Retreats, resurrections and elections

Earlier this week I attended an end of term retreat with senior students. It occurred to me that the event and its timing were exceptionally fortuitous. Many must wonder whether it is possible to retreat from the machinations of the world for an extended period.

Think about it. Peace remains elusive in Ukraine. Israeli bombing of Gaza has resumed followed by internecine conflicts within Hamas.  The Oval Office seems that it will be as chaotic as Trump’s first sortie. Not only do we have economic chaos through the implementation of a tsunami of tariffs, but we also have a genuine scandal concerning the integrity and secrecy of the formation of foreign policy in Washington. The Pope, remarkably restored from his recent health crisis, has enough oxygen in his bedside cylinders  to enter the political fray having widely condemned President Trump for his slashing of foreign aid programmes. Putin murmurs about World War 3. Iran seethes. Syria stumbles to an unknown future. North Korea is North Korea. Calamitous earthquakes in Myanmar. Yemen, Sudan, and the Congo continue to politically implode.

France has had another political seizure with its perennial Presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, found guilty of an embezzlement charge, with her sanction preventing her from running in the 2027 French Presidential elections. Stand by for the appeals to begin. Le Pen claims she is the victim of a judicial conspiracy, reprising Donald Trump's defiance and contempt for his convictions.

Amongst the storm clouds, a remarkable sunbeam of achievement. The International Olympic Committee has captured the prism of Donald Trump’s loathed ‘DEI’ by appointing their first female President who is also the first person from Africa to hold the role.  In what must be the only positive news to emerge from Zimbabwe for decades, Kirsty Coventry, a dual Olympic swimming champion, will assume the role in June. Coventry is also the youngest person to assume the role.

Many could say that being the Sports Minister of the despotic regime of Emmerson Mnangagwa will perfectly prepare her for the clandestine world of IOC politics. After all she received US $100,000 in cash, delivered from reviled former President Robert Mugabe in a suitcase, following her success at the Beijing Olympics. Rumours about similar payments being made by cities to secure favour from the IOC to host an Olympic Games were common in the days when hosting an Olympics was seen as a incomparable prize.  As Australia’s Brisbane has realised hosting an Olympics is remarkably expensive and comes with no guarantee of profit.

Retreat for too long, however, and you might lose track of the tennis world. The Miami Masters tournament, often called the ‘5th Major’ concluded yesterday after a fortnight of remarkable upsets. In the Men’s  competition,  Medvedev was beaten by an unknown Spainard, Jaume Munar. Rublev lost to an unseeded Belgian, Zizou Bergs. A long forgotten Belgian, David Goffin, defeated second seed Carlos Alcaraz. Top- seeded Zverev lost to Arthur Fils, who then lost to Jakub Mensik. Mensik, from Czechia, was also unseeded. He then defeated third seed Taylor Fritz to reach the final. Who was waiting from him in the final? None other than Novak. Djokovic, now having more Masters matches than any other player, would surely steady the ship and win his elusive 100th title. Not so. Mensik prevailed in two tie-breaker sets to confirm that in the post- Federer/Nadal era, the certitudes are splintering. Come back Sinner! All is forgiven!

The Women’s top order is similarly chaotic. Coco Gauff lost to Magda Linette from Poland. In a spectacular run an unseeded wildcard, Alexanda Eala from the Philippines, defeated Grand Slam champions Ostapenko, Keys and Swiatek, all in straight sets, before falling to Jessica Pegula in the semi-final. Who would have thought that mercurial Sabalenka is now the sturdy benchmark of the Women’s game having defeated Pegula in straight sets in the final.

Around this courtside chaos, the world’s electoral wheels keep turning.

Two significant election campaigns are taking place in comparable Commonwealth countries: Canada and Australia. Canadian voters will use its non-compulsory, ‘first past the post’ voting to elect its next government on 28th April.

A week later on May 3, Australian voters will use its compulsory, full preferential voting system to elect its new government.

In a reflection to the caprice of politics, the fortunes of the incumbent governments in both countries are remarkably different than six months ago.

In Canada, nine years of Justin Trudeau’s government had seemingly worn patience thin. So much so, the ruling Liberal Party replaced Trudeau in recent weeks with Mark Carney, hoping that this might staunch the extent of an expected electoral defeat by Canada’s Conservative party.

No sooner had the Liberals resigned themselves to defeat than Donald Trump announced a round of tariffs on Canadian products complete with mutterings about the need for Canada to become the 51st State of the Union. Instantly, Canadian voters rallied around the new Prime Minister. Canada’s cost of living crisis has become a secondary issue to an arrogant American administration making it worse. The polls now have the Liberals and Conservative recording equal support as Canadians gather around the maple leaf of nationhood Can Carney engineer a great electoral escape?

In Australia, no first-term government has lost office since the Scullin government in 1931. Six months ago, Anthony Albanese’s first-term Labor government appeared, even with its razor thin two-seat majority, destined for re-election. Now, most pundits believe Australians are heading for the twilight zone of minority government. What was the improbable thought of a conservative Liberal-National coalition returning to office is now considered a possibility.

Just as the Scullin government was eviscerated by the repercussions of the Great Depression, the Albanese government has been cornered by electoral angst about a persistent cost of living crisis, fuelled, no pun intended, in part by the government’s energy policy and increasingly unaffordable housing costs.

Last week the government delivered a Federal Budget that aimed to sweeten the thoughts of disaffected voters.

A desperate government announced a shameful spend of $17.5 billion dollars to legislate for a tax cut that will be worth a derisory $5.00 a week to most taxpayers from next year. The government has acknowledged that the national Budget will be most likely in deficit until 2036, with structural debt to raeach close to one and a quarter trillion dollars by 2028/2029.

Why stop there? Further handouts were announced. More subsidised pharmaceutical drugs. More visits to doctors paid in full by the government. Next year Federal government outlays on social security and health will account for 53% of all government expenditure. The runaway costs of social security and health care confirm a greater dependency on the State by an increasing number of individuals.

And don’t forget the two-year freeze on the excise of draught beer! Cirrhosis all round! Don’t worry-the government will pay for your self-induced illness and subsidise your medications!

The response of the Opposition has been equally myopic. The government offers a menial tax cut, cheaper beer, and cheaper medical costs. The Opposition offers cheaper energy through cutting the petroleum excise, lowering gas prices and quarantining gas reserves.

In the season of Easter, the Opposition has resurrected the pitch that Robert Menzies made to the Australian electorate in 1949 when he promised an end to wartime fuel rationing: travel my way and your wallet will be lighter.

For Australian voters, it is an unedifying choice. Both major parties are profligately spending money to secure short-term electoral advantage. The long-term structural costs for the economy are ignored. Both parties are consolidating the view that politics has become a cynical exercise in self-preservation. For them it seems that the only successful appeal that can be made to a cynical electorate is to offer voters money, which the taxpayers, not the government will have to repay as the nation’s interest bill on its debt grows.   

May 3 is the anniversary of the election of the Thatcher government in England in 1979. Rather than Australia’s current election campaign, which appears to be doomed to be an auction of financial chimeras, Margaret Thatcher campaigned on wholesale and permanent change to British society. Her party’s slogan: Don’t Just Hope for a Better Life. Vote for One.

Sadly, whatever the result on May 3, 2025, one suspects most Australians are not convinced better times are ahead. And why would they? All the ingredients for a truly richer nation will be shamefully ignored in the campaign: there will be no debate about declining educational standards and how to restore the credibility and integrity of our university sector, there will be no debate about how to improve the economy’s productivity, there will be no discussion about how to reform the tax system to encourage personal savings, reduce evasion and provide for government services.  

Both parties are blithely committed to billions in defence spending courtesy of the AUKUS agreement, that increasingly seems dubious in its delivery and benefit. Even the Opposition’s commitment to the development of nuclear energy will be relegated amidst the short-term sloganeering.

The election will be a banal ‘battle of the bottom line’ contest.  Many national deficits, not just financial, will ensue. Shrill, negative slogans of abuse and superficial policies are no substitute for necessary and significant structural improvement in the polity. The more we retreat from acknowledging and discussing these realities, the more radical the corrections will be.

In the centenary year of Australians employing compulsory voting, Australians are compelled to make an unedifying, or as one respected political observer described it to me, “an anaemic”, choice. Regrettably, the dreary predictability and paucity of vision displayed by the major political parties compel us to agree with this assessment.