The latest debate over Tony Abbott’s religious beliefs and their potential impact on Coalition policy arose from an article by former Federal Treasurer Peter Costello in the Fairfax press on 28 September regarding Abbott’s decision to rule out the re-introduction of individual statutory employment contracts.
Abbott’s decision was consistent with the position taken in the 2010 election when he declared Work Choices “dead, buried and cremated” and an assessment that the current provisions for the making of individual flexibility agreements provide sufficient workplace flexibility.
Why, Costello asks, restrict your options when you are going to be attacked on your workplace relations policies, no matter what you say? Implicitly, he is making the point that the polls are so strong for the Opposition that it does not have to rule options in or out as it did in 2010.
The article is about much more than these short points. It is, in substance, an attack on Abbott’s decision and his economic philosophy, delivered by way of an attack on the National’s Barnaby Joyce and the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), represented by its newly-elected Senator, John Madigan. Costello targets Joyce’s protectionist inclinations and the DLP’s past collectivist policies.
Costello apparently fears that collectivist and protectionist views may have got into Abbott’s head through his past associations with the Catholic-dominated DLP.
By pointing to the large number of Catholics on the Opposition front bench and their past associations with the DLP and/or the Catholic school system, he indicates that his concerns may be more general.
But, as his discussion of Joyce’s Jesuit education shows, the real source of Costello's fears is Catholic Social Teaching.
Costello is well aware of the broad history and basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching on workplace and economic relations, and their inconsistency with the free market fundamentalism espoused by some sections of his party. He is, to be sure, more comfortable in the company of free-marketeers.
There has been a high degree of consensus among Catholics about Catholic Social Teaching on work, workplace rights and economic relations since the seminal articulation of modern Catholic social teaching by Rerum Novarum in 1891. It underpins the thinking of many Catholics from the left to the right of the political spectrum. Social justice is at the heart of that teaching and remains part of the Catholic DNA.
But unanimity across the spectrum should not be confused with action in support of those values. Some Catholic politicians, especially when