Clive Palmer's world of surprises

14 July 2014

Former BBC Australian correspondent Nick Bryant has just published a book titled The Rise and Fall of Australia: How a great nation lost its way. He documents the Hawke-Keating policy reforms that continued under John Howard. The reforms got us through the GFC, but their impetus didn’t last. For a decade or more, populist politics and vacuous policy have been the norm.

We needed a circuit breaker and got Clive Palmer. He is demonstrating an ability to thwart some of the inequities in the Coalition’s Budget and legislative program. But he appears to stand for policy that is confused and inconsistent and lacking in the depth and long-term vision that is sorely needed. Moreover he is perhaps motivated more by self-interest and vengeance than social inclusion.

On the one hand Palmer is effectively performing the ‘keep the bastards honest’ role that was identified by Don Chipp when he founded the Australian Democrats back in 1977. Palmer is succeeding in his attempt to force the Abbott Government to embrace the tricky challenge of producing legislation that will ensure big business passes on to ordinary Australians the savings it will make from the abolition of the price on carbon. But on the other he plays hardball when there are attempts to scrutinise his own business dealings, as we saw in his instantly famous walk out from Thursday evening’s ABC 7.30 interview.

Palmer is nothing if he’s not a man of surprises. Nobody expected that he would share a platform with Al Gore, advocating action on climate change. We don’t yet know whether this was merely a stunt, or if it will amount to something. If he sets his mind to it, anything is possible, and it might not matter what his motivation is if he is able to make a positive difference. In Twiggy Forrest, we have seen another wealthy and sometimes controversial mining magnate, join forces with world religious leaders including Pope Francis to support a network that aims to end slavery.

It’s unlikely that Palmer will do anything to facilitate the serious policy development that we need, and that is probably the role of others. There’s the recently established Melbourne Economic Forum, which Professors Ross Garnaut and Peter Dawkins are promoting. It aims to bring together leading economists to analyse policy ‘in the public interest’ in a way that is ‘independent of vested interests and partisan political connections’.

But while the Melbourne Forum will advocate

AUSTRALIA

Clive Palmer's world of surprises

Subscriber login