Shorten shaping up to be the Corbyn to our kids

Australian politicians can only look on with envy at the welcome given to British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn when he turned up at the Glastonbury music festival last month.

“Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” went the chant from the crowd to the tune of a White Stripes song, in a must-watch video that should terrify conservatives. Suddenly a bearded 68-year-old who is fond of scruffy jumpers was getting the same treatment as a rock god.

Bill Shorten would be lucky to raise a murmur at a music festival in Australia, given the local custom of booing politicians.

The last time he went to one, in Tamworth two years ago, he dropped in to see a few country bands and left quietly.

Yet the Opposition Leader may get a hero’s welcome one day.

Shorten is tapping into a powerful force that positions him as a champion for younger Australians. His message about intergenerational inequality is hitting home in the same way that his “fairness” crusade worked in 2014.

Cutting through the academic debate, Shorten aims for the heart with an emotional argument about people being left behind.

A potent new issue will help him keep up the momentum — and Malcolm Turnbull should be worried. The government’s higher education reforms will go to a vote in the Senate in the next few months after years of argument over unpopular cuts that date back to the 2014 budget. The government has to fix the failure of the past while risking a backlash from the voters of the future.

This is a far bigger issue than the dispute over Shorten’s plans, to be unveiled this weekend, to overhaul the taxation of family trusts. Farmers and small-business owners are worried about a Labor revenue grab, but millions of voters will merely shrug at the uproar. Most can only dream of having enough money to justify setting up a trust.

The government’s university fee hikes are another matter. With about 40 per cent of young Australians going to university, these changes are a hip-pocket issue for millions of voters. There are about 1.3 million students in tertiary education each year and about four million who are paying back their student loans.

In an earlier age, politicians tried to tough out student complaints by dismissing them as radical protests from youngsters who one day would repent their socialist leanings. But today’s student is likelier to be working two part-time jobs than sitting in the quad discussing Das Kapital.

The old argument about fees was that students should pay a share of the cost of their education because the government had been carrying all the burden for too long, while graduates gained all the reward from higher salaries.

Most taxpayers probably still think they are covering the bulk of the fees for the hipster student they see complaining on television. They’re wrong. Students are paying 90 per cent of the course costs in subjects such as law, accounting, economics and business. The question is not why students do not pay their fair share. It’s why the government stopped doing so.

Australia now expects university students to be grateful for a system where they pay most of the course fees, head out into the world with debts of about $30,000 and face a tough labour market where wages are stagnant.

Education Minister Simon Birmingham showed his talent at getting tough changes through the Senate last month when he overcame objections to the Gonski 2.0 school funding package, but the university reforms look like a bigger challenge. This time he is cutting funding rather than offering $18.6 billion more across a decade.

The package includes a 7.5 per cent fee increase and tougher rules to require graduates to repay their loans faster. The income threshold that triggers loan repayments will fall from $55,000 to $42,000. At the same time, the government will impose a 2.5 per cent “efficiency dividend” on its grants to the universities, the biggest single saving in the policy. The overall package conserve $3.8bn across five years.

Higher fees, bigger repayments and a cut in public investment. Voters hate this in any area of public policy. Nobody should be surprised at the fury of the young.

The government’s argument for the efficiency dividend will not be easy when the Prime Minister and Birmingham were quick to find a spare $5bn to get the Gonski changes across the line in the Senate last month. The bonus for schools was greater than the entire cut to universities.

No wonder younger voters think they are getting a raw deal. Will they listen to Scott Morrison when the Treasurer urges them to ignore the “politics of envy” in the context of tax breaks that benefit the wealthy? They are likelier to back Shorten’s message about bigger cuts to superannuation tax breaks, new curbs on negative gearing for investment properties and a halt to the higher education changes. Shorten sides with the young on all three issues.

Complacent conservatives will point out that young voters always skew left, but the latest Newspoll results show the cost to Turnbull and his government. In the year before the election, the Coalition attracted 33.5 per cent of the primary vote from those aged from 18 to 34, and Labor 37.5 per cent. During the year since the election, the Coalition has averaged 31.75 per cent while Labor has grown to 39.5 per cent. The Greens also have lost younger voters.

Shorten is winning over the young with his messages on inequality and his promise of action on fees, housing affordability and tax breaks for the rich. The weakness of the government’s response has been obvious in the past week, with Labor setting the agenda while Morrison and others played a defensive game in response.

Shorten can ride this wave all the way to the election.

Ref: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/shorten-shaping-up-to-be-the-corbyn-to-our-kids/news-story/e94d5f9d162acfcd99ac7e9e9fb57f21