Copy link Copied Copy link Copied Subscribe to gift this article Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Already a subscriber? Login Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has unambiguously embraced a vision that involves a bigger role for government in Australia during his first term in office. From market interventions and tightening merger controls to his signature bet on turning Australia into a renewable energy superpower , Albanese has been unafraid of putting government at the heart of the economy while also rebuilding the public service with thousands of new employees.
For a Coalition more comfortable with the idea of small government – at least in rhetoric if not always in practice – his pitch to Australians is a point of difference and an opportunity to have a fight on familiar ground. Labor’s plan for Australia involves a much bigger role for government. David Rowe There are risks on both sides.
For Labor, the risk is being painted as a bigger spending government that plunged the budget back into a structural deficit that only gets worse , with the only way to fix it being through higher taxes. It’s a trope that has proven successful in the past, but that was before the big spending years of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the post-pandemic world where many Australians expect government to solve society’s issues, the risk for the Coalition is its small government pitch could fall short of people’s great expectations.
Voters could also fin.
