Assessment Of The Legacy Of Abbott Govt, Turnball Govt Achievements, Ideological Differences Between The Political Parties In Australia

Using concepts and theories introduced in this unit as-well as your own research answer one of the following essay questions:
What is your assessment of the legacy of the Abbott government (2013-2015)? Is it positive, negative or a bit of both? Explain why.

Outline what you consider to be the three most important achievements of the Turnbull government to date.

What are the main ideological differences between the two major parties? Or is there not much difference between them?

There has been a rise in support towards parties like One Nation and Reclaim Australia. What do you consider are the main contributing factors towards this shift?

Does the media have too much power in contemporary Australian politics? Use two examples to illustrate your answer.

Does the importance of national security mean that individual rights are no longer as relevant as they once were? Does it matter in a liberal democracy such as Australia?

How has the election of Donald Trump to the American Presidency impacted upon contemporary Australian politics?

Assessment of the legacy of the Abbott Government

The topic discusses the importance of the Australian politics under a new regime of Malcom Turnball. The topic elaborates on the rule of the preceding session of the Government and how it has turned out which affected the future regime of the government. Te topic further critically elaborates the importance of the national security and the reign of Donald Trump over the politics of Australia.

Tony Abbott’s policy from 2013-2015 is being judged on the basis of his work for Australia. However, in this topic it is important to discuss How far the Abbott Government was successful in exhibiting a successful quality of leadership to the country Australia. Therefore, the terms would has to be convenient enough to explain and judge the legacy of the Government with evidences and the topic would further elaborate on  the Abbott’s government’s legacy (Curtin 2016).

It is true to justify that Australia has shifted away from a type of UK influenced culture to a more liberal culture. The government of Tony Government was considered to be the least productive while passing the legislation since the year 1972. Mr. Abbott in his reign focused on certain points and they are Senate reforms, defunding the human rights commission and giving protection to the employees. However, the government was unpopular in most of the times (Curtin 2016).

There are crisis prevailing in the 21^st century, and inside Australia, which is a democratic country. Abbott’s reign emphasized on the nature of rhetoric which is emergency and crisis based. Abbott has proved himself to be an incompetent leader (Street 2015). Abbott Government’s lack of coherence in the policies made the leader in capable of understanding the issues of the complex policies. In front of the media, Abbott has given the public messages about the reforms of health care and they made it the main point (Street 2015). However, he himself was not sure about what the health legislation is needed to be passed. He was also not sure about Australia’s important public broadcaster and Abbott was completely hoodwinked on the issues of climate change at the summit of G20 held last year in Australia. Abbott was also not going at maintaining public relations as he has never thought of waging discussions with the other top ministers belonging to the conservative coalition (Street 2015).

Therefore, in many such aspects, Abbott failed to emphasize on the tactics of discussing important policies and interpreting them accordingly. His rhetoric based ideas had also turned out to be a failure in most of the times. Therefore, the government with his policy building efforts, maintaining public relations failed (Street 2015).

Malcolm Turnball has become the 29^th Australian’s Prime Minister in the year 2015 by defeating the Abbott Government. Over here it is important to discuss the main achievements of the Turnbal government and what are the major fields where the Prime Minister worked to bring improvements in the administration of Australia (Dowding 2017).

According to the modern Trait theory, the individuals who are known as leaders have the adjustment of intelligence, openness to the experiences and the self-efficacy. In this context as well, Malcolm Turnball proved his self-efficacy in most of the times.

Achievements of Turnball Government

Turnball’s top 3 achievements include where he increased the female candidates in the cabinet ministers from three to five where a woman leader name Marise Payne is now considered as the first minister in the field of defense (Dowding 2017). Malcolm Turnball also changed the previous Government’s policy towards the funding of research for the CSIRO. Another most important achievement is that he was successful in restoring the position of the government, where he repositioned for being competitive at the polls. However, he also began the tax conversation or raising the rate of Good and Service Tax in the lieu of cut in the income tax.

Turnball is working on the improvements of the administration of Australia, trying to reverse the policy of the previous government and implementing properly to bring out the best of the Turnball administration by introducing new facilities for Australia (Wanna et al 2013).

The two major political parties of Australia are the Liberal party and The Labor Party is enumerated here. Over here it would focus on the main differences between the two major political parties. Along with their ideological differences, it is also important to discuss, the major differences that could be achieved in the field of their implementation of politics and practices (Fielding et al 2012).

The Liberal Party believes in the idea of Conservatism and on the other hand, Labor party believes in the ideology of Democratic Socialism (Fielding et al 2012; Cross and Katz 2013). The Liberal Party believes in the idea of Minimal involvement of the government in the economy and on the other hand Labor party believes in the minimum wages, enhancement in the tax system for the higher earners of income.

The liberal party’s believe in the theory of Conservatism and also their belief in the idea of Minimal intervention of the Government lead to the independent market policy structure, rolling back to the Adam Smith’s model economics or Laissez- fair (Fielding et al 2012). The Liberal party on the other hand believes in the ideology of Democratic Socialism which justifies the political demography along with the means of production in terms of social ownership, they believe in the increasing of the system of the tax for the rich people. The Liberal party relies on building a small governmental structure with the lower taxes and contributes to the less money for the other health services. Tony Abbott being the Prime Minister of the Liberal party imposed such ideas regarding the health schemes in Australia. The government also failed to achieve minimum consensus from the ordinary people (Fielding et al 2012).   However, on the other hand, the labor party believes in the taxes at higher rate to give funds to a bigger public sector and their main idea is to provide the important levels of the health and also incorporates the education and important services to everyone. Liberal party looks for the interest of the wealthy class people and on the other hand, Labor party looks for the interest of everyone in the society. Bill Shorten is the opposition leader of the labor party (Fielding et al 2012; Cross and Katz 2013).

Ideological differences of the political parties of Australia

Therefore to conclude, both the parties follow their political ideologies implement them in their field of practice. Right now Liberal party is in power in Australia and therefore, the changes, improvements are quite inevitable in the field of politics and the differences exist between the powers out of their ideological perceptions.

There has been a rally name One Nation Reclaim Australia which is making the Australians to raise their concerns for what are the troubles that they are facing. There are certain factors which are contributed to the rise of such concerns (Wear 2014). However, such a shift has to be noted down and the factors working behind such as shift.

Australian people are disappointed about the treatment that they are receiving from the present administration (Wear 2014). The farmers are not treated with the equal justice, where the foreign investors are not included in paying their share of tax due to the implementation of the Double Taxation system. The Australians are now eating the contaminated food where the Australians are infected with Hepatitis A and where more than 20 Australians were affected. With the coming of the Turnball administration, the GST would also rise; this would lead to the higher payment of tax and also in return would affect the ordinary people of Australia. Australians who are looking for their home have to suffer because of higher values of the houses. Along with this, the migration also increased which also lead to the cultural problems in Australia (Wear 2014).

This shift happened due to the above mentioned reasons where the people were tired putting their demands forward and not being listened carefully. According to the media, it is fascism as it is following the policy of suppressing the opposition and inculcating the aggressive nationalism and also inculcating the policy of racism as they do not want to embrace the people of the other culture (Wear 2014; Briton 2016). However, the rally claims to be democratic as it is looking forward to support the interest of the people of the Country.

Therefore to conclude it could be stated that the for the sake of democracy, such rally has to be established to put forward the problems of the people and it is felt necessary because the freedom of expression and speech are under the threats (Briton 2016)

The media in Australia influence the politics of the nation and also being controlled by the party politics of the country through the implementation of the Authoritarian Theory.  In this regard it is important to look out for the roles played by the Australian media with the illustrations of the examples which are would be present here (McCallum and Waller 2013).

Media of Australia is little bit government controlled and also supports the bigger companies, which is also following the ideology of conservatism. Government plays an important role while influencing the media. The Australian media is not much transparent as well while it is being regulated from the point of view of politics. It has been pointed that the traditional media of Australia are under a greater pressure at the same time (McCallum and Waller 2013).

There are certain examples which can be stated that media plays powerful roles such as the During One Nation Rally, the media instead of putting forward as concerns they tagged the rally as a fascism on the soil of Australia. The media also deny to face the questions raised by the public. The media such as News Limited, always try to get away with the closing down of the questions in order to avoid the scandals (McCallum and Waller 2013).

Therefore to conclude it could be stated that the media plays a powerful role in the country Australia and it is backed by the rules and regulations of the Government and playing an important role in managing the political environment of the country (Chadwick 2017).

The theory of Realism in the words of Machiavelli describes that for the sake of National security, even if it is considered to reduce the rights of the human. Importance of the national security and the individual rights are needed to be balanced. Over here it is important to discuss about how the Government of Australia (Etzioni 2015).

The principle that the government must follow is that the international human rights must be balanced with the national security (Etzioni 2015). In the liberal democracy, it is important to limit the rights of the individual in order to protect the national security to responds of the public emergency situations. However, the right to life, and also the right to free from torture for some criminal offences cannot be suspended.

In the liberal democracy, after the terrorist attacks took place in the year 2001, September, there are 40 new laws are created which would investigate on the activities of the population and movements of the people. If the people go against these laws, they were considered “soft on terror” (Etzioni 2015). Therefore it is important to keep in mind that under the new regime, and with the increase of the international issues, the rights of the individuals are being  be taken constricted and for the sake of security, such measures can be taken into consideration (Buergenthal 2017).

Therefore to conclude it could be stated that the individual rights are being lowered down due for the sake of the National security. However, it is necessary for the government to take actions to prevent terrorism and that has to be balanced properly with the individual rights.

According to Clarke (2017), the election of Donald Trump in America is going to leave a powerful impact on the other countries such as Australia as well. In this regard, it is important to discuss how the election is impacting the ongoing politics of Australia

Donald Trump belonging from the Republican Party follows the idea of conservatism and it is being reflected on his ingoing politics (Clarke 2017). Australia might get impacted out of the Movement based on reclaim Australia and the Trump’s coming might encourage this movement. Australia can be included into another war in the Middle East out of the Trump’s forces based on indiscrimination. The importance of the white workers can influence the Australian government to adopt the same policy in the country (McNair 2017).

Therefore it could be concluded that Donald Trump’s election might leave a severe impact on the Australian politics and it is up to the government of Australia to follow the politics by maintaining the consensus.

Therefore to conclude it could be stated that the politics of Australia is being influenced by the new regime of the government. The elections and the rise of conservative attitude in United States are leaving a greater impact on the politics of Australia. Therefore, the functions of the state and the country relations might also get affected out of this transformation.

References

Briton, B. and Pha, A., 2016. Stop the racist right!. Guardian (Sydney), (1741), p.1.

Buergenthal, T., Shelton, D., Stewart, D. and Vazquez, C., 2017. International human rights in a nutshell. West Academic.

Chadwick, A., 2017. The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Oxford University Press.

Clarke, M., 2017. The US-Australia Alliance in an Era of Change: Living Complacently?. Asia Policy, 23(1), pp.63-69.

Cross, W.P. and Katz, R.S. eds., 2013. The challenges of intra-party democracy. OUP Oxford.

Curtin, J., 2016. Australia. European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook, 55(1), pp.14-21.

Dowding, K. and Martin, A., 2017. Introduction. In Policy Agendas in Australia(pp. 1-10). Springer International Publishing.

Etzioni, A., 2015. NSA: National security vs. individual rights. Intelligence and National Security, 30(1), pp.100-136.

Fielding, K.S., Head, B.W., Laffan, W., Western, M. and Hoegh-Guldberg, O., 2012. Australian politicians’ beliefs about climate change: political partisanship and political ideology. Environmental Politics, 21(5), pp.712-733.

McCallum, K. and Waller, L., 2013. The intervention of media power in indigenous policy-making. Media International Australia, 149(1), pp.139-149.

McNair, B., 2017. An introduction to political communication. Taylor & Francis.

Street, A.P., 2015. The short and excruciatingly embarrassing reign of captain Abbott. Allen & Unwin.

Wanna, J., Nethercote, J. and Arklay, T., 2013. Australian Political Lives: Chronicling political careers and administrative histories (p. 130). ANU Press.

Wear, R., 2014. Astroturf and populism in Australia: The convoy of no confidence. Australian Journal of Political Science, 49(1), pp.54-67.