2020: Year in Review
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our clients and friends a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Most people will be happy to see the back of 2020 due to the enormous number of lifechanging events forced upon us as we continue to try to define the new normal.
2020 could politely be described as a year of extremes – whether it was combatting raging summer bushfires, managing the dreaded coronavirus or dealing with the fallout from a troublesome ongoing trade spat with China at a macro level, combined with significant individual challenges as social distancing and quarantine requirements forced a shift to meetings being held via Zoom and home schooling our kids.
PremierState and PremierNational has expanded through these difficult and uncertain times, with the role of Government being more important than ever.
Over the past 12 months, we have welcomed the addition of five new senior team members:
Darrin Barnett (former Senior Advisor to Prime Minister Gillard) as the Director of Labor, Crossbench and Communications;
Andrew Dixson (former Roads & Maritime Advisor to Transport Minister Constance) as another experienced pair of hands in the NSW Government practice;
Lino Caccavo (ex-Lend Lease/Stockland) as Special Counsel in our property practice.
Ilana Waldman (formerly NSW Department of Planning, Industry & the Environment) as Special Counsel in our property practice.
Sarah McKenzie (formerly ACCC & ICAC) is now Head of Commercial and Regulatory Affairs.
2020 has also seen Christine Kirk take up a new role as Chief Operating Officer and both Georgia De Mestre and Emma Hayman promoted to Advisors.
I want to particularly acknowledge our loyal clients who we have worked alongside throughout 2020, and look forward to what we can achieve together in 2021.
Please enjoy our take on the political year that has been below.
Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Michael.
This Year in Politics: Federal Government
With the Christmas plans of many Australians thrown into disarray as part of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we have all had to adjust our habits and expectations as the nation faces a raft of unforeseen health and economic challenges.
Significant interventions by Governments at all levels have meant a busy year for government relations practitioners and the replacement of the antiquated Council of Australian Governments (COAG) with National Cabinet presents a range of new opportunities.
The way we connect to Government has changed as the mix of Coalition and Labor Governments across the country made it necessary to find ways to work together across the partisan divide as our Federation was modernised with meetings of significance held online and State and Federal Budgets delayed until the full impact of COVID-19 became clearer.
In the political sphere, 2020 was a tough and complex year for the Prime Minister and his State and Territory counterparts, with the introduction of hard and controlled state borders testing the limits of our Federation with ongoing angst at a national level while Premiers in charge of their respective health systems acted to limit the spread of the potentially deadly coronavirus known as COVID-19.
The year began with bushfires ravaging large swathes of the eastern and southern mainland states before a global pandemic brought economic activity to a standstill and forced an extreme level of anxiety on a population who never felt they were beyond the grasp of COVID-19.
Much like the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) a decade earlier, Australia’s mineral exports did the heavy economic lifting while many sectors such as tourism and hospitality faced conditions so dire that the Morrison Government was forced to step in by spending billions of dollars on the JobSeeker and JobKeeper programs to help millions of Australians get by.
Still, a large number of Australian businesses were forced to close and the future remains uncertain for many, while the trend towards online retail and technology that encourages working from home accelerated has changed the conversation on our approach to work/life balance.
And for those who thought the year couldn’t get any worse, a marked deterioration in our trade and diplomatic relationship with China saw many industries including coal, wine and barley hit with trade sanctions and tariffs set by our largest trading partner.
Australia has already decided to take China to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over tariffs placed on Australian barley that effectively ended the trade, the first time we have taken action of this type since the China/Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) was signed in 2015.
Amid all of this uncertainty, 2020 proved to be a good year to be an elected Government in Australia, with all state and territory leaders lifting their personal ratings as Australia did significantly better at containing COVID-19 than almost every other country.
State and Territory governments in Queensland, the ACT and Northern Territory were returned, with the thankless task of Opposition made even more difficult by the fact that the media landscape was dominated by National Cabinet and its participants.
Next year will be critical to the rebuild as Governments weigh up which sectors need further assistance, when to wind back wage subsidies and the even more difficult question of how to pay for the billions spent propping up the economy and keeping us safe.
This Year in Politics: State Government
New South Wales
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was widely credited for navigating Australia’s most populous state through a spate of large scale bushfires early in the year and then the rolling crisis of COVID-19 where the Premier successfully balanced public health concerns with the need for businesses to stay open.
An outbreak of cases late in the year on Sydney’s northern beaches meant that at the time of writing, household gatherings were limited to 10 visitors with Christmas Day only a handful of days away.
Victoria
Victorian Premier Dan Andrews ended the year by publicly apologising for Victoria's hotel quarantine fiasco, which sparked a second wave of infections that led to months of hardline restrictions and more than 18,000 infections.
But despite Andrews losing both his Health Minister and the Secretary of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, many Victorians continued to strongly support the Premier as he fronted up for more than 100 days in a row at press conferences designed to instill confidence as he led his state through the crisis.
Queensland
Before the onset of COVID-19, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk looked in danger of defeat at the October 31 election but putting in place hard borders and a no-nonsense attitude saw the Premier returned for a third term with an increased majority.
All eyes now will be in Queensland’s mining and tourism sectors as the Government continues to ramp up the state’s economic recovery while trying to keep coronavirus under control.
Western Australia
WA was the only state to return a Budget surplus as mineral exports continued largely unabated during the worst of the COVID-19 crisis.
Premier Mark McGowan’s strong stance on borders was rewarded by the public, with an astonishing 91 per cent of voters supporting the Labor leader’s approach mid-year and with an election just around the corner, it is highly likely the ALP will be returned with an increased majority.
South Australia
South Australia was one of a small number of states to mandate a second lockdown after making it through much of the year without a spike in the number of cases.
South Australian Premier Steven Marshall said the state had avoided a coronavirus catastrophe amid the Adelaide virus outbreak in November, with modelling showing SA was at risk of a major second wave when authorities ordered lockdown.
Tasmania
Aside from an early scare in the state’s northwest courtesy of the troubled Ruby Princess cruise ship, the island state remained largely COVID-free, with just over 230 confirmed cases for the year, as Premier Peter Gutwein took a hardline stance with respect to borders and quarantine.
However, in a state that relies heavily on tourism, the year ended on a disappointing note with the Sydney to Hobart yacht race cancelled for the first time in 76 years after a number of cases in Sydney’s northern beaches meant Gutwein announced a ban on anyone travelling from that region with all others from the Harbour City forced to quarantine upon arrival for 14 days.
ACT
The ALP lead by Chief Minister Andrew Barr won a sixth consecutive term of government in the ACT, an astonishing achievement given the fast nature of modern politics.
While Labor's representation in the Legislative Assembly dropped by one to 10 seats, the Liberals also dropped one seat to finish on nine seats, with the Greens snaring six seats and once again holding the balance of power.
Northern Territory
Incumbent Labor Chief Minister Michael Gunner won a second four-year term and importantly, achieved a majority in the 25 seat unicameral Northern Territory Parliament.
The ALP ran largely on its record of keeping Territorians safe through the COVID-19 crisis and the contest set a precedent for the later Queensland and ACT elections in returning three Labor state and territory governments in 2020.
PN UPDATE:
The team at PremierNational is committed to keeping clients up to date. Throughout 2021, our property, planning and infrastructure will be releasing a series of clear fact sheets with the key points on topical and relevant matters. Our most recent fact sheet on developing and acquiring Crown Land can be found on our website: https://pstate.com.au/pn-news.
If you would like to receive these fact sheets, please email Bianca Knight at bk@premiernational.com.au.