Opinion & Commentary
Judge think-tanks by policy outcomes not partisan labels
Thirty-years ago, every major party supported the central pillars of the Federation-old ‘Australian Settlement’. Who would have thought that in 1983 a Labor Government, led by a former ACTU boss, would initiate the most far-reaching program of economic liberalisation in Australian history?
Five years or so later, Australia’s left-liberal intelligentsia finally caught up with history, and launched a short-lived but concerted counter-attack. Ignoring the real plight of the cosseted Australian economy, they blamed the recession we had to have on the rise of economic rationalism. Every cyclical economic ill was traced back to the decision to float the dollar. For good measure, economic reform was portrayed as an existential threat to the Australian way of life, and as a vast Right-wing conspiracy to boot.
For the last 17 years, Australians have enjoyed an unprecedented era of economic prosperity and rising living standards. Today, it seems that everyone is an economic rationalist, now that the benefits of winding back the discredited policies of the past are obvious. On this front at least, once noisy critics have grown silent.
The transformation of Australia’s economy did not occur in an intellectual vacuum. The critique of protectionism and excessive regulation, some of which was developed in work published by The Centre for Independent Studies, played a part in facilitating the reforms of the 1980s.
This is the only way to measure the worth of a think-tank - by the quality and results of the public policy ideas it promotes. But while the times have changed on some fronts, for many, the song remains the same. This week, the ‘progressive’ side has been keen to promote their latest foray into the think-tank business. They have suggested that because Mr Rudd and not Mr Howard is the occupant of The Lodge, Labor ministers shouldn’t associate with so-called ‘Right-wing’ think-tanks.
A think-tank that relies on partisan slogans like ‘progressive’ or ‘Hayekian’ to brand its contribution to public life assumes an uncomfortable position. In effect, it chooses to lead with its dogmatic chin, while burying its head in its ideological navel. An organisation that conceives of itself as the extra-parliamentary arm of a political party will inevitably descend into heresy hunting to force recalcitrant members to toe the party line.
Because governments come and governments go, a credible and independent think-tank doesn’t trim its sails to the prevailing electoral winds. Its job is to identify the difficult policy issues which in many cases defy the usual categories of Right and Left, such as the propensity for governments of all colours to preside over big taxing and spending regimes. Rather than take the line of least resistance and endorse partisan policy, all too often the difficult task is to upset a bi-partisan status quo to encourage debate and prompt much-needed innovation and improvement.
Ten-years ago, few dared to question whether the long-term unemployed should be entitled to welfare in perpetuity. Today, due in no small part to the writings of CIS’s Peter Saunders, no government could try to dismantle the ‘mutual obligation’ system without drawing renewed attention to the destructive social consequences of welfare dependence. Five-years ago, a Commonwealth-led intervention to restore social norms in remote aboriginal communities would have been unthinkable. As her fairest critics even admit, the work of CIS’s Helen Hughes has set out the most cogent and persuasive case for reversing forty-years of misguided Indigenous policy
So far, the Rudd Government has given every indication that the intervention, and the watershed it marks in Indigenous policy, is here to stay. For a think-tank, the real sign of success is when the existing policy consensus breaks down, to the point that politicians of diverse, and perhaps unexpected, persuasions endorse a new idea.
For over a decade, CIS’s Jennifer Buckingham has been almost a lone voice in the education debate calling for public education reform and the introduction of a voucher system and greater parental choice. Fortunately, the outcomes this will promote, rather than how those with vested interests prefer to caricature them, is what matters for politicians with a serious interest in policy. Who would have thought even a year ago that a federal Labor education minister, Julia Gillard, would support school choice?
Just like ensuring work not welfare is the norm in all Australian communities, creating a school system that provides even disadvantaged kids with a decent education is a goal that transcends the rough-house of party politics. The true test of a think-tank is whether politicians of all stripes see the inherent value of the good ideas it promotes. So long as this is the case, a think-tank will easily defy the crude labels which the truly partisan unsuccessfully try to attach to it.
Dr Jeremy Sammut is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies.
