‘Neoliberalism has failed, time to focus on common good’

Neoliberalism, characterised by small government, reduced public expenditure, privatisation of essential services and the de-regulation of the financial sector has been at the forefront of government economic policy for 30 years.

Our current health crisis has demonstrated beyond doubt the failings of such ideology.

COVID-19 has marked the death of neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism’s surrogate mother and UK Prime Minister through the 80s, Margaret Thatcher, implemented a relentless economic campaign of austerity measures which ran rampant through liberal democracies for decades to come.

Around the same time Hawke and Keating sowed the seed for Australia’s more open, global economy.

However it has been conservative governments who have perfected the art of economic rationalism through a severely eroded welfare state.

In 2008 the Global Financial Crisis struck, sending the global economy into its biggest death spiral since the great depression.

Elsewhere, reduced interest rates and income tax rates failed to work, however here at home the Australian Labor Party responded with a massive stimulus package, injecting cash into the hands of working people with a mandate to spend big.

They also invested heavily in road, rail, housing and education infrastructure.

This kept businesses afloat and workers employed, helping fend off the worst of the downturn, awarding Australia with economic accolades across the globe.

Since then, both mainstream media and Coalition governments have continually ignored this near miss, ridiculing the left for the burden of debt they left us with, labelling them as poor economic managers.

Like a broken-hearted lover, the Morrison government has obsessed over its long lost love affair with budget surplus.

They somehow convinced us that government handouts in the form of franking credits and negative gearing were examples of giving a fair go.

And herein lies the hypocrisy.

It has been massive, social-democratic spending, with a focus on strong social welfare programs, which has saved us from the worst of this crisis.

The government has so far committed $320 billion of stimulus representing 16.4 per cent of GDP, almost quadrupling the 4.62 per cent spent by Labor during the GFC.

Morrison and Frydenberg are either quivering in their boots at the thought of increased debt, or humbled by the lessons learnt from previous leadership.

Now is precisely the time for a shift in policy from trickle-down to middle-out economics, with a focus on the common good, whereby the majority of citizens benefit from giving a fair go to those who need it the most.

As the United Kingdom prime minister Boris Johnson recently put it, “there really is such thing as society”.

Darcy Ginty, Narrabri