Labor stalwart slams the 'view from Mar-a-Lago'

Former treasurer Wayne Swan told Labor's true believers that the task ahead is about conviction. (AAP: Lukas Coch) Link copiedShareShare articleStatus-quo-shattering political earthquakes are coming in thick and fast these days. A week ago, One Nation won its first lower house seat after defenestrating the Liberal Party from Farrer, a long-standing Coalition stronghold. Today, if some of the pundits are right, Labor could be in for a shock of its own courtesy of a by-election in the Queensland state seat of Stafford. Labor has won the seat at every election since 2001 with the exception of the 2012 Campbell Newman landslide. If Labor loses Stafford to the LNP tonight it will bookend an extraordinary week that has all sides of politics scrambling to come to grips with fast-shifting electoral undercurrents. There's every reason to believe we've entered an intense new phase in Australian politics made acute by the fact the window on the next election opens in 12 to 18 months. Labor and the Coalition are both acutely mindful of One Nation's rise and its determination to take a decisive role in a future conservative government. (ABC News: Matt Roberts) Wayne Swan, the former treasurer and outgoing Labor national secretary — and a Queenslander to boot — is under no illusions that the political contest is heating up. Anthony Albanese's federal dominance — further demonstrated on Thursday by yet another Senate defection to the government courtesy of Tasmania's Tammy Tyrrell — belies the challenges facing social democratic parties from populist movements around the world, he suggests. "Democracy is not just about winning elections," Swan said in a speech to the Chifley Research Centre in Canberra on Friday, after a big week in which the government broke promises it made ahead of last year's election not to hike taxes on asset earnings. The government is now watching carefully for how voters react to the budget changes to capital gains tax, negative gearing and family trusts. For Swan, speaking to Labor true believers, the task ahead is about conviction. "It is about persuasion," he said. "Being in government gives us the platform to persuade the country of the reforms we need." Swan added that "if the public gets a whiff that you are more concerned with your own political preservation than their economic salvation, the consequences are dire". "Not only will they deny you a second chance. They will deny you a second look. That is the standard. Deserving to win means delivering." Near the top of the list of Labor's wiliest threats is Barnaby Joyce. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore) It's not the first time Swan has tried to ring alarm bells about the hubris that can come from a 94-seat majority. "The precise moment you believe you've mastered politics is when politics masters you," Swan wrote in an essay for Chifley last August. But speaking on Friday, Swan was more explicit that now is not the time for "managerial caution". "The parliamentary majority we hold is the largest in 80 years. It is also not protection. The winds of change move quickly in politics, and they have moved against governments much larger and steadier than ours." Swan believes One Nation and the Coalition will split their vote in coming elections, which is a benefit for Labor on a tactical level but "it's not a strategy" for the government. "The populist wave will pass," he said. "These things always do, but they only pass when serious parties have the political courage to ride them out and keep doing the work of governing while the wave breaks over them." Swan's speech — delivered as the UK's Labour party contemplates tearing down Britain's sixth prime minister in less than 10 years amid the surge in support for Nigel Farage's Reform party at recent local elections — is aimed squarely at preparing the government to stare down its freshly motivated opponents on the political right. Near the top of the list of Labor's wiliest threats is Barnaby Joyce. Having recently climbed aboard the freshly restored One Nation jalopy, the former deputy prime minister is enjoying an unexpected late-career purple patch — one that was unthinkable only a few years ago after an altercation with a Canberra planter box. These days, he's gleefully taunting his former political stablemates in the Coalition. Joyce was asked by 7.30's Sarah Ferguson to respond to the opposition leader's budget reply on Thursday, a speech packed with tough talk on immigration and one of the boldest tax policy proposals in a quarter of a century. Did Angus Taylor steal a march on One Nation? "They should acknowledge One Nation policies past, present, and emerging," Joyce said. "I'd like to thank them for basically reading off the One Nation script." It's a cute remark and it reveals how Taylor has already shifted the conversation. Many Liberals, moderates and conservatives alike are delighted by Taylor's promise to dismantle "taxation by stealth" by lifting tax thresholds

Labor stalwart slams the 'view from Mar-a-Lago'

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