The Luck of Politics by Leigh Andrew;

Author:Leigh, Andrew;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Inc.

In February 2004, three months after beating Kim Beazley for the opposition leadership by two votes, Mark Latham announced that Labor would support closing the superannuation schemes for parliamentarians, judges and the governor-general. The schemes, he argued, were ‘well outside the community standard in Australia and have become out-of-date’.18

The immediate response to Latham’s announcement by Howard government ministers Tony Abbott and Peter Costello was to defend the existing superannuation schemes. But two days after Latham committed Labor to closing the schemes to new entrants, Howard announced that the government would pass legislation to do just that.

Two months later, Latham again committed the Labor Party to a popular policy. The opposition, he announced, would take an expanded Baby Bonus policy to the election, with parents of a newborn baby receiving $3000 from the government.19 The next month, Peter Costello brought down his ninth budget. A centrepiece of the budget was an expanded $3000 Baby Bonus. By the time it was scrapped in 2014, the Baby Bonus paid out over a billion dollars per year.

A year later, Latham was out of federal politics altogether. But the policy positions he adopted in opposition had a lasting effect. Had Robert McClelland not switched his vote in the December 2003 ballot, it’s perfectly possible that Australia would have maintained its generous parliamentary superannuation schemes and not created a Baby Bonus.

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