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People trust the policies of politicians they trust

Michael Pascoe

People trust the policies of politicians they trust. Lose that trust and support for difficult policies, for reform, dissipates. Leadership is lost, decaying into mere management of numbers to retain the trappings of power.

So goes the current lesson of NSW and federal politics, of leadership squandered, of trust betrayed.

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Trusting our politicians

Mike Baird has played a key role in making NSW Australia'€™s top performing state, but now it looks like cheap politics is getting in the way of sound economics. Michael Pascoe comments.

Malcolm Turnbull, once the great liberal Liberal hope, is reduced to dealing with One Nation ratbags for minor Senate victories on an ill-conceived backpacker tax while his Attorney-General stands accused of attempting to stop the Solicitor-General from doing his job, of agreeing to or concocting a highly dubious deal to ignore the constitution in order to elevate the interests of a troubled conservative state government above that of the commonwealth and other creditors. 

It's no wonder the coalition is behind in the polls. Betray principles and go the way of Kevin Rudd.

In NSW, I've been a big fan of the economic job Mike Baird has done, first as treasurer and now as premier. He's played a key role in making NSW Australia's top-performing state – the one with the growth, the one with the jobs. He was trusted to get on with his job.

But now cheap politics is getting in the way of sound economics. Political games will end up undermining good economic policy.

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Rather than being recorded as the Growth Premier, as the state's great infrastructure builder, it looks like Baird will go down as the politician who neutered the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

An easy example of the difference that trust makes is the differing paths of recycling government assets – or privatisation – in NSW and Queensland.

The NSW electorate was not inherently more disposed towards privatisation than that of other states, but because the electorate trusted Baird, it was prepared to approve flogging off poles and wires and to go along with the WestConnex model for building and selling freeways.

Baird promised privatisation would deliver more and better infrastructure, so the electorate was prepared to give it a go. NSW Labor's anti-privatisation campaign went nowhere.

Queensland learned not to trust its two previous premiers and thus privatisation there became a no-go area, no matter how much the state needs the money to build infrastructure.

It was an insight of ANU economist Warwick McKibbin that Queenslanders weren't vehemently opposed to privatisation, they just hated Campbell Newman and wanted to be rid of him. He had lost their trust.

Now the NSW electorate has good reason not to trust Baird. Subsequently, his reform days are over.

It is sound economic policy to rationalise NSW's myriad councils of varying quality and notorious NIMBYism, but the electorate was not trusted to know about the policy before the election, its benefits were not explained.

The Kings Cross and Sydney CBD licensed premises lockout laws attract flak but have popular support beyond the vocal minority. A strong premier could carry them. But then the greyhound ban flip-flop became the stuff of a weakened premier.

Just 19 months ago, Baird led Labor's Luke Foley as preferred premier by 56 to 27 per cent. As the greyhound saga unfolded, Foley was in front.

And that was before the Baird government betrayed one of NSW's most successful institutions.

NSW has been the Rum Corps state for two centuries. ICAC has played a massive role in cleaning up the joint, of restoring some faith in government tenders, of straightening a bent police force, of exposing corrupt politicians and those who thought they were above the law.

Keeping a state clean is a constant battle, but Baird has made it harder. A perception that he is giving in to the aggrieved - those who were caught out and their strangely partisan cheer squad in a section of the media - both indicates a weak premier and weakens him further.

It won't matter for the NSW economy right away – momentum is with the state – but it will down the track. The chance of Baird achieving some of the very difficult tax reform we need? Gone.

Oh well, at least NSW will still have some sort of ICAC – the federal Liberal, Labor and National parties aren't game to have any such body. Little wonder there's decreasing public trust in all of them.

And without trust in our politicians, there's unlikely to be trust in their policies.

Elections become not a vote for better leadership, but a desultory coin flip for the less worse. As bad as Australia's minority parties are, that the latest poll gives them a third of the vote is a condemnation of both Turnbull and Labor leader Bill Shorten. 

It's come to this: the best thing going for Turnbull now is the quality of the opposition and the best thing going for Shorten is the quality of the government.

We don't trust them, so there's no mandate for difficult reforms.

With no sign of principles being put first, they are left to scrabble for the position of Less Worse Leader, doing whatever it takes to hang on and, in the process, letting the country go.

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