Coronavirus: Australia's political foes drop partisanship in rare show of unity
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An empty walkway through the normally bustling Martin Place in Sydney, Australia. The coronavirus outbreak has led to the country's political and ideological foes uniting in a concerted bid to save workers' jobs, among other things.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Jonathan Pearlman For The Straits Times In Sydney, Jonathan Pearlman
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Politics of a pandemic
In a revealing moment in a hallway in Australia's Parliament last week, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was walking past opposition leader Anthony Albanese, and offered to shake the hand of his political foe.
Mr Albanese quickly refused, noting that a handshake would be a breach of social distancing rules amid the coronavirus outbreak. But there was no hint of acrimony or awkwardness.
Indeed, the pair promptly broke into cheery grins and strongly agreed about the need to keep their distance. Mr Frydenberg later said of his handshake offer: "It's a habit that is hard to break."
This scene reflected an unusual development in Australia: The gravity of the coronavirus outbreak, with the country hit by more than 6,300 cases and 61 deaths to date, has brought an end to the paralysing dysfunction in Canberra of recent years and led political and ideological foes to work together.
This has already resulted in effective and far-reaching economic and health measures, including the quick passage through Parliament last week of the biggest spending measure in the nation's history - an A$130 billion (S$117 billion) scheme to help pay the wages of up to six million workers.
In recent weeks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has also been holding regular private discussions and briefings with Mr Albanese, the Labor Party chief, about the crisis. Both leaders have refrained from the usual hostilities and avoided political point-scoring.
Significantly, Mr Morrison has adopted big-spending emergency measures that defy the ideological inclinations of his ruling conservative Liberal-National coalition. He has doubled welfare payments, made childcare free, frozen evictions of tenants, and taken on massive debt that is expected to leave the government owing A$850 billion - a debt that could take a generation to repay.
"There are no blue teams or red teams," Mr Morrison, the Liberal Party leader, said earlier this month. "There are no more unions or bosses. There are just Australians now, that's all that matters."
Likewise, Mr Albanese said he was only interested in "solutions, not arguments".
This display of unity marks a stark contrast from the partisanship and tribal loyalties that have stymied progress in Canberra in recent years and blocked reforms in crucial areas such as climate change and taxation.
Gone too are the tensions that typically mar relations between the federal government and the eight state and territory governments. Instead, Mr Morrison has joined the state and territory leaders in forming a special national Cabinet that meets several times a week and has proven highly effective.
The Premier of Victoria state, Mr Daniel Andrews, who is from the opposition Labor Party, has heaped praise on Mr Morrison for convening the national Cabinet, saying it was a "fantastic" idea and was "working extremely well".
"We are all very grateful to be acting as one government almost, if you like, across the country rather than nine of us doing our own thing," Mr Andrews told The Guardian Australia.
This spirit of cooperation has also been evident in relations between unions and business groups. These two sectors - usually staunch enemies - have come together to ensure work conditions are made more flexible so that people can remain employed amid the crisis.
