It’s an outrage. One of the most crucial economic issues in the country, that affects virtually every household, which could send hundreds of thousands of Australians spiralling into penury and bankruptcy, is controlled not by democratically elected politicians but by unelected bureaucrats who act without regard to what Australians want, placing their own elitist judgement of what the country needs above what the electorate might believe.
Welcome to monetary policy as conducted by our independent Reserve Bank, put in place by the Howard government.
The RBA isn’t completely independent, of course; the government appoints the board and the governor. Tony Abbott was thankfully ousted before he could fulfil his threat to impose an external, right-wing figure to replace Glenn Stevens. But other than Abbott, senior politicians not merely leave the RBA alone but even avoid commentating on monetary policy.
Central bank independence has been one neoliberal idea that has been almost a complete success in Australia, despite its anti-democratic foundations. Objections to elitist bureaucrats wielding monetary power are few and far between, partly because the bank has played an important role in maintaining economic growth, allowing it to build up credibility. No one wants to go back to the days when the RBA was under the direction of the government, when a treasurer might boast that he had “the bank in my pocket”. We believe monetary policy is too important to be left to politicians.
[Energy experts decry Turnbull opting for convenience over clear policy]
Similarly, despite the constant whining from the right, the ABC is by far Australia’s most trusted media institution. It is independent of the government because, like monetary policy, we think broadcasting, and especially news-gathering, is too important to be left to politicians.
The principle that, in our democracy, there are things too important to allow democratically elected figures to control them, thus seems well-entrenched. The legal industry has always been kept separate from the political process in Australia, following the UK tradition. We don’t allow regulatory bodies to be controlled by politicians. Everywhere you look, we keep the tribunes of democracy out of stuff we know they can’t be trusted with.
There’s even been a de facto acceptance that governments need genuinely independent advice as the Australian Public Service has become more politicised. Governments routinely now commission the Productivity Commission, or panels of eminent experts, to undertake major policy reviews, understanding that the independent Productivity Commission’s views, or those of high-profile experts, command a respect that the advice of departments no longer does, and provide a platform for policy debate that just another media release will never do.
Which gets us to the question: is energy, like monetary policy, like administering regulations, like news-gathering, too important to be left to politicians? We’ve already had the independent advice — from the review led by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, rather than the PC, which had had multiple goes at climate and energy policies already. But the government has decided that its interests lie in disregarding the Finkel review, and instead in perpetuating policy uncertainty, rather than providing a clear policy that will give investors, business and the community a clear idea of the path to emissions abatement targets that Tony Abbott agreed and Malcolm Turnbull signed up to.
[Government abandons Clean Energy Target, clearing the decks for war]
This is the energy equivalent of a government deciding to lower interest rates ahead of an election in the hope a grateful electorate will reward it, i.e. the placement of political advantage over Australia’s economic interests.
A framework in which politicians choose the country’s emissions abatement targets, and independent bodies design and implement the transition without political interference and with economic efficiency as the policy guide, would replicate monetary policy, where Parliament establishes the purpose of the Reserve Bank and the government of the day agrees to an inflation target and leaves the bank to it.
Of course, once you do it for energy, where would you stop? Infrastructure is in urgent need of freeing up from politicians; an independent body that controlled infrastructure investment would end boondoggles like the inland rail project and direct investment to the roads, ports and rail lines that would yield the best returns on investment. But that’s a problem for another day.
Help us keep up the fight
Get Crikey for just $1 a week and support our journalists’ important work of uncovering the hypocrisies that infest our corridors of power.
If you haven’t joined us yet, subscribe today and get your first 12 weeks for $12.
Cancel anytime.
Peter Fray
Editor-in-chief of Crikey
Leave a comment
Many Australians are kready taking it out of the hands of the politicians with roof top solar and wind. What we know from the politicians is that the current government speaks and acts as if we don’t know or care what they do or say – even suggesting that when a market company, AGL, decides its time to close a dirty coal fired plant that they should keep polluting for another five years so that Malcolm can be seen to do what his paymasters require.
Remember when he said that it was time to have an intelligent conversation with the Australian people?
He doesn’t
Turbott and his Limited News Party Coal Profits Preservation Society….
Yes, get the politicians out of it. Stop giving taxpayers money to dodgy Indian coal companies. Stop trying to rig the rules. Stop using energy as another arm of the tiresome culture wars. Look at the nation’s long-term energy needs and it’s global obligations. Get the amateurs out of it. People are sick of politics as an end in itself. The political careerists are wrecking the country playing silly bloody games.
“A framework in which politicians choose the country’s emissions abatement targets, and independent bodies design and implement the transition”
Bravo! In particular, the institution would be able to work on a timescale (far beyond the three years or so of elected governments) required to meet emissions targets that are laid out in decades. The lifetimes of the necessary technologies of generation, conversion and distribution are also measured in decades, beyond the century target of 2100.
Something else a venerable institution would be capable of that come-and-go governments would not, is maintaining a rate of emissions reduction. Climate leader James Hansen has proposed a 6% per annum reduction in emissions to get us below 20% at 2050 and effective “net zero emissions” by 2100. Although it would take massive disaster to rouse the political will to authorise it, only an institution as proposed would be able to maintain the progression across the century.
I’m trying to get my head around the words ‘responsibility’ & ‘government’ being used in the same sentence.
Turnbull & Co take almost no responsibility for anything (except occasional good news on unemployment figures) & blame pretty much everything else on previous Labor governments. They are too frightened to take responsibility lest a policy backfires.