ANDREW CARSWELL: Sussan Ley claws back against Labor’s entitlement, turns Coalition back to core values

Sussan Ley could have been forgiven for steering clear of the fraught debate over budget sustainability, excessive taxpayer handouts and heavy-handed government intervention.

At least until the public mood had shifted.

After all, cost-of-living anxieties have barely eased and the appetite for government intervention has only grown. Australians have never sucked so hard on the public teat, desperate to get everything they possibly can from a Government that has been proficient at doling out largesse and convincing voters it can solve every problem.

The public appears convinced of the integral role of government in their lives. Of the government taking charge of the function of the economy, once reserved for the free market.

Of the government telling Australians how to govern their household, once the purview of parents. Of the government deciding what we should drive, watch, say, how we should work, and even whether we ought to be offended.

This reliance is a crippling hangover from COVID where government intervention was broad and necessary, one that Ley’s predecessor Peter Dutton did very little to combat.

Arguably, he went along for the ride, promising taxpayer relief at the bowser, matching the Government’s overspend on Medicare, and deploying an array of cost-of-living sugar hits.

All very confusing.

Far from pragmatic, it was inherently populist. An admission that the Coalition had little appetite, or ability, to prosecute a strong economic argument and end the age of entitlement that has sapped not only Australia’s fiscal strength, but the self-reliance and resilience of its citizens.

But to her credit, Ley appears up for the fight. To drag the Coalition back to its core values of fiscal conservatism, reward for hard work and personal responsibility. To wean Australians off entitlement.

The Coalition is now on the path to correcting its mistakes

In a series of recent speeches and media engagements, the Leader of the Opposition has begun the arduous task of realigning the Coalition’s economic narrative around these important ideals.

“We must put guard rails around government spending,’’ she said in a speech to CEDA last week, “so we can strengthen our economy, preserve our capacity to help those truly in need, and ensure the next generation inherits opportunity, not debt.”

You could almost hear the jolt of recognition ripple through the party faithful: Oh, right, that’s what we actually believe in, a creed they’ve kept under wraps for fear of electoral backlash.

She went on.

“It has become almost taboo in politics to suggest that not everyone is entitled to every government benefit” and “by ‘dependency’, I mean the growing expectation that government will provide for every need and solve every problem by spending more.”

“Welfare should be targeted ‘to those who truly need it’, and people should be helped ‘off welfare and into self-reliance’.”

Before this dangerous clincher: “Stop subsidising the comfortably well off.”

Given the collective embrace of government intervention, the speech was somewhere in between courageous and audacious and she staked out a position that not only challenges the prevailing notion, but stands opposed to it.

This is Ley laying down the foundation upon which the Coalition will rebuild its economic credentials, impervious to the current public mood and adhering closely to the long-held values that have defined her side of politics.

Fiscal conservatism. Reward for hard work. Personal responsibility.

And importantly, she is doing it at an inopportune moment, when the public has yet to be persuaded of the need to loosen the government’s grip on their lives and reclaim self-reliance. When the public believes that the government should be the leading voice on the economy, and not business.

It’s an awfully slow burn.

But it is a necessary step, both for Australia — which must confront the long-term consequences of a culture of entitlement — and for the Coalition itself, which is still searching for its political soul after the catastrophe of the last election and the bruising identity crisis that followed.

Regaining the public’s confidence will take time

There is considerable electoral upside if the Coalition persists with this message, delivered carefully and with the right tone; slowly and steadily shifting public sentiment toward a different understanding of how the economy should work.

At present, the Coalition’s only substantial vote driver is its ironclad commitment to secure Australia’s borders. Its pledge to tackle debt and deficit is a distant second, and has retraced from its highs earlier this year.

Best to manage and grow the economy? The Coalition is nowhere. In fact, research suggests economic management currently doesn’t drive the vote to either side of politics, which by historical standards, is a triumph for the Albanese Government.

They have effectively neutralised the Coalition’s biggest strength in the space of a year.

Through confusion, mixed signals, a reluctance to challenge the status quo and a former leader with a faulty economic compass, the Coalition ceded control of its most potent vote-winner.

It is now on the path to correcting those mistakes.

But regaining the public’s confidence will take time, and it will demand that Ley’s fidgety colleagues hold their nerve and give her the space to keep preaching the Coalition’s revived economic creed.

That may be the bigger challenge.