The Australian centre-right coalition defied the odds recently to win re-election. As the results came in, former conservative PM Tony Abbott said an interesting thing: the old Left-Right dynamic is fading; the new contest is between “the working” and “the wealthy”.
This observation obviously contains some self-serving hooey. Poor people still tend to vote for the Left, the rich for the Right – and many of the retirees who who made a real difference in this election haven’t worked for years. What Mr Abbott was trying to do was recalibrate the old class conflict to his advantage, to turn it into a contest between those who back expensive, progressive projects like green energy versus the toiling masses who can’t afford the increase in prices or taxes.
