You first have to lose an election on principle if you want to win one on principle.

This was how Labor rationalised the miscalculations that led to its “Don’s Party” disappointment in 1969, followed by the 1972 triumph of the “It’s Time” campaign.

Half a century later, the idea of sticking with unpopular policy seems romantic, unthinkable. Principles are not just old-hat in an era of professionalised politics, but absurd.

Swamped by voter-attitude metrics, modern democratic leaders are not leaders in the traditional sense. Rather, they are followers.

Followers of market researchers and media proprietors who disabuse them of ambitious conceits like national leadership, or anything that might tempt them to make changes based on electoral judgment, the national interest, or even ideology.

Still, a few months ago, one starry-eyed fool (to wit, this author) described the looming 2022 federal election as the most important national choice to be put before voters since that 1972 hinge-point.

If it was an invitation to Labor leader Anthony Albanese to paint in bold brushstrokes, he didn’t receive it.

Instead, Labor’s risk-averse policy presentation has largely mirrored the reform-shy government it seeks to replace. This makes for the least policy-divergent choice in the 50 years since 1972.

The 2022 election more closely resembles a velodrome match-sprint where the two riders have almost stopped on the banked section, each terrified of leading off and being overtaken in the final dash for the line.

Whitlam’s re-imagining
The 1972 comparison gets even harder when you look at former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s first month in office.

He promised to establish diplomatic relations with Peking (now Beijing), following his audacious trip to “Red China” in 1971. Imagine this (or any) opposition making a play of similar foreign policy gravity today.

Whitlam’s bold Australian re-imagining, which historian Stuart McIntyre later characterised as “a nationalism attuned to internationalism”, kick-started a lucrative economic co-dependency that has propelled Australian prosperity to this day. Hungry for commodities and services imports, China’s staggering growth has also insulated Australia through global shocks like the Asian Financial Crisis, Global Financial Crisis, and the covid-19 pandemic.

While the Coalition would no doubt have come to it eventually, Whitlam acted without hesitation or American permission. Crucially, he backed his capacity to explain it to the country, despite the danger of being tagged as soft on communism.

Again, leaders taking decisions and then relying on their persuasive powers to win arguments seems fanciful amid the timidity of contemporary politics.

A shot of adrenaline
In those first days, Whitlam also ended conscription, withdrew from Vietnam, granted independence to Papua New Guinea, and set about ratifying long-deferred international conventions on basic labour conditions, racial non-discrimination, and nuclear weapons proliferation.

With his pared back, don’t-frighten-the-horses agenda, Albanese might have less to do over a whole term, and Whitlam was only getting started.

Before his government crashed, Whitlam would end the White Australia Policy, scrap royal honours, appoint the first women’s adviser, reform draconian divorce laws, champion multiculturalism, dramatically ratchet up funding for the arts and humanities, abolish university fees, revive urban development, and more.

To a slumbering post-war Australia, it was a shot of late 20th Century adrenaline and the results were startling. Australian historian Manning Clark described it as the “end of the Ice Age”.

But in 1975, it ended in ignominy. As McIntyre later observed, “the golden age was over”.

History rhyming, not repeating
So far, the case for equivalence between 1972 and 2022 is not obvious, right?

But what if it is not Labor that now represents the radical option but the status quo? What if changing governments offers the safer, more conventional course for nervous voters? As Mark Twain noted, history doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.

Labor’s 1972 manifesto was inspiring, but it was the urgency with which its modernising promise was articulated after 23 years of Coalition rule that had impatient voters energised. The McMahon Coalition government was a no ideas factory in the lead-up to the 1972 election, although it did not exhibit the insidious corrosive streak of its modern-day equivalent.

This is the rhyme. While the 2022 election is not about the magisterial reform possibilities of an incoming government, it is about the urgent need to rescue longstanding governing norms around transparency, accountability, ministerial standards, trust and the honesty, and of course, the viability of the public service.

It is in this critical sense that the two elections might be compared.

Divide and dither
The radicalism absent from Labor’s 2022 manifesto is made up for in the unspoken but no-less transformative erosion of standards by the government. The Coalition is primarily intent on the political dividends of division, on courting the applause of media vassals, religious conservatives, and a populist Nationals rump.

Morrison’s approach can be described as divide and dither.

It finds its expression in the Coalition’s reflexive recourse to politics over policy — frequently at the direct expense of the national interest such as in the weaponisation of climate change and more recently, the attempts to weaken the outward presentation of domestic bipartisanship on national security.

The former is a classic of the genre. Morrison’s hollow embrace of net zero by 2050 ahead of Glasgow last year was greeted by political insiders as a triumph of prime ministerial skill, when all it really did was expose how utterly pointless the Coalition’s decade-long negation had been.

Moreover, it brought no revision to interim targets nor adjusted any other policy architecture.

Its real aim — in which it was successful — was the neutralisation of a Coalition stance that had morphed into a clear electoral negative.

The latter, national security, was tickled along last Friday in Defence Minister Peter Dutton’s ultra-earnest press conference transparently called to (re)frighten voters about a Chinese “warship” that was “hugging” Australia’s north-western coast at a distance of 400 kilometres.

Manufactured wars and textimonials
Divide and dither revels in manufactured culture wars over transgender teens and identity politics, fumes about supposed attacks on faith, and white-ants efforts to build support for a First Nations Voice in the Constitution.

Witness the government’s pillorying responses to anti-discrimination campaigners with dismissive throw-aways like “all lives matter”.

Divide and dither’s existence was spectacularly laid bare in a series of explosive “textimonials” regarding Morrison’s character from his own colleagues — people much closer to him than voters, including Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. These described him variously as a “hypocrite and a liar”. A New South Wales Liberal senator called him a “bully with no moral compass”.

It’s there, too, in the vicious campaigns against “fake” independent women – simply for standing for office. In a democracy.

The Liberals’ refusal to acknowledge and address female under-representation has invited the very rebellion it now faces from high-calibre female candidates in safe Liberal seats.

The overall impression is of a government shamelessly enabled by a pseudo-independent media that makes no serious attempt to govern for all Australians.

No change means no consequences
In light of these multiple failures, in opting for no change, Australian voters would be saying there is no cost for governing like this.

The Coalition’s take-out would be — keep misleading and pork-barrelling and fomenting useless culture wars.

Keep stacking boards and cutting taxes for the rich and emaciating the public service. Keep denying an anti-corruption commission even as its need becomes ever-more pressing.

Psychologists would call such a verdict “learned helplessness” — an acceptance that such corruptions are inevitable, and no more than we deserve.

Accountable government, national unity, evidence-based policy, and democratic accountability are all on the ballot at this election.

It is not 1972, but the choice might be equally stark, despite Labor’s timidity.

Dr Mark Kenny, is professor at the Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When Australians go to the polls on Saturday to elect a new government, the vast continent which was stolen from the indigenous people in 1788 and annexed to the British crown may have its “independent day” — not one that would declare itself a republic, but a day when independent members of Parliament may hold the balance of power in the lower house in Canberra.

In February this year, the founder of Climate 200 Simon Holmes à Court — son of Australia’s first billionaire Robert Holmes à Court — in an address to the Canberra Press Club said that independents hold considerable sway in some seats, and they will provide a tough challenge to the two major parties in Australian politics — Labour (ALP) and Liberal-National (LNP) — in the forthcoming federal elections.

He added that they have gathered a $7 million (US$4.9 million) war chest to fix Australia’s “broken” political system.

“As we approach this upcoming election, the Australian political system is broken. That’s the problem. That’s why we are here today,” he told a packed press club in the national capital adding that Australians have had a “gutful” of politics.

“Engaged Australians are deeply frustrated that we are not making progress on the issues that matter … We are frustrated that so often our government is found to be either lying or incompetent, sometimes both,” he said.

“We have a government more interested in winning elections than improving our great nation. A government that seeks power, without purpose.

“We are frustrated about climate and action. We are frustrated about corruption in politics. We are frustrated about the treatment and safety of women.”

Looking over their shoulders
As the election campaign approaches its final stretch, politicians from both parties are looking over their shoulders at independent candidates who are challenging them in some crucial seats.

The Liberal Party of Prime Minister Scott Morrison is more worried than his opposition counterpart, the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Polling indicates that some blue-ribbon Liberal (governing LNP is a coalition of Liberal and National parties) seats could fall to popular local independent candidates and may result in a hung Parliament when the results of the elections are out by the early morning of May 22.

Liberals got a taste of things to come at a New South Wales (NSW) state byelection in February when voters in the heart of Sydney Northshore (which is a bastion of conservative politics) seat of Willoughby chose a replacement for the former Premier of the state, the hugely popular Gladys Berejiklian, who was forced to resign under corruption allegations.

She last won the seat with a hefty margin of 21 percent but there was a swing of 19 percent against the Liberal candidate who very narrowly won the seat via postal votes. The successful Independent candidate Larrisa Penn ran her campaign with very little funding.

Holmes à Court’s environmental organisation has been providing funds to a chain of candidates around the country, but he says that Climate 200 is not a political party and the candidates they give money to do not have a common political platform.

He also added that they give them money if they ask for it and give them advice on campaign tactics if they seek it. However, most independents are funded with donations from ordinary Australians who want to see systematic political change in Australia.

“These candidates don’t need to go into politics to be successful because they are already successful,” he told the press gallery.

“They are business owners, doctors, lawyers, journalists, and athletes. They are in it for the right reasons.”

Community advocacy group
In the Melbourne seat of Kooyong, held by Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, local independent Professor Monique Ryan, the head of neurology at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, who was endorsed by the community advocacy group Voices of Kooyong to stand in the seat is being given a good chance of unseating the government heavyweight.

“A genuine contest between two smart people to represent a smart, engaged electorate should make for good politics. Instead, the Kooyong campaign has turned rancid, as Ryan and her principal backer, Simon Holmes à Court, can almost touch an unlikely prize and Frydenberg, a potential future prime minister, can see his political career fading to black” observed Melbourne Age’s chief political reporter Chip Le Grand.

Professor Ryan is one of 21 “Voices of” candidates to have announced their run for a lower house seat for the 2022 federal election, and political analysts believe that in at least 5 Liberal-held seats in Victoria and NSW they stand a good chance of toppling the sitting candidate.

“The grassroots campaigns have attracted tens of thousands of people across Australia, many of whom have never volunteered for a political cause before,” noted Guardian Australia’s Calla Wahlquist. “Government MPs are feeling the pressure.”

The Seven Network claimed last week that PM Morrison had become “hysterical” about the independent challenge. It pointed out that he had started to hammer out a key campaign theme in media interviews and speeches claiming that independents in Parliament would threaten Australia’s economic stability and national security.

“The allegation by the prime minister … that independent parliamentarians and candidates are a threat to Australia’s security is a shameful slur on decent people exercising their democratic right to stand for election,” Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie said in a statement broadcast on Seven Network.

“It’s also symptomatic of a government becoming increasingly hysterical at the realisation it’s out of step with a great many Australians.” Wilkie pointed out that some crossbenchers, such as himself, had served in the defence and intelligence services and it was “outrageous” for the prime minister to criticise them.

Encouraged voting for independents
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was toppled in a party-room coup by Morrison in 2018 is encouraging Australians to vote for independents whom he calls “small-l Liberals” that are trying to save the liberal values he once espoused.

He says the party is now being taken over by climatic change deniers supported by Rupert Murdoch’s media in Australia such as Sky News, which has given ample coverage to Morrison’s “independents being a national security threat’’ argument.

Well-known election analyst Malcolm Mackerras predicts that the May 21 elections would result in a hung Parliament with both ALP and LNP dependent on 6-8 independent MPs to form a government.

The preferential voting system in the lower house of the Australian Parliament has resulted in favouring a two-party system, but he believes it is due for reform and voters would deliver it. It is compulsory for Australians to vote in elections.

Independents supported by Climate 200 are called “teal candidates” because they use colour in their campaign material which is a merger between green and blue.

“The teal independents are speaking directly to moderate Liberal constituents who are frustrated with the (blue) Liberal Party’s positioning on social and environmental issues” argues Amy Nethery, senior lecturer in politics and policy studies at Deakin University.

“While these same voters may never vote Labour or Greens, many are alienated by Morrison and his government, particularly on climate change and women’s issues.”

Many candidates are women
She points out that it is significant that 19 of the 22 Climate 200 supported candidates are women.

“All of whom have had highly successful careers in their own right. High-profile candidates include Ryan (Kooyong), a professor and head of neurology at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Zoe Daniel (Goldstein) a former ABC foreign correspondent, and Allegra Spender (Wentworth) the chief executive of the Australian Business and Community Network,” noted Nethery writing in The Conversation.

“The teal independents are not political staffers taking the next step towards inevitable political careers. These are professional women making a radical sideways leap because, they say, this is what the times require. It’s a compelling story.”

Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sydney-based IDP-InDepth News Southeast Asia director, the flagship agency of the nonprofit International Press Syndicate. He is currently in Suva. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The bell has been rung, the shadow campaign is now official, and Australia heads to the polls on May 21. As the government enters caretaker mode, Australia enters a highly consequential period of democratic deliberation, but not for the reasons you might think.

It suits politicians — and many in the media — to portray a federal election as a grand job application process in which voters comprise the selection panel. But that’s really only half the story.

Political commentator Sean Kelly has written a convincing book on how Scott Morrison turned the 2019 election into a choice between him and the then Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

Morrison won when Australians were more attracted to his persona than that of his opponent. Policy played a small part, notably when bold proposals on the Labor side became a lightening rod for fear.

This time around we are again likely to see a focus on leadership eclipse policy debate. Morrison enters this campaign behind in the polls and as an unusually unpopular prime minister, but with an unshakeable faith he can turn it around.

Labor knows Morrison is on the nose, and will be perfectly happy to cast the election to a referendum on their leader Anthony Albanese versus an unpopular PM.

If we let this happen it will be a poor outcome, no matter who wins. The great drawback of democracy is that while voters get to decide who forms government, we have little power to set the agenda.

Wasting a precious chance
Yet if we can’t have a proper policy debate during a campaign, we waste a precious chance to talk about the things that matter most to us.

The US journalism academic Jay Rosen takes a keen interest in Australian media. For for many years, he has been critical of Australian media’s over-reliance on polls and tendency to treat covering politics like calling a horse race.

Rosen says this means the media allows the politicians to decide what gets talked about. Important topics get neglected as the spin-doctors steer the discussion to narrow areas where they think their party might have an advantage.

With this in mind, The Conversation is determined to cover this election differently. We are going to talk about what what matters most to us — the policies that affect our lives and the future of the planet.

As a first step, we are going to set our own citizens’ policy agenda in collaboration with our readers. Please help us by filling out our #SetTheAgenda poll.

Once we know more about what you’d like to see on the agenda, we will report back on what you’ve said and tap into the deep expertise of the thousands of academic experts who write for The Conversation.

We will bring you coverage with a clear focus on the major problems we face as a society, and try to provide evidence-based solutions that the experts think could actually work.

Final ingredient
The final ingredient is the best coverage of the politics of the campaign from one of Australia’s most respected political correspondents, Michelle Grattan, backed up by the economic nous and insight of Peter Martin.

Michelle will be writing regularly throughout the campaign and you can subscribe to her politics podcast for in-depth interviews and informed commentary

We’re also bringing back the much-loved ABC radio presenter Jon Faine for Below the Line, an election podcast with political scientists Anika Gauja and Simon Jackman from the University of Sydney and La Trobe University’s Andrea Carson.

As always, we will do everything in our power to be evidence-led and non-partisan. In a media environment manipulated by vested interests and saturated with opinions, we are committed to covering issues chosen by you and hosting a genuine debate that focuses on the public interest.

Please take advantage of this opportunity to have your say and contribute to our efforts to ensure the democratic discussion is calm, compassionate, accountable and fair.

Misha Ketchell is editor and and executive director, The Conversation. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ Pacific

Tuvalu’s Prime Minister has condemned the Australian Prime Minister’s conduct at last week’s Pacific Islands Forum, calling Scott Morrison’s attitude “unfortunate” and “neo-colonial,” and questioning Australia’s future in the 18-member body.

In an interview with RNZ on Sunday, Enele Sopoaga also threatened to pull Tuvaluan labour from Australia’s seasonal worker programme in light of comments by Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, who was recorded saying people from Pacific countries threatened by climate change – like Tuvalu – would survive because “many of their workers come here and pick our fruit”.

Australia’s High Commissioner to Tuvalu would be summoned to explain the comments on Monday, Sopoaga said, and he would cancel the programme if he wasn’t satisfied. He would also encourage the leaders of the other Pacific countries – including Kiribati, Samoa and Tonga – to do the same.

READ MORE: ‘Bullying’ Australia disregards Pacific over climate crisis, says 350 Pacific

“I thought the Australian labour scheme was determined on mutual respect, that Australia was also benefiting,” said Sopoaga. “We are not crawling below that. If that’s the view of the government, then I would have no hesitation in pulling back the Tuvaluan people as from tomorrow.”

“I don’t think the Tuvaluan people are paupers to come crawling under that type of very abusive and offensive language,” he said. “If New Zealand is thinking the same way, we’ll have no other option but to do that [there too].”

McCormack’s comments came after the region’s leaders – including Sopoaga, Morrison and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – met for a marathon 12 hours on Tuvalu’s main island, Funafuti, on Thursday with Australia, the region’s largest economy and emitter, pitted against the Pacific.

The Pacific countries wanted strict commitments to cutting down greenhouse gas emissions, a phase out of coal power stations, support in replenishing the UN’s Green Climate Fund and a strong and united communique that they could take to international climate talks at the UN next month.

But Australia refused to budge on certain red lines, which included insisting on the removal of mentions of coal, a commitment to limit global warming to under 1.5C and drafting a plan for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

It succeeded. Late on Thursday night, a watered-down communique was released, although some are now questioning at what cost.

Australia is meant to be in the midst of a so-called “step-up” in the Pacific, and Morrison came to the meeting stressing the vuvale (family links) between Australia and the region as Canberra gets increasingly jittery about China’s presence.

Pacific trip-up
But if the reaction from the region’s leaders in the past few days has been anything to go by, the step-up has tripped and tumbled some way down the stairs.

Vanuatu’s foreign minister, Ralph Regenvanu, described the meeting as “tense” and “very frank,” revealing that the talks almost broke down twice.

Marshall Islands Foreign Minister David Paul tweeted “Stepping-up means showing up. It means showing you are willing to play your own part in fighting the greatest threat to the Pacific and to the world.” That was later followed by: “The Pacific’s survival – and the Australian fruit industry – requires leadership on the greatest threat to our region and to the world.”

But the most cutting criticism was from Fiji’s Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama, who said on Saturday that Australia had taken a “big step backwards” in its relationship with the Pacific. That came after he told The Guardian on Friday that Morrison’s approach during Thursday’s meeting was “very insulting and condescending.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

Wording has played a crucial role in a reportedly “fierce” Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu with Australia allegedly managing to alter documental terms to downplay its commitment to climate change mitigation.

According to RNZ Pacific, a communiqué and separate statement on climate change was released after a 12-hour meeting between the leaders yesterday.

The document, released after midnight, included what’s titled the ‘Funafuti Declaration for Urgent Climate Change Action Now”.

READ MORE: Tongan PM blasts Pacific regionalism ‘myth’ and silence over West Papua

The main communiqué endorsed a declaration from the small island states calling for a commitment to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius, an immediate phase out of coal, and contributions to the UN Green Climate Fund.

While Australia was a qualification and did not endorse the main communiqué it did endorse the separate statement which committed countries to work in solidarity to combat climate change, reports RNZ.

However, Australia which is the largest coal exporter in the world managed to have all references to coal removed from the documentation.

While the Guardian had reported that Scott Morrison’s government was pushing for the words climate change “crisis” to be changed to “reality” in the draft communiqué, it remained in the final document.

Nevertheless, Australia’s Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, said Scott Morrison was undermining vital relationships in the Pacific.

“The reality is that Pacific Island nations, Pacific leaders have made it clear they don’t trust the Morrison government when it comes to climate change. They don’t trust them because the Morrison government has failed to act on climate change.”

Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama was not happy with the result of the forum, saying the leaders had settled for the status quo.

“Watered-down climate language has real consequences — like water-logged homes, schools, communities, and ancestral burial grounds,” he said.

Opposition leader of the Solomon Islands, Matthew Wale, said the forum was a missed opportunity to really “step up”.

“‘Family’, has been exploited for domestic Australian politics,” he said, referencing the term Scott Morrison had used in his speech at the forum.

Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga was more diplomatic, saying: “I think the outcome is a very good outcome, it’s probably the best outcome given the context and circumstances.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised for her commitment to climate change at the forum.

This week she announced $150 million Pacific climate funding and reiterating New Zealand’s commitment to reducing emissions, citing the goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2035.

While she has said Scott Morrison’s government “has to answer on the Pacific”, she stopped short of calling for Australia to transition out of coal, reports The Guardian.

“Issues around Australia’s domestic policy are issues for Australia,” she said, when asked about Australia’s coal use.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

Both the Australian and New Zealand governments have pledged to continue and increase financial aid to the Solomon Islands.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that Australia will pledge A$250 million in aid.

He made the announcement in Honiara during his first post-election overseas trip.

READ MORE: Chinese influence in the Pacific prompts high-level meetings

The money will finance a range of projects over 10 years and will complement the A$2 billion infrastructure fund Morrison has established for the Pacific, reports the Solomon Times.

The funding will also be used to develop new government buildings including the Prime Minister’s office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Australian government will provide loans worth almost A$3 million to temporary workers from Solomon Islands who want to come to Australia under labour mobility schemes, reports ABC News.

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has renewed his government’s continuous aid to the Solomon Islands.

New Zealand aid
During a visit to meet with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, Winston Peters reiterated the New Zealand government’s support to the country’s economy in sectors like aviation, tourism, fisheries, agriculture and labour mobility, reports RNZ Pacific.

However, there have been suggestions that the moves from both Australia and New Zealand are motivated by China’s increasing influence in the region.

Last week the Solomon Times reported that China was attempting to persuade the Solomon Islands government to cuts ties to traditional ally Taiwan and sign up to China’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative.

However, according to SBS news, Scott Morrison has downplayed China as a reason for closer ties with the Solomon Islands.

“We have got to be careful not to see what are ongoing and upgrading relationships here for Australia and the Pacific through those binary terms of the United States and China,” Morrison said.

“They have their interests in the region, as do others.

“Our relationship with the Solomon Islands, our relationship with the Pacific, transcends all of that.”

Diplomatic relations
This was echoed by Winston Peters who said it was up to the Solomon Islands to decide on its foreign diplomatic relations.

He hoped that any decision would reflect the long term interests of the Solomon Islands’ values and Pacific values, reports RNZ Pacific.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare made similar comments.

“Diplomatic relations are a sovereign decision,” Sogavare said.

“Solomon Islands foreign policy has always been premised on the principle of ‘friend to all and enemy to none.”

Solomon Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Jeremiah Manele said that his government felt no pressure to switch allegiances and would make a “comprehensive assessment of the issue,” reports RNZ Pacific.

Manele said a decision would be made in the next 100 days.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Ian Kaukui in Honiara

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has arrived in Solomon Islands on a two-day state visit.

His trip to Honiara marks his first overseas trip since being elected in the May 18 federal election.

For Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, Morrison is his first overseas counterpart to officially visit him.

READ MORE: Morrison receives warm welcome in Solomons as he pushes Pacific ‘step-up’

The last Australian Prime Minister to visit Honiara was Kevin Rudd in 2008.

Morrison touched down at the Honiara International Airport at 5.20pm yesterday to a colourful welcome.

His party was greeted on arrival by Prime Minister Sogavare, his wife Madam Emmy Sogavare, Foreign Affairs Minister Jeremiah Manele and other top government officials.

After being welcomed and garlanded, Morrison then inspected a guard of honour on the tarmac.

Bilateral talks
Both prime ministers will hold bilateral talks later today.

A highlight is expected to be discuss about China’s presence in the region.

Other issues at the top of agenda will be climate change, labour mobility and ongoing Australian support to Solomon Islands.

Morrison has also announced a financial package to support Solomon Islands workers getting employment in Australia over three years.

Prime Minister Morrison will also meet with the Solomon Islands Football Federation (SIFF) president William Lai today to look at ways that Australia can assist the country in football.

It is understood Morrison will also meet with former Prime Minister Rick Hou today.

One of the major projects being supported by the Australian government is the the undersea cable which is set to be completed and is due to be launched September.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Marija Taflaga of the Australian National University in Canberra

The man that has “always believed in miracles” has just delivered one for the Liberal party.

It’s not clear at the time of writing if the government will have minority or a narrow majority. But it is a deafening defeat for Labor.

This election result is an extraordinary achievement by a man that has doggedly presented himself as the ordinary, suburban dad.

READ MORE: The Junction student journalism coverage of the Australian federal election

Morrison — a man we are still just getting to know — was triumphant as he addressed a rapturous crowd.

It was an uncomplicated victory speech. He told us that Australia was a great country, thanked his family and — finally — his party for their roles in running a ruthlessly disciplined campaign and, promised to get back to work for the “quiet Australians”.

This is the most presidential campaign run by a single party in Australian history, pitted against the biggest policy target since John Hewson’s Fightback!. What really made this election singular was the impact of a quarter of voters preferring minor parties as their first preference.

At the beginning of the campaign, the task of defending so many safe seats from an insurgence of would-be liberal independents seemed overwhelmingly difficult. It would leave too many marginal seats under resourced to defend what has been an unpopular government, riven by infighting.

Negative campaign
Voters always say that they hate negative campaigns. But they work. Morrison deftly crafted his negative message around the unpopularity of Bill Shorten and the risk he posed to the “promise of Australia”.

Morrison has a gift for easy simplification. To give just one example, he framed the complex franking credits issue into the “retirement tax” scare.

At the same time, Morrison smoothed out this overwhelmingly negative campaign, and rounded out his previous public image as aggressive and shouty, by showing himself to be just another dad in the suburbs.

This is Morrison’s victory, and he will forever be a Liberal hero.

What do the Liberals want to do with three more years of power? By the campaign’s end, it remained a question without a detailed answer. And it is still the most important question.

By delivering a result most thought improbable, Morrison’s personal authority will be titanic within the Liberal party. It is not clear what the government’s agenda is beyond their tax plan. There remain several pressing policy questions particularly around climate and energy.

The government does not have a mandate to act in these policy domains and these are issues that are difficult internally for the Coalition.

Competing political traditions
Much is made of ideology within the Liberal Party. It is often presented as the factor that explains the party’s internal woes — and for good reason. The fusion of Australia’s Liberal and Conservative forces in 1909 mashed together what were previously two competing political traditions. They’ve had to co-exist ever since.

But ideological conflict within the liberal party is the symptom. The cause is that the party lacks effective institutional mechanisms to safely and semi-publicly debate ideas.

This also applies to how debates are undertaken. What are the formal rules about who, where and when party members can speak? Just as important are the informal norms around what can be said and in what context.

The Liberal party has traditionally relied on strong leaders to embody and articulate what it stands for. Successful leaders in the Liberal Party (like other conservative parties in Westminster systems) are dominant, but also deft enough to allow sufficient breathing room for their factional rivals.

More importantly, being a proven winner counts for a lot. With this victory, Morrison now has the opportunity to transform himself into precisely this kind of leader.

Liberal leaders’ dominance is reinforced by the way the party machine (but less so its members) has contented itself with setting out broad policy principles. This leaves the parliamentary Liberal party plenty of scope to interpret the political landscape and best position the party for electoral victory.

In the past, the Liberal Party’s links with civil society were strong. It had a healthy branch structure and was embedded in the lives of its core constituents. Today, the average age of its members is around 70, and the decline in party membership means that parties are no longer a key democratic link between representatives and voters.

More independent
This ultimately makes leaders more independent of their parties. We’ve seen this trend borne out in Australian parties over many decades, and particularly in Morrison’s campaign.

Finally, the Liberals have famously rejected formally recognised and organised factions. But in doing so, the party has also given up a tool for organising ideological interests and debates.

It’s hard to have both open and robust debate, and a dominant leader. Open debate is very quickly interpreted as dissent or “open revolt” by outside observers. It is even more challenging in government when discipline matters more and dissent is reported by the media as a failure of leadership.

As the party room has declined as a site of robust debate, the Liberal party’s primary mechanism for dealing with difficult ideological debates is leadership change. It is no accident that this party has been unable to resolve its internal debate on climate change, and has had six leaders in 12 years.

Climate change is so potent a debate within the coalition because it is really about changing the relationship between government, economy and citizens. How this ought – whether it ought – to be accomplished calls into question core assumptions about the role of the state and Australia’s sources of prosperity that have traditionally bound together the “broad church” of the Liberal party.

To be clear, the Liberal party has governed successfully under multiple leaders over decades by putting their faith in the leader to listen, but to ultimately set the course. This formula works when leaders’ authority is high. We should also never underestimate that simply keeping Labor out is sufficient reason for government for the conservative side of politics. At its simplest, their politics is one of incremental change, sound finance and fending off the “radicalism” of Labor.

Proven winner
Morrison is a proven winner and now has the chance to exercise his personal authority. He will need to address climate policy, because business wants a price signal for carbon emissions. He may follow in the footsteps of another giant of the Liberal Party, Robert Menzies, and poach some of Labor’s more compelling ideas, refashioning them through a Liberal lens.

While questions of the party’s ideology are important, the truth is, the party has always had to navigate tensions between its Liberal and Conservative traditions. This debate has never been settled and it is foolish to suggest that it ever would be.

The more pressing questions relate to how it will govern and win the next election. Over the long term, the party should really be asking how it will seek to renew itself, both in terms of ideas and candidates.

This win should not be an excuse for ongoing organisational drift and complacency.

Marija Taflaga, Lecturer, School of Political Science and International Relations, Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz