Australian liberalism: ideas from across the political spectrum

For example, what was actually achieved by a recent blog by Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian (September 7, 2008) when she mocked the New South Wales Labor government and Liberal Party for their decision not to support the privatisation of NSW electricity in line with public anger?

While Albrechtsen notes that the business sector wanted the privatisation and the trade unions did not, as if they both or either ran NSW, it may well be that the NSW public opposed the sale due to a belief that governments should not simply sell off utilities or anything else to find enough resources to meet various policy needs.

So let us have the debates between those who support less or greater government intervention in regard to different issues, whether it be on the Internet, newspapers or electronic media, as we can never rely on political leaders or biased individual arguments alone to provide the answers.

In truth, a sophisticated economic, social and environmental policy mix will only emerge from extensive debate that will help voters adopt their own eclectic policy mix: best served by a political party or independent also reflecting such diverse policy needs.

After all, the reality is that all Western societies remain mixed economies with government intervention an important feature as the OECD average for government outlays changed little between 1993 and 2006 from 42.9 to 40.6 per cent of GDP, although some nations reduced their level dramatically led by Sweden from 72.4 to 56.7 per cent.

If Labor and the Coalition were not to make every effort to balance and address a variety of economic, social and environmental policy needs, then they will struggle to collectively maintain more than 80 per cent of the primary vote in elections, as has been evident in recent decades.

While there are important reasons why Australian governments adopted the economic reforms they did during recent decades - as measures were adopted to promote the private sector and attract important investment - no one should make the false assumption that the general public has supported less government intervention, as evident by record Commonwealth spending towards various social welfare needs.

The validity of a variety of arguments from across the political spectrum remains, notwithstanding the eclectic views of individuals. Hence, Australian political leadership will long need to reflect this reality. If not, then we run the risk of being a divided nation somewhat incapable of dealing with complex issues.