As Labor prepares major housing and tax reforms, it must once again battle a powerful alliance of political, corporate and media forces, writes DrVictoria Fielding.

ALTHOUGH THE DETAILS are not yet known, TreasurerJim Chalmershas made clear that he has ambitious reforms to announce in this weeks Budget in relation to housing, including changes to negative gearing, capital gains and tax concession trusts.

As the details of these reforms are announced, its time we take stock of just how hard it is for Labor governments to implement much-needed reforms like these plans, which at their heart are about addressing wealth inequality.

The unequal status quo has a huge advantage in Australia because Labor is always faced with a six-sided battle whenever its governments propose ambitious progressive reforms. Whether it be redistributive tax changes, climate action, workers rights and wages, or any major investment in health, education or infrastructure, Labor does not play on a level playing field but rather has to battle on its own against six opponents.

The first of the six players Labor fights is their political opposition. Where this has traditionally been the Liberals and Nationals, it is now the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation. With these three parties locked in a battle over which can be themost aggressivelyhard-right MAGA, there is no chance of bipartisanship to address the housing affordability crisis. Instead, as per usual, Labors political opposition will mount a massive fear campaign based on lies to defend the interests of the beneficiaries of wealth inequality becausethats what they exist to do.

Australias conservative parties are sliding into a Trump-style contest to see who can harness division, fear and anti-immigration politics most effectively.

Alongside their political arm, the second player against Labor is the corporate sector and its billionaires, who are the beneficiaries of inequality and very much like the unfair and unequal system of taxation.

Of course, this sector never admits: I dont like paying tax and contributing my fair share to the community where Ive enriched myself. That would be far too honest. Instead, they will again mount their rinse-and-repeat fear campaign in alliance with the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation to claim that Labors tax changes will hurt the Australian economy and will cost jobs, even though we all know this is self-interested crap.

The third player is conservative media outlets like News Corp, whichwill campaign against Labors reforms, because, like the other two players, thats what they exist to do. They will pretend they are doing journalism when really they are engaged in a political war against progressive policies.

There is no counterweight to this conservative media power in the Australian media. Even where there are outlets on the Left, they are never on Labors side. This means the Labor Government will be defamed and attacked and lied about, and there is no one to defend them in the media except themselves, who the media can simply ignore.

If these three players arent powerful enough, Labor also has to contend with the fourth player the rest of the mainstream media. Although non-partisan media are not campaigning for corporate interests, they are too weak and too terrified of conservative politics and media to adequately call out the campaign and bulldust against Labors reforms.

Instead, they will weakly quote both sides as Labor tries to sell the benefits of their reforms and the Liberals/Nationals/One Nation completely misrepresent them. They wont call out the fear campaign as lies, because that would to them sound like they were taking Labors side. What they seem not to realise is that by giving a free pass to false-fear campaigns, theyre taking the side of Labors opponents.

The fifth player is related to all of the above, but Ive given it its own guernsey because it does represent a huge impediment to Labors reforms: the scare campaigns of lies and disinformation used across mainstream and social media. This player is wielded like a weapon by and amongst the other four players. The public will be told tax changes will destroy their lives in a myriad of ways, which are entirely baseless, demonstrably false and laughingly ridiculous.

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Labor knows this hailstorm of manipulation and lies is coming Chalmers hassaid as muchand there is nothing they can do about it. Those spreading the lies and disinformation are too powerful and too well resourced to fight back against, so Labor just has to accept that the bulldust storm is coming and keep fighting on regardless.

The sixth player is one that should know better progressives who resent Labor. Whether they be supporters of the Greens, the Teals, or just hate politicians generally, this player spends all their time complaining that Labors reforms are not good enough, do not go far enough, are not radical enough and therefore they cant possibly support them.

In place of ever giving Labor credit, accepting the difficulty of taking on the other five players and pragmatically backing them even if their plans are not as radical as they would like, anti-Labor progressives become yet another player that Labor has to stare down in its quest to address wealth inequality.

Labor is thus permanently wedged between a right-wing campaign characterising its plans as far too radical and disruptive to the economy, and a left-wing complaint that it is not radical enough.

In this wedged position, Labor has to not only bring about nation-changing reforms, but also, while doing so, work to hold onto government because otherwise its reforms are not only impossible, but are cancelled and reversed.

The outcome of this Labor-one-against-all-the-rest-six scrum is that reform is made far more challenging than it should be.

Chalmers acknowledged thiswhen he saidin relation to the predictable fear campaigns against his tax reforms:

The six-sided team against Labors one is a huge disincentive against progressive reforms. Labor stares down the six-headed beast anyway because its the right thing to do. We should at least acknowledge the challenge it faces when it does this and how remarkable it is when it runs the gauntlet and wins.

DrVictoria Fieldingis an Independent Australia columnist. You can follow her on Threads@drvicfieldingor [email protected].

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