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The federal electorate of Boothby is the only marginal seat in South Australia and, if the results of the March state government election are anything to go by, social issues may loom large.
On the eve of the South Australian state election, we talked to CEO of SA Council of Social Services (SACOSS), Ross Womersley, about the social issues that resulted in voters casting out a first-term government in that state. The result in the single seat of Boothby may not win or lose the federal election on May 21, but the social issues in that state offer insights into what could play out in marginal seats across the country in the national ballot.
On Friday, March 18, state election eve in South Australia, posters of then-premier Steven Marshall lined the roads around Adelaide and they were not complimentary. Those old enough to remember cigarette advertising before plain packaging were quickly reminded of an ‘iconic’ red and white cigarette branding synonymous with macho, muscleman power. The reference in the lead up to the South Australian state election was that Marshall was not good for people’s health – perhaps even deadly.
That single message, related to ambulance ramping, cut through and the Marshall government was thrown out of office after one term. According to Ross Womersley, the ambulance ramping issues was symbolic of everything else that had been happening to the vulnerable in South Australia during Marshall’s term as premier.
“The purpose of SACOSS has always been about addressing the issues that cause people to be disadvantaged and find themselves living lives of impoverishment,” Womersley explains.
“We often think in terms of the basics, and not in terms of life’s luxuries, because that seems to be what is missing for too many people [even] in a country as privileged, resource rich and educated as we are,” he says.
“Yes, we have used it [ramping] as a lens in the leadup to this state election to create a slogan under which a number of issues can sit but I think we will maintain that into the future in an effort to remind people that there continue to be people in our community who, through no fault of their own, live with no access to very basic supports.
“I think there is no doubt that is the case and COVID has, in a sense, exploited the vulnerabilities and amplified some people’s vulnerabilities.
“So if you were unemployed going into COVID it is probably even harder for you to find your way back into the workforce. If you have very limited financial reserves, you have probably exhausted them. If your health was poor, you have probably had elements of that amplified.
“There is no doubt the levels of inequality have evolved and there are far too many people living below the poverty line and in unacceptable circumstances.”
If Womersley is right then it is no wonder the “parties of government” in Australia – Liberal and Labor – worked so hard to take our attention off the pandemic and restore Australian society to “business as usual” before embarking on the federal campaign – even as the pandemic rages in some states and 2022 has been called its “worst year” by medical experts.
Womersley’s list of social problems amplified by COVID may end up being just as relevant to the federal election outcome as they were in the South Australian state election.
Rental affordability
“Let’s talk to the rental affordability crisis because that is an example of something that has been amplified over the last two to three years in particular,” Womersley says.
“One of the things that we have identified in the research SACOSS has done is that in the year 2000 the public housing stock constituted about 10 per cent of the housing market in South Australia.
“In 2020 it constituted less than 7 per cent of the housing stock: 6.7 per cent. Effectively governments over those two decades allowed the stock to be eroded. They used it as a way of bolstering their budget.
“They sold off parcels of land. They sold off properties and they didn’t reinvest their funding into building new stock. To be fair some of that was involved in trying to redevelop the public housing estate in a way that didn’t leave large swathes of suburbs or areas constituted simply by public housing, which of course was a desirable thing to do, because we know when we concentrate vulnerable and disadvantaged people together it amplifies their disadvantage.
“In trying to trade out some of that public housing estate there was some good purpose but the big issue is we think that has lead to market failure and that market failure has led to price hikes in the private rental market and that has cascaded from bottom to top.
“We do worry about the people at the bottom and we think the case for public housing isn’t necessarily based on welfare.
“We think there is a case for investing in public housing in order to protect the broader rental market from price exploitation.”
According to Womersley, in the leadup to the state election the Labor Party had arrived at the election agreeing that the disinvestment in housing y previous Labor governments was bad policy and they promised a very modest investment in new housing stock.
“However their base for that is still strongly embedded in a welfare model rather than it is a market intervention that would help the market.”
According to SACOSS the level of investment needed would be a minimum of $1.4 billion over next the four years but the SA Labor Party promised $180 million – what a great opportunity for South Australian federal candidates to ask their leaders to plug the hole.
Under the former South Australian Liberal Government the waiting list was more targeted and had been reduced from about 21,000 people to around 17,000.
“But frankly 17,000 people is way too many people to be needing access to living in inexpensive, affordable, let alone energy efficient housing that is well located.
“Effectively we are proposing building the public housing estate back because it is one mechanism for ensuring that there is at least one part of the population that can be living in quality, affordable housing.
“Public housing has always been means tested and rents have been set on an income basis so at least theoretically if people are living in the public housing estate with reasonable income they would also be paying market rental, they are also paying off the property so that would also leave the government with yield to reinvest.
“Effectively rents are still tied to income. Rents are somewhere between 20 and 25 per cent of income so if you have a decent income and you are choosing to live in public housing you should be paying the market rate.”
The value of social services
The fact that neither major party, at state or federal level, is willing to raise social supports, such as the dole and disability pension, above the poverty line is underpinned by ideology, according to Womersley.
“I think there’s also what has become a long-standing division in the way governments think about those who are worthy and those who are not and in this context.
“It has also been a way that governments have looked to minimise investment, to narrow the target groups who are eligible for support, and frankly both the Labor and Liberal Party have been prone to that kind of thinking.
“I think there has also been an enormous, and this is probably ideological, but there has been this enormous move away from being proud of really good quality public services and being proud that we pay for them and that we are happy to pay for them.”
As to how organisations like SACOSS can shift that ideological position, “Well when we work that out we will let you know,” Womersley says.
“Leadership is the only thing that will change that and someone having the courage to actually think more carefully and to also be prepared to prosecute the arguments with people.
“I think one of the things that has also happened in Australia is that the way we have political discussion is so reductionist now and so, as a consequence, we don’t start with a conversation about the benefits of getting in early to adapt to climate change or the benefits of a really substantial public housing estate or the benefits of really good public transport, education and somewhat in health there are elements of that.
“Most of us really appreciate the opportunity to go to a public hospital when we are in an emergency. We appreciate being able to send our children to public schools in our neighbourhood but we don’t then prosecute the discussion about ‘that means we will have to contribute something for that’.
“So this is also having a positive but real conversation about our electorate and community that if we want those things it makes sense that we are prepared to pay for it and have a tax system that enables that to happen in really efficient ways.”
Tax reform
“We have argued for many years now that our taxation system needs to be reviewed and reconsidered” Womersley said, referring in the first instance to state stamp duties and long term land taxes.
“We have often thought that longer term land tax arrangements would be satisfactory as a reliable way of sourcing income for the government and a more regular way.
“Stamp duties fluctuate, add to pricing and come in big lumps.
“If you have the conversations with people in the back room of politics they might concede it is a good idea. The Liberal Party did introduce a range of reforms to land taxes and we really welcomed those but the property classes came out with all guns blazing and as a result the government ended up introducing legislation that failed to look like anything we wanted
“I think vested interests won out yet again, so for as long as that continues to be the way that politics is run we will find it very difficult to progress this conversation.”
Primary health care
Ramping, the single galvanizing issue in the South Australian state election held in March is not new and Womersley agreed that governments had been grappling with the issue of how to have enough emergency ward capacity to cope with a line-up of ambulances.
However, the SACOSS position was, and still is, much broader than a quick fix.
“Of course the health system needs to address the issue of ramping but we have people in hospital who shouldn’t be in hospital any more. That awful term of people blocking beds. We haven’t found an efficient way of people exiting hospital even though we are told those services are available.
“One of the conversations we have tried to lead is the massive disinvestment, in both community-level illness prevention and health promotion and local community sector health infrastructure, results in people ending up in the hospital system who shouldn’t be there in the first place.
“If we were doing much better health promotion we would have fewer people being transported to hospital.
“If we were doing much better mental health support to people in their own communities and better psycho-social services we wouldn’t need people to be transported to hospital in the way they do.
“But until governments wrestle with the right crocodile we will continue to face this demand to increase spending on the tertiary level of the health system.”
The mighty dollar
Womersley is convinced that massive political donations wield enormous power in the Australian political landscape. This may translate to the national issues of integrity and transparency and the need for a federal corruption commission.
“There is absolutely no doubt that the political parties, while they might pay some attention to SACOSS, if we were resourced and positioned to attend $10,000 political meet and greets or to put money into supporting the parties, I have absolutely no doubt they would be paying a lot more attention to us.
“But, of course, we barely have enough to put together the most miniscule of public campaigns and thankfully we still have some access to media interest who continue to run the stories we present.
“I guess we just hope that whoever assumes government and is endorsed to do so actually arrives with a passion to not only make the state better but to make things for people who are having the hardest of times better and that will have the humility and the leadership to put aside that self-interest of so many of their political supporters of the monied classes with a view to building genuinely good communities that leave room for everybody.”
Whilst relying on the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) to do most of the heavy lifting in the federal campaign, Womersley believes the issue of rental affordability will be similarly important at the national level as it was in the state campaign.
“The federal government always has access to the biggest spending levers. They’ve also been responsible for spending enormous amounts of money on promoting home ownership, driving up prices as a result.
“They also have a really important role to play in helping to address the rental affordability crisis and part of that can take the form of investing in building new public housing and part of that should also take the form of improving Commonwealth rent assistance.
“A further part of that should be about making sure the amounts of income assistance people are receiving, they have to be marched above the poverty line so people aren’t left unable to cover the basics and state governments aren’t left holding the consequences.”
As a footnote, according to the AEC and ABC, Boothby covers the southern suburbs of Adelaide, beginning on the coast between Glenelg and Marino and extending inland to include southern hillside suburbs. Boothby has been Liberal held for decades, but it has become more marginal over the last two decades, especially since the current boundaries were first used in 2019. Current Liberal MP Nicolle Flint won Boothby in 2016 and was re-elected against a vigorous campaign in 2019. Flint has announced she will retire at the 2022 election, leaving Boothby as the key seat to watch in South Australia. The new Liberal candidate is Dr Rachel Swift, opposed by Labor’s Louise Miller-Frost. Boothby is also being contested by Independent and former Adelaide Writer’s Week director Jo Dyer.
What you can do
1. Take some time before the 21 May national ballot or before you vote at prepoll to think deeply about the issues that matter to you and to the community you live in.
2. Find out which federal electorate you live in and who the candidates are.
3. Phone your candidates or send them an email or social media message and ask them some questions about the key issues you have identified.
4. Consider giving your vote to the candidate who gives the most convincing answers to your questions
Remember that Australia doesn’t have a presidential-style election. We vote for one of the candidates in our electorate (there are 151 House of Representative electorates across Australia). We also vote for state representatives in the Senate (or upper house)
