks of parliament in the first 100 days, and there’s only six sitting weeks left in the year. Not a lot of time to get things done.
Albanese was right criticise Morrison for appointing himself to five secret ministries. But after the solicitor-general found no illegality but a potential breach of responsible government, it is not clear what an inquiry targeting the former prime minister will achieve.
But as Tony Abbott’s two royal commissions showed, Australians don’t appreciate any hint of a witch hunt. They want new prime ministers to get on with the job ahead of them.
Dropping the prosecution of Bernard Collaery showed Labor was prepared to stand up to its convictions from opposition. Grade: B
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