Australia’s politicians are addicted to big government and spending

The end of neoliberalism in Australia, at least in its diffuse, applied form, was a moment when “only Nixon could go to China.” Just as liberalization and deregulation in the 1980s could only be achieved by Labor, given the strength of the union movement and the need for cooperation with the project, the embrace of regulation and big government could only be achieved by the Liberals.

That moment occurred in 2020 and 2021 as a product of the pandemic; But pressures against neoliberalism are also growing in other polities, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, where it has been practiced much more crudely for much longer.