When Alfred Deakin first took the reigns of the federal government in 1903, it was an unsustainable mass of shifting instability - Free Traders, Liberal Protectionists and Labourites variously working together or at each other's throats, giving or withdrawing support for Prime Ministers depending on the issue.
Many of the problems he grappled with are remarkably similar to the ones we struggle with today. Australia had immense wealth from primary industry exports, but a vulnerable and uncompetitive manufacturing sector that left workers insecure and exposed. It was worried about its borders, and sought protection from a great power to stave off perceived threats from its neighbours to the north (first Russia then, after 1905, Japan).
Over the next eight years, until he formed Australia's first majority federal government, Deakin governed in different stints with the support of both socialist and anti-socialist forces. The compromises he struck in this time crafted what Paul Kelly called the settlement - broad principles that defined the country that most Australians wanted to live in, and ultimately solidified the two-party system along socialist and anti-socialist lines. He gave Australia stability, and laid a commonly-accepted framework that ensured both sides of politics largely worked to build on each other's achievements rather than simply tear them down.
With the problems we currently face, and the political instability we have dealt with across the spectrum for the last ten years, I wonder if the time has come for a new settlement. Hawke and Keating finally dismantled the Deakinite principles, but left us with the parties. Every election, every internal squabble, seems to show that the simple socialist/anti-socialist divide is no longer relevant or effective for cooperatively building the Australia that its people want to live in.
I sometimes wonder what partnerships across the spectrum Deakin would see in our current political landscape - and how he might use those to build a new set of common principles, and perhaps engineer a new fault-line in Australian politics. Some have cited issues like climate change and the environment, but this seems a bit overly optimistic to me - stable political divides have usually been wedded to peoples' more immediate economic interests. Protectionism seems to be making a comeback around the world, but that seems more backward- than forward-thinking.
I'd be interested in the thoughts of other would-be Deakins. What is the primary contest of ideas that you think will unite each side of politics, and help Australia to grow and improve for the next 50 or 100 years? Still socialism vs anti-socialism, or something else?
If you were to devise a new set of pillars for a new settlement, that would draw broad acceptance across both sides of politics and right across the population, what do you think they could be?
Many of the problems he grappled with are remarkably similar to the ones we struggle with today. Australia had immense wealth from primary industry exports, but a vulnerable and uncompetitive manufacturing sector that left workers insecure and exposed. It was worried about its borders, and sought protection from a great power to stave off perceived threats from its neighbours to the north (first Russia then, after 1905, Japan).
Over the next eight years, until he formed Australia's first majority federal government, Deakin governed in different stints with the support of both socialist and anti-socialist forces. The compromises he struck in this time crafted what Paul Kelly called the settlement - broad principles that defined the country that most Australians wanted to live in, and ultimately solidified the two-party system along socialist and anti-socialist lines. He gave Australia stability, and laid a commonly-accepted framework that ensured both sides of politics largely worked to build on each other's achievements rather than simply tear them down.
With the problems we currently face, and the political instability we have dealt with across the spectrum for the last ten years, I wonder if the time has come for a new settlement. Hawke and Keating finally dismantled the Deakinite principles, but left us with the parties. Every election, every internal squabble, seems to show that the simple socialist/anti-socialist divide is no longer relevant or effective for cooperatively building the Australia that its people want to live in.
I sometimes wonder what partnerships across the spectrum Deakin would see in our current political landscape - and how he might use those to build a new set of common principles, and perhaps engineer a new fault-line in Australian politics. Some have cited issues like climate change and the environment, but this seems a bit overly optimistic to me - stable political divides have usually been wedded to peoples' more immediate economic interests. Protectionism seems to be making a comeback around the world, but that seems more backward- than forward-thinking.
I'd be interested in the thoughts of other would-be Deakins. What is the primary contest of ideas that you think will unite each side of politics, and help Australia to grow and improve for the next 50 or 100 years? Still socialism vs anti-socialism, or something else?
If you were to devise a new set of pillars for a new settlement, that would draw broad acceptance across both sides of politics and right across the population, what do you think they could be?
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