A tale of two Prime Ministers and let's not forget the French Open!

The qualifying is over and the first round of the French Open begins today! How the French Open has crept up on us!

Politics is very much the main game presently.

Before the Netflix series The Crown, there was the movie, The Queen, featuring an Oscar winning performance by Helen Mirren, which focussed on the Royal Family’s reaction to the death of Princess Diana. Tony Blair became Prime Minister of England in May 1997. Less than four months later he was caught up in the seismic aftermath of Diana’s death in a traffic accident in Paris.

There is a telling scene at the end of the film where the Queen has a private audience with Mr. Blair,  weeks after Diana’s funeral.

The Queen caustically notes how the tragedy has been a boon for the new Prime Minister’s popularity. She observes that no one could have predicted the venomous headlines about her perceived lack of a suitable emotional response to Diana’s death. The Queen notes that some of Blair’s Ministers shared this animus and then comments: “but you didn’t Mr. Blair, because you saw those headlines and thought one day that this could happen to me and it will Mr. Blair, quite suddenly and without warning.”

Just as a match in tennis can turn on one missed shot or a crucial break point all can change in a moment in politics.

Ask the Prime Ministers of England and Australia, Keir Starmer and Anthony Albanese. Politically they are soulmates, bedfellows of the progressive Left. They are said to be good personal friends. Starmer invited Albanese to speak at last year’s Labour Party conference in England to inspire the faithful. They are both textbook ideologues. Both speak-relentlessly-of their modest upbringings to create  credibility about their wish to socially engineer their respective countries in favour of the less fortunate.  Both have won recent general elections by overwhelming margins.

Yet, for a variety of reasons, both Prime Ministers are now suddenly besieged and befuddled, Starmer more so. Starmer’s singularly anodyne personality, described by one commentator as resembling a “fish on a slab”,  his failure to deliver economic improvements for most Britons and his colossal misjudgement in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as England’s ambassador to the United States have all but sealed his fate. His overwhelming parliamentary majority means nothing following the evisceration of the Labour Party in recent Local Council elections.

In Australia, Mr. Albanese, like Starmer may have met his seminal moment that could, less dramatically, unravel his ascendancy. The reason is his government’s recently delivered Budget. Having told a reporter last year “listen for the 50^th time we have no intention of changing taxation arrangements on housing”, he did just that.

These are the taxation arrangements that enabled Albanese to purchase his $4.3 million retirement Shangri-la in coastal New South Wales- goodness me, what will he do when the socialists come to power? Suddenly, he has been struck by a desire to create “greater inter-generational equity”. Capital gains tax discounts are abandoned. Income tax brackets remain unindexed against inflation,  so taxation bracket creep will continue. Trusts, including testamentary trusts, are to be stung with new taxes.  Older Australians have lost benefits that encouraged them to take out private health insurance.

The Prime Minister thought that his wholesale breaking of promises and raising new taxes would be welcomed by younger Australians desperate for a more equitable housing market. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are concerns that his taxation changes will lead to the very opposite of his intentions- less investment in housing, persistently high rents, falling housing prices and a lack of general economic investment. Opinion polls suggest that those most concerned are the very people that Albanese believed he would convince.

Let’s not forget that the Budget confirmed the nation is heading for a trillion-dollar deficit, maintaining pressure on interest rates.  The Treasurer’s claim of financial probity when he announced that that billions were to be saved through a review of the runaway train that is Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme is laughable. Should his government not be censured for allowing the scheme to become so wasteful and corrupted? Why should the Treasurer be applauded for trying to rein in a debt that they created and for which the public must pay?

Once again Australia’s politicians have missed the elephant in the fiscal room. Nations are in debt and people will seek to avoid tax and establish tax avoidance schemes when a country’s taxation system fails to promote the fairness and incentive needed for economic growth and, dare I say it, productivity. Presently in Australia, the top marginal tax rate of 45% plus Medicare Levy begins at $190,000.00, less than double the average full-time wage of $106,000.

All Australians know that there is a  gargantuan black-market economy operating, mainly available to workers in trades and self-employment- ask an academic tutor of a high school student the last time they declared their cash in hand payments to the Taxation Office-where people are wilfully avoiding tax. 

Mr. Albanese continually fails to understand that there is no such thing as “free childcare”, “a greater range of free and subsidised medicines”, “or reductions in student debt”, when all these “freedoms” are further fiscal impositions on the taxpayer. Not to mention the costs that his government’s energy policy, high regulation and high minimum wage policies have imposed on businesses. Government largesse does not generate private wealth. Quite the opposite. What incentive is there when earning twice the average income sees you paying an effective marginal taxation rate of 50% on every dollar earned above $190,000? Much to the Prime Minister’s concern a growing number of the electorate have recognised the stultifying economic environment the government has crafted.

Mr. Starmer and Mr. Albanese may have fallen victim to the hubris that has seen them believing that all they do will be approved and forgiven because they have no effective opposition. They should remember that nothing is as effective an opposition to a government than a populace angry at declining living standards and resentful of leaders who have made disingenuousness and prevarication an art form. Witness the growing political threat of Reform and One Nation in each of England and Australia. It seems politics abhors a vacuum as much as nature.

If voters have lost faith in sinful governments, the tennis world continues to have nothing but admiration for Janik Sinner. He enters this week’s French Open having won his last five tournaments, the most recent being the Italian Open.  Sinner became the first Italian to win his national title since Adriano Panatta a mere 50 years ago! There seems no reasonable prediction to make other that Sinner will, especially in the absence of Alcaraz, avenge his loss in last year’s final and win his maiden French title and complete his Grand Slam.

The Italian Open confirmed that the Women’s game is as unpredictable as ever. Top-seed Sabalenka was beaten by Romanian journeywoman Sorana Cristea aged 36. Cristea lost to Coco Gauff in a semi-final. Gauff then lost the final to Elina Svitolina, who as a spritely 31-year-old mother, beat both Australian Open champion Rybakina and four-time French Open champion, Swiatek en-route to the final.  Take your pick as to who will prevail in Paris!

Grand Slam tournaments rarely produce champions without worth and moment. Sadly, elections seem to be producing Prime Ministers and policies that are not deemed worthy of an equivalent legacy.

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This post is dedicated to the late Professor Harry Phillips AM who passed away last week.  For decades, Professor Phillips was an esteemed political analyst, teacher and commentator in Western Australia. He was a personal and professional mentor. Harry was thoughtful, genial, perceptive, and modest. A generation of students and politicians have much to be thankful for because of Harry’s labours. I shall miss his erudition and decency. To his wife, Jan, and daughters, Michelle, and Marina, I offer my condolences. I will always remember hosting Harry in Melbourne when his beloved West Coast Eagles triumphed over Collingwood in the 2018 AFL Grand Final. He was also a fine tennis player, passionate fan and historian of the game. Harry’s legacy is assured.  Sic transit gloria mundi.