Comment

John Hewson
Political highs and lows

Before reflecting on the peaks and troughs of Australian politics in this tumultuous year, I want to emphasise the significantly more challenging environment, both globally and domestically. The challenges have largely arisen from Donald Trump finding his feet in his second term as United States president, and particularly by his fidgeting with tariffs and abandoning the global trading order and agreements that are so important to an export economy such as ours. Domestically, his policies are slowing American economic growth, increasing the risk of a US recession, rekindling inflation, boosting unemployment and inviting sharemarket turmoil. His America First attitude to foreign policy, his desire to intimidate and penalise those not willing to play by his rules and to his objectives have seriously complicated the world order.

All this has been a genuine setback for Australia’s economic policy determination, as much has historically relied on market forces within the global rules-based order. Trump has replaced a meritocracy with a plutocracy, with much less reliance on traditional diplomacy and market realities in favour of authoritarian interventions. In his world, you have to be a dictator, a despot or some manifestation of a “strongman” to win.

An important recent article by retired US defence official and diplomat Chas Freeman, entitled “Ceding the Future to China”, focuses on how the US is “in the midst of a Great Leap Backward or Cultural Revolution-style assault on the domestic institutions that made America great”. Among the casualties, he cites the rule of law, freedom of speech and academic freedom. He laments the accelerating retreat of the US “from the international order it once led” and calls for the country to step away from confrontation and conflict with China as it returns to a leading global role, and instead find ways to leverage China’s rising prosperity.

The Australian government has had to find pathways through this Trump-driven chaos, China being our largest trading partner and the US a major security partner. This government must urgently establish even more diversified trading and security arrangements, particularly in our region so as to be less reliant on, and exposed to, the US.

Anthony Albanese’s handling of our relationship with the US has been an obvious high point this year for the prime minister. His quiet, stable diplomacy has kept us on the lowest US tariff rate, so far preserved AUKUS – although that debate is yet to be had domestically, especially on the costs in terms of lost sovereignty implicit in the deal – and developed effective defence and security arrangements with several of the key countries in our region. Albanese has also consolidated our status as an influential middle-ranking power in foreign affairs, and climate commitments and policy responses. This was all achieved despite the many obstacles set before him in the media and by the opposition, with an intense focus on securing and succeeding in key meetings with Trump and at various forums around the globe, to fight for our national interest.

The pinnacle of the year for Labor was clearly its victory at the May election, by a margin that humbled the opposition, especially the Liberal Party. The scale of the win has allowed the government to capitalise further, increasing its polling dominance by taking advantage of the resulting disarray in the opposition parties, while continuing modest reform in a number of areas.

I’d also single out as a major achievement the world-leading social media ban, which is now being emulated by a number of other countries. While it will take time to demonstrate the policy’s effectiveness, the government’s readiness to lead and to set the global agenda is to its considerable credit, as is its securing a degree of bipartisanship.

Another big win for the year is Labor’s successful passing of the environmental reforms as proposed more than five years ago in the independent report by Graeme Samuel. The report, initially presented to then environment minister Sussan Ley, was left in the Morrison government’s “too hard” basket. Clearly the jury is out on whether this legislation will provide the necessary delicate balance between the interests of business and the effective protection of our environment – but the outcomes should reveal significant improvements in the process.

Albanese has declared 2025 the “year of delivery” but, recognising that more needs to be done in reform, he’s promised a focus on the economy next year. Labor claimed its record on the economy as a high point this year – and to be sure, the International Monetary Fund mission in November praised Australia’s success in “managing a soft landing”, with inflation coming down in the first half of the year and the jobs market remaining strong. It also warned, however, of the need for spending cuts and tax reform, and there is still more to do on cost-of-living relief with inflation on the rise again.

I thought that the idea of the economic round table was a high point for Labor this year. Unfortunately the delivery less so – we are yet to see much come out of Chalmers’ efforts to harness the best ideas on productivity and economic reform. Also disappointing was the lack of progress on the government’s signature Future Made in Australia policy. That said, it’s a bold plan to turn this energy transition into a transformational opportunity for manufacturing, and a truly courageous vision of industry and community engagement.

The opposition have done everything they can to disrupt this process, constantly harping about energy costs while ignoring the significance of the government’s energy rebates. They have flooded the media with prejudice-based disinformation, suggesting that the transition to renewables is responsible for the recent increases in energy prices, and whipping up regional and rural communities to complain about solar panels and wind turbines.

To be fair, one of the widely overlooked aspects of why the opposition are having difficulty getting traction with the electorate has been pointed out by Australian National University historian Frank Bongiorno: namely that Albanese has effectively moved his party to the right of centre, thereby stealing much of the opposition’s electoral appeal. As a result, some in the opposition have been encouraged to push further to the right, even to the extreme, with elements of Trump and Britain’s Nigel Farage.

Among the lowlights of the year has been the undermining of integrity and accountability in government. There has been too little transparency, too much secrecy in the processes of government, compounded by a host of poor legislation. The campaign funding “reforms” were just a stitch-up deal between the duopoly of the major parties – designed to constrain the community independents. Their effectiveness is then further constrained by tight limits on their staff numbers and other expenditure. Sure, the government did establish the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) but it has been a monumental failure, especially in terms of the paucity of its investigations, let alone outcomes, due in large part to the subpar performance of some commissioners, conflicts of interest and poor staff culture. The NACC didn’t even pursue the investigation of several individuals involved in the robodebt scandal, public servants who were referred by the royal commission.

In a similar vein, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has been left to drift after a damning Senate committee review in the last parliament that recommended its abolition on the basis of investigative and enforcement failures. It is quite frankly ridiculous that many of the serious cases of bad corporate behaviour identified by the Hayne royal commission were never prosecuted, adding to the perception that the corporate cop is asleep, and Australia is now seen as a haven for white-collar crime.

Finally, the government has proposed further restrictions on freedom of information requests that almost destroy the intent of the process. Promised frameworks for whistleblower protections remain unaddressed. This was all capped off by evidence reported by Jason Koutsoukis in this paper last week that the Prime Minister’s Office has been directing lobbyists to use disappearing messages in their correspondence with the government, rather than attempting to reform and regulate their activities as some independents have been seeking.

The collective consequence of some of the lows already mentioned is a serious undermining of our greatly valued democracy. The community independents have been serving to improve our democracy. While they will never form government, they do work effectively to hold government to account. The loss of confidence and trust in the two-party system has been significant. While Labor has been attempting to govern in the context of serious and numerous challenges, the opposition have failed to provide effective and constructive debate, being more concerned with their own leadership squabbles and issues such as the prime minister’s T-shirts.

It was a most unedifying spectacle, and a definite low point, to see the Nationals pretend to be the policy driver of the opposition – from the brain fart of the nuclear energy policy to the scrapping of the net zero target for emissions. All of this has coincided with the very strong increase in poll support for One Nation, which now hopes to become the formal opposition.

The point is simple: when the major parties are seen to be failing to deliver for ordinary Australians, voters will move to support the extremes. In this regard, it is significant that the National Socialist Network, a group of neo-Nazis, has recently reported a membership of some 1500, such that we can expect it will appear on the ballot at the next election. Surely this is the lowest point of the year.

However, we look to 2026 hopefully, with optimism and certainty that we live in a great country that can both learn from its mistakes and embrace and foster new ideas. We are still the lucky country, and we need to work together to sustain it.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on December 13, 2025 as "Political highs and lows".

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