The Sunset of the Uniparty

Parliament House. Credit: Thennicke, via Wikimedia

As the smoke from budget week clears, one thing is obvious: the era of the uniparty is over. And not before time, as it’s been the Liberal Party’s political timidity that’s driven the rise of One Nation, with conservative voters despairing of ever again having a champion to vote for.

Until now. Because by committing a future Coalition government to ending bracket creep — taxation by stealth — Taylor has made the next election wealth creation versus wealth redistribution, thereby pitching the Liberals as the party of aspiration rather than the party of resentment.

I doubt Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers have quite grasped the scale of their blunder, especially after stressing how much this budget is a reflection of “Labor values”. Higher taxes on property and heavier taxes on wealth creation are not just broken promises with no redeeming policy feature (and no exculpatory circumstances beyond their control). They’re an assault on the Australian dream that people who strive to get ahead should not be punished for their efforts and that people who “have a go” should get a “fair go” from government.

After pretending in 2022 to be “safe change” and in 2025 to be protection against cost of living increases, Albanese Labor has revealed its class war instincts as the party of ever bigger government set on redistributing wealth from owners to workers — as if workers have no aspiration to become owners too. It’s a contemporary reflection of his youthful conviction that “accumulated income in the form of capital is, for all socialists, at least part of the source of many social injustices”. By contrast, after a decade of avoiding “culture wars”, the Taylor-led Coalition is resolved to be a clear alternative, keeping government within limits and unleashing the talents of the Australian people, via our proven ability to drill, dig, and grow our way to prosperity.

The Hunter Valley coal fields. Credit: Max Phillips

The competing tax policies make this clear: Labor’s higher taxes on assets in breach of commitments made repeatedly at two elections; versus the Coalition’s promise to index personal income tax thresholds, a commitment that it considered but was not brave enough to make at last year’s election. Finally both parties are showing their real colours after a decade when they mostly tried to be a slightly more attractive version of the other side, with the Coalition just a little less enthusiastic than Labor for big government, climate action, and mass migration.

Unsurprisingly, it was the Coalition’s inability to decide whether it was for or against the politics of climate and identity; being against, then for, and then against Net Zero; and being concerned, then indifferent, before being concerned again, about record migration, that’s fueled the rise of political alternatives. Especially after the Bondi massacre confirmed to many Australians that the country we thought we knew was quickly slipping away; and which seems to have triggered the sudden surge in poll support for One Nation from single digits to roughly that of both major parties.