CAMERON MILNER: Labor’s ‘small target’ agenda to rapidly and radically expand 

Federal Labor has finally tipped to full Left control. it’s a seminal moment for the ALP and the party of Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard.

The ALP Right had proudly been the centrist ballast of lasting Labor governments and of driving the economic growth and reforms that have set up Australia as a nation, including Medicare, the Prices and Income Accord, native title and the NDIS.

The huge majority delivered to the federal Labor caucus by middle Australia will however be taken by the Labor Left as tacit support for their radical agenda.

And the Right will be powerless to stop the true excesses in social policy that many in the Left rank and file membership will now demand.

Anthony Albanese will do his very best to have feet of clay, handling the internal pressure for change with his infamous inertia.

But the calls for action from the Labor Left are already there.

Penny Wong cleverly got legislated Voice, Truth and Treaty on the agenda ahead of polling day in a calculated move to say ‘”look, Labor has an electoral mandate for change”.

Voice, Truth and Treaty are already well advanced in South Australia, Wong’s home State, and in Victoria under Labor Premier Jacinta Allan.

Neither required some crazy brave political legacy-making referendum like Albanese’s Voice. They just rammed it through the Parliament.

The Left reasonably asks what’s stopping Albanese from simply getting on with delivering the Uluru Statement from the Heart, in full, like he promised.

Next the Left will want to prove moral elitism on transgender issues.

It won’t just be one South Australian kid born a boy beating every girl at a school athletics carnival in Adelaide — they’ll want to make sure every woman in Australia has the opportunity to lose to someone with an inherent biological advantage in every sporting arena and competition.

Then the Left can move to promoting puberty blockers on the PBS.

As easy it is for kids to get vapes, prepubescent kids should be allowed — without parental involvement — to pop pills and fluidly move between being Johnny and Jenny and maybe even back to Johnny across their teenage years.

And the Left will defend this by claiming they are preventing teen suicide. But if that’s the aim, why are parents being legislated out of their children’s health care needs?

But the Labor Left know best and Penny and Albo won 94 seats with another small target, nothing-to-see policy agenda, so has a mandate for Labor Left policy changes.

Then there’s so much more to do now that the Left has the numbers in the Cabinet, ministry and caucus along with effective control of the Senate with their comrades in the Greens.

Unrealised capital gains tax on super balances of $2 million will be an hors d’oeuvres to tax on assets across the board from franked dividends on shares, to negative gearing and even the family home.

The Labor Left will finally get their teeth stuck into family trusts. After all, those with trusts are the farmers and small business owners who won’t vote Labor anyway.

On climate, why stop at 70 per cent emissions reduction by 2035 when Labor State governments have already committed to 75 per cent and legislated 80 per cent of power to be sourced from renewables by 2035?

Keeping coal-fired power turned on like the eminently sensible Minns Labor Government has done or supporting our nation’s natural advantage as a gas-fired powerhouse is all such outdated Labor Right way of thinking. Didn’t you hear Penny and Albo won 94 seats?

And when it comes to Israel, the Left will be funding the UN campaign for a Palestinian State with a certified role for the “democratically” elected leader of Hamas.

The old Left mantra of “if it moves tax it, if it’s still moving regulate it and if it stops moving subsidise it” will be unleashed on a largely unsuspecting Australian public.

Debt and deficits for a decade was no limit to the number of seats Albanese won after all.

The banana republic warned of by Paul Keating before he became the Bugle of Beijing has been tossed aside as we hurtle towards paying off the HECS debt of the luckiest few with even more debt for all taxpayers.

The Labor Left spend will initially be driven by massive borrowings, just like Albanese’s China lobbyist mate Daniel Andrews did. And when they run out of credit, they simply raise more and more taxes just like in Victoria now.

The Labor Right is now powerless to stop the Left’s excesses. They are too busy eating their own and promoting political sociopaths such as Sam Rae while leaving talent like Andrew Charlton waiting for Tony Burke to finally do something for someone else and simply retire.

Australia didn’t vote knowingly for this radical Left agenda, but they are about to get the lesson rammed down their throats ad nauseam.

The only glimmer of hope comes from Left unionists, people like the all powerful Gary Bullock who has successfully held out branch radicals from the Queensland Left.

The greater chance though is Albo’s notorious lethargy and timidity. The champion of hard left causes in his youth has transformed to “the working class can kiss my arse, I’ve got the boss’s job at last” attitude now he’s got to be PM.

Albanese alone will be the hand brake on Left excess, but not because he’s finally had a political epiphany.

Rather he’s enjoyed the gravy train of freebies and corporate largesse that comes with being so small target and lack lustre in government. Why would he upset that now? After all Penny got him 94 seats without having to promise to do very much of anything at all.