More is more: The big idea that's inspired Jim Chalmers (huzzah!)
Canberra has been taken by storm by an i dea. The idea is abundance – the notion that scarcity is artificially created. It is described in a book which Treasurer Jim Chalmers referred to at the National Press Club last week. I rather thought that the treasurer might have given up on ideas after the critical reception of his Monthly Essay in the summer of 2023 on 'values-based capitalism'. Endearingly, he has not.
Abundance is the latest from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (the prolific 'et al' to his more famous co-author). Klein's books (he's written one other, without an et al) are interesting, in that they offer the kind of excoriation of progressives and progressivism that can only be delivered by someone who passionately wants both to succeed.
Chalmers' colleague, the honourable Dr Andrew Leigh, MP, recommended the treasurer read Abundance. This column has been quite fond of Leigh, from afar, ever since he took it in his head to deliver a conference key-note address based on Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiment. Cracker speech, cracker text. Donald Trump was elected for the first time that very afternoon, but this column is not implying any causality.
Klein's book has inspired our treasurer. Now 'about half of the federal cabinet has a dog-eared copy on their bed stands', according to Shane Wright's column in this masthead. So obviously I had to read it. The act of a patriot.
Abundance is an extraordinary book. But before I begin to describe it, a word from our treasurer.
Loading
The inspiration he and his team are drawing from Klein (et al) relates to his suggestions on how 'we' (society in general, but the book is specifically aimed at progressives) can get out of 'our' own way and get on with building housing and energy. As Chalmers said at the National Press Club, the vision is to address the supply side of the housing and energy crunches in Australia. That means we need to knock down the obstacles standing in the way of creating more of both.
Which is good to know. Because while creating abundance is the overall theme of Abundance, and housing and energy are areas of focus, there is so much more that I wasn't expecting. Klein (et al) deliver a very tidy description of American politics which translates well to the Australian experience. 'Americans,' they write, referring mainly to Republicans, I assume, 'talk like conservatives but want to be governed like liberals.' They 'like both the rhetoric and reality of low taxes, but they also like the programs taxes fund'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News AU
2 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Senator Pauline Hanson criticises Liberal leader Sussan Ley for Acknowledgment of Country before National Press Club speech
Senator Pauline Hanson has said she was left "disgusted" with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley after her Acknowledgment to Country during a major speech last week. The Liberal leader spoke at the National Press Club on Wednesday, but before she kicked off her address she acknowledged the traditional owners of the land. The party's former leader Peter Dutton had a hard stance on First Nations ceremonies, including the Welcome to Country, saying they had been "overdone" after a number of people booed at a Melbourne Anzac Day dawn service in April. Senator Hanson did not hold back in her assessment of Ms Ley's act. "I was disgusted. Absolutely disgusted with it," she told Sky News' Danica and James. "Because the Liberals, they were the ones that actually opposed the Voice to Parliament. It wasn't just the Liberals that opposed it. It was a lot of people like myself, like Gary Johns, and then you had Barnaby Joyce and you had Jacinta Price." "Because once the public were informed about what it meant and changed in the Constitution, people were better informed and made their decisions about it." The firebrand politician also believes Ms Ley is not the right person to be leading the party as she was a moderate and that a "true conservative" had to replace her. "It's going to be very interesting what happens the next three years under Sussan Ley. I think she will be overthrown before the next election," Senator Hanson added. Earlier, the One Nation leader was asked about a poll from the Institute of Public Affairs which had found 56 per cent of people say Welcome to Country ceremonies are divisive. According to the survey conducted by research firm Dynata, 27 per cent of others questioned said they were unsure and 17 per cent disagreed on the remark. "Every Australian out there that's got a backbone about them and say, 'we're not going to deal with this anymore', turn your back on it as I do every time I'm in parliament and they do a Welcome to Country. I turn my back," Senator Hanon said. She also claimed to have turned her back on the ceremony during her grandson's school's anniversary, saying she is not "going to put up with this rubbish". "It's ridiculous where we're going. It's divisive. More than 56 per cent of the public out there are so over this but they are in fear of being called a bigot or racist," she said. Senator Hanson also praised the Melbourne council worker for standing up against his employer after an Acknowledgment to Country during a toolbox meeting. It was revealed on Thursday Melbourne street sweeper Shaun Turner had won his unfair dismissal case after he was dismissed by Darebin City Council in June. Mr Turner said the use of the Acknowledgment to Country is "getting out of hand". "That council worker, good on him for actually fighting back over it and questioning it. And yet he's lost his job. He's won it in the courts and I hope that they actually apologise to him and offer his job back," Senator Hanson told Sky News.
Sky News AU
3 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Sussan Ley should harness her inner Margaret Thatcher if she wants Aussie women back on side
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley blended autobiography with political reckoning when she delivered her sweeping address this week to the National Press Club. Her remarks and anecdotes were deeply personal, clearly intended to help restore the Liberal Party's damaged credibility after its devastating election defeat. But her speech and earnest manner was also a direct overture to a critical cohort her party had discarded as if we were a one-night stand. That would be Australian women who felt marginalised, taken for granted and in response ultimately showed her predecessor Peter Dutton a metaphorical middle finger on May 3. The question is - will we now listen and will her plea to the nation work? While Mr Dutton distanced himself from the symbolic recognition of indigenous Australians at public functions, Ms Ley has chosen a different path and opened her address with the words: "I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today." Her gesture was loud and clear. To quote Ms Ley as the first woman elected to lead the Liberal party, she absolutely must follow through on this promise. 'I'm not here to speak about milestones or firsts,' she warned the room. 'I'm here to talk about the important work we are going to do over the next three years to rebuild trust with Australians so we're worthy of their support at the next election.' In Canberra on Tuesday, there was certainly some powerful stuff from Ms Ley about how she dug herself out of economic hardship. In a polished and prepared manner, she took the assembled lunch guests back to her 1980s. 'Between graduating from school and becoming - as I described myself - a farmer's wife, I worked my share of the tough jobs,' she said. 'Cleaner, waitress, short order cook … and outback pilot. I was not taken seriously in pilot training. I was nearly always the only woman in the group. 'The privileged boys whose parents bankrolled their lessons attracted more street cred than me. 'I lived in a bedsit under the bridge in Queanbeyan and my clothes were from Vinnie's because every dollar I made went towards flying lessons.' By painting herself as the anti-privilege politician bereft of silver spoons and inner-city elitism, Ms Ley is banking on this narrative cutting through. This is especially among women outside the Teal belt and in the regions - the ones juggling night shifts and school drop-offs, stretching every dollar to cover eye-popping grocery bills or trying to claw their way back into the workforce in their 40s. Ms Ley explained: 'I understand just how tough it can be for those who live a life on the land. 'Balancing the family budget was becoming too hard so I made a decision that many mums have made before (to) get new skills and bring in extra income. 'As I raised my own family I went to university for the first time, aged 30.' Then there was the sting of dismissiveness in blokeish industries, endemic in her generation. 'One male (flying) instructor said 'Why are you doing this? You're no good at it'. I wasn't, to begin with, but that's not the point. 'I was told I couldn't get a crop dusting rating because the chemicals would damage my unborn children. 'I was yelled at, hit on and then ignored. In my early 20s I was working in air traffic control at Sydney airport (as) I wanted to pursue something different. 'I wanted to actually fly. I advertised my recently acquired skills as an aerial mustering pilot in rural newspapers across the country.' She went on to recount the job-hunting hustle including one call to a cashed-up grazier who didn't bother with small talk. First question: 'Can you cook?' followed immediately by: 'What sort of plane do you want?' She said: 'A machinery dealer asked if I was single and mentioned vague extracurricular activities' which got a ripple of laughter in the room. Later changing tack, Ms Ley hit a rare emotional register for a Liberal leader, especially on coercive control in domestic relationships and the threat of violence against women. Ms Ley's candid acknowledgment - 'I understand the fear you feel when you walk alone because I have felt it too' - is the kind of vulnerability that can resonate and long overdue for a party that's struggled to connect with women on this issue. Overall, it was an hour plus speech anchored in lived experience. But I'm wary of terms like existential 'review' and 'reflect and represent modern Australia' which seem like code for soft Left. And a bit of retro sexism will not cut it when the Liberal Party has been promising to 'do better' on female representation for decades and yes it was a relief to hear Ms Ley say she was 'agnostic' on quotas. Politically engaged women - and that is the vast majority of us in 'modern Australia' - want targets and action but based on merit and skills. The impact and style of the late British MP Maggie Thatcher inevitably crops up when analysing an Australian female political leader and with good reason. When she took control of the UK's Conservative Party in 1975, Mrs Thatcher inherited an outfit that had lost not only an election but its sense of purpose. The Tories were drifting, cowed by the Left's narrative and unsure of what they even stood for. Familiar, ain't it just. The Iron Lady, a nickname from a Soviet journalist and one I'm told she loved, didn't seek consensus. Individual responsibility was a passion point for her. Mrs Thatcher smashed it and spoke directly to the people in an uncompromising style which transformed not just her party but her beloved country. Women today aren't voting for inspirational backstories as a type of therapy. We're voting on policies that affect our wallets and families. Get that right Ms Ley and you might find Australian women back on side. Louise Roberts is a journalist and editor who has worked as a TV and radio commentator in Australia, the UK and the US. Louise is a winner of the Peter Ruehl Award for Outstanding Columnist in the NRMA Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism and has been shortlisted in other awards for her opinion work
ABC News
3 hours ago
- ABC News
Turnbull and Kovacic are the latest to weigh in over quotas for women in the Liberals
As the Liberal Party grapples with its spectacular election loss and works out how to rebuild, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is approaching it as if there's a giant sign above her head that screams, "I'm not Peter Dutton". Her speech at the National Press Club this week was loaded with hints that fit this thesis. Even the decision to address the National Press Club itself — a forum Dutton viewed as a space of the Canberra journalistic elite and snubbed consistently — was a signal. She has also flooded the youth and women's podcast space to send the same point. And from the moment she was on her feet at the press club she acknowledged the traditional owners of the land — a sentence that had not only become absent from the Liberal leadership lexicon — it was by the end of the election campaign a full-blown culture war that put even more nails in the Liberal Party's already bolted-in coffin. If you swim in right wing algorithms — especially on X — you'll see that all of these choices by Ley are being mocked as symbols of "Labor Party-light". In the subterranean online world Ley's leadership is being painted as too "woke". Ley's job over the next year is fraught with danger. She might be given a period of brief peace but most Liberals you speak to privately concede that it will be difficult to keep that peace for the entire term. One of those big debates that's just starting to get heated is the issue of women's representation. On this issue you will hear a lot of over the top language. Ley says she will be a zealot for women's representation in the party. Shadow Defence Minister Angus Taylor says he will crusade to have more women elected. Fancy words. But after the two previous elections, leaders said similar things. The issue of gender quotas is the one philosophical and cultural mountain that the Liberal Party has never been prepared to climb. And even by the party's own reckoning, it is failing. Beyond the hard arithmetic of imposing quotas, every other strategy is little more than vibes and positive thinking. Vibes don't get women elected, and if women are not at the table in large numbers Australian voters will continue to turn their backs on the Liberal Party. If everyone agrees with such a passion that the party needs a stampede of women — what's the hold-up? Opposition Defence spokesperson Angus Taylor this week rebuked gender quotas for political parties, a move that was widely regarded as undermining Ley's openness to the idea. Timing is everything in politics and just six weeks earlier Ley and Taylor fought for the Liberal Party leadership. One pitched her credentials as the modern Liberal centrist leader — the other as the centre right cultural figure that could re-engage the existing base. The problem is the existing base is old, white and male. Ley's National Press Club speech featured her claims she would consider quotas if the party's state divisions saw them as the solution to gender equity. Days later Taylor said mentoring and recruitment was a better way to do it, adding that the Labor Party "subverted democracy" with its quota strategy. "I believe in democratic processes, and I don't believe in subverting them, but I also know from my past experiences that mentoring, recruitment support is the way to make sure you have the people you need," Taylor said. "The Labor Party will do things their own way. And they do subvert democracy, and that's a matter for them. At the end of the day, if you're going to have quotas, it means you are going to subvert democratic processes." Subverting democracy? Labor women were lining up to respond. The numbers speak for themselves. Only one-third of Liberal MPs are women. That compares to 56 per cent of Labor MPs who are women. Cabinet Minister Tanya Plibersek told Insiders the Liberals used quotas for Nationals MPs on their frontbench pointing out the contradiction in the tools they use for promotion and representation. "They've got a quota of National Party MPs that have to be on the frontbench," she said. "So they're happy to have quotas for National Party MPs. It's just quotas for women that they're not prepared to use. "Does Angus Taylor really want people to believe that the 28 most talented Liberals in the whole country are the people who've made it into the federal parliament?" Plibersek pointed out that the Liberals had ignored a non-binding 50 per cent target for female representation put in place after the 2022 election. Here is some free advice to the Liberal Party. Every time they talk about women and quotas and anyone implies that the Labor quotas have led to the promotion of women without merit the ALP has a literal party. They won this debate so long ago it provides Labor with a free kick of monumental proportions. I was a high school girl when Labor had this debate and settled it. Now, here we are 30 years later and the Liberals are still having a debate the community resolved in the 1990s. Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull told this column senior Liberal men, including former prime minister Tony Abbott and Angus Taylor, left the impression that they were happy with the male dominated party as it is. "The Liberal Party has said it needs to recruit more women into its parliamentary ranks for years and for just as long resisted quotas on the basis it undermines the right of party members freely to choose their own candidates. But nothing has changed and the party room has fewer women than ever," Turnbull told me. "Those who oppose quotas need to explain what their alternative is, otherwise people will reasonably conclude they are quite happy with the male dominated status quo." Opposition frontbencher Julian Leeser has called for preselection primary contests, instead of quotas, and other Liberals including former minister Simon Birmingham and NSW senator Maria Kovacic have called for mandated quota systems. Kovacic tells this column that quotas are no longer a philosophical discussion, but have become a source of urgency. "We must address the persistent and systemic under-representation of women in our party, the temporary implementation of quotas is now both necessary and urgent," she tells me. "Quotas will serve as an effective interim measure to correct these structural imbalances." Kovacic believes the scale of the gender imbalance in the Liberal Party demands "immediate and decisive action". "Delaying the adoption of quotas in favour of softer incremental approaches alone, such as mentoring and leadership programs is no longer viable. That opportunity has passed. We must change, and change now." The NSW Liberal Women's Council will debate gender quotas at a meeting in Sydney this week. Those pushing for change won't go down without a massive fight. Patricia Karvelas is host of ABC News Afternoon Briefing at 4pm weekdays on ABC News Channel, co-host of the weekly Party Room podcast with Fran Kelly and host of politics and news podcast Politics Now.
