Long Term Policy Pacts

Most schoolchildren of my generation learned about the 5 year plans of the Chinese government. They were seen as a formerly bad country becoming successful. Of course they had the luxury of not having 3-year election cycles.

In Australia the majority of policy appears to be decided on a basis of how it will look in the eyes of voters. Will the current government been seen as doing well before the next election. If there is long-term suffering, will it happen on someone else’s watch.

During elections both sides will take credit and blame the other for the same things. Because leadership and policy changes so frequently, it is hard for anyone to keep up. In the last election, both parties had contributed to a massive national debt this decade…

We suggest that long-term plans, where applicable, are signed off on by both main parties, like a pact. Not the intricacies of policy, but broad goals as the Chinese had.

For example, electricity prices. Both parties accept that they’ve reached the upper limit of what is affordable. So they jointly pledge to lower prices by 20% over 5 years, and not rise by more than inflation beyond that. How they achieve it is up to them, but it means the whole country has a base to work from. Written in stone, and no party is to make claims “it was our idea” later on.

The same with immigration. Jointly agree to cap the numbers, to set a number in writing.

Caveats would need to be in place. For immigration, rules could be bent for humanitarian purposes amongst our allies and the local region.

Think of it like the Paris Agreement for global climate change, but just within Australia. Local bipartisan pacts.