Before the 2022 election, then-opposition leader Anthony Albanese repeatedly labelled the former Coalition government as “all promise and no delivery”, arguing that things would be different under Labor.
In April that year, he said he was “determined to … restore faith in politics by delivering on every single thing that I promise … so people will look back at the end of the first-term government and say, ‘well, you know, they did exactly what they said they would do’.”
So, after one year in power, has the Albanese government been keeping its promise to keep its promises?
This week, RMIT ABC Fact Check launched the Promise Tracker, which will keep tabs on 64 key pledges Labor made before the 2022 election.
It gives a detailed view of where the government is delivering on its commitments and where it’s falling short.
Here’s how it has fared so far.
Some major achievements in the bag …
The government was quick to deliver on a number of promises.
With support from the Greens all but assured, establishing a royal commission into Robodebt was an easy win that has given a voice to those impacted by the former government’s policy.
And retaining the Coalition government’s one-off $420 increase to the low-and-middle income tax offset was similarly easy to achieve.
But in some areas where the government needed to legislate, Labor encountered resistance in the Senate, where it negotiated to establish a National Anti-Corruption Commission, enshrine Australia’s new 43 per cent emissions reduction target in law and remove fringe benefits tax from zero- and low-emissions vehicles.
Despite some hurdles, the government prevailed. Of the promises Fact Check is tracking, 18 have been delivered.
The bulk — 40 to be exact — remains in progress. And while it’s hard to know how many will ultimately fall by the wayside, delivering them all within the next two years will be a herculean task.
… but there are storm clouds on the horizon
Fact Check considers the final six of the 64 promises on its list to be stalled.
This classification means that the task now appears too great to be achieved within the electoral cycle (or, where relevant, the government’s self-imposed deadline) or that the government’s stated plans suggest a broken promise is likely.
Among the six pledges is the government’s promise to reduce power bills by $275 a year by 2025 — which Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has repeatedly declared to be “broken”.
With power prices rising steadily, it appears unlikely the government will accomplish this task. But two years is a long time in politics, and anything can happen between now and Labor’s 2025 deadline, so the promise can’t be called broken just yet.
Similarly, with inflation remaining stubbornly high, the government’s promise to get real wages moving is proving difficult to deliver.
Even shakier, perhaps, is its pledge to deliver 450 gigalitres of water for South Australia through the Murray-Darling Basin plan. So far, only 4.5 gigalitres have been recovered, and the mid-2024 deadline is looming.
And then there is Labor’s promise that it would not engage in tax reform beyond its proposals to rein in multinational tax avoidance. This promise recently stalled when the government announced changes to the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax (PRRT) — a move explicitly ruled out during the election campaign by then shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers in his response to a question about Labor’s multinational tax proposal.
If the government legislates the PRRT changes, the promise will be broken.
Compare the pair
This isn’t the first time Fact Check has tracked a government’s promises, having monitored 78 commitments across the 2013-2016 electoral cycle under Liberal prime ministers Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
So, how does their progress at the one-year mark compare to Labor’s, and what does it say about the two first-term governments’ approaches to keeping promises?
In opposition, Abbott was just as strident as Albanese when it came to talk of keeping promises.
Speaking in parliament in 2011 about the Gillard government’s plans to introduce a price on carbon (despite a promise before the 2010 election that there would be no carbon tax) he said:
“It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.”
But by the time the Abbott government reached its first-year anniversary, it had already broken 12 promises. (While it had delivered 14, a further 4 were stalled.)
Far from attempting to keep all its promises, the government jettisoned many of them during its controversial first budget, in 2014.
For example, despite Abbott’s pre-election rhetoric amounting to an ironclad promise to not raise taxes, a 2 per cent temporary budget repair levy was soon added to the tab of high-income earners.
Arguably, there’s a parallel between this and Labor’s promise to refrain from tax reform beyond its targeting of multinationals (which it is on track to break).
But that’s where the similarities end.
After an election-eve appearance on television where Abbott promised no cuts to the ABC or SBS, the Coalition’s first budget did just that. (Abbott later admitted the decision was “at odds” with what he said before the election, blaming it on changed circumstances: a deteriorating budget bottom line.)
Also broken before the Coalition government’s first birthday was a pledge to make no adverse changes to superannuation, and another to publish a draft amendment for constitutional recognition of Indigenous people.
By contrast, Labor’s first regular budget, handed down only weeks ago, contained fewer surprises about the promises it made a year ago.
On superannuation, the government has indeed flagged changes to tax arrangements for super accounts with balances greater than $3 million.
But while the changes would have undercut Labor’s promise to avoid non-multinational tax reform, they are slated to occur in the 2025-26 financial year, which is almost certainly after the next election for the House of Representatives and means voters will get to have their say.
And on Indigenous affairs, the government has made significant progress towards delivering on its own promise to hold a referendum on constitutional recognition. The Albanese government has already published a draft constitutional amendment, with the referendum planned for later this year.
Make or break?
After breaking high-profile promises, neither Julia Gillard nor Tony Abbott made it to the next election, having been removed by their own parties.
Labor went on to lose the 2013 election under Kevin Rudd, and in 2016, under Malcolm Turnbull, the Coalition was reduced to a slim majority.
Albanese seems acutely aware of this. His government appears determined to build trust with the electorate by appearing to keep faith with what it promised before the election.
This is evidenced by its steadfast commitment to the already legislated stage 3 tax cuts. Even in the face of calls to axe them and runaway expenses in the budget, Labor remains resolute.
As with governments that came before, changing circumstances will continue to test Labor’s resolve over the coming years. Fact Check will be watching to report on where it delivers, and where it falls short.
Matt Martino is the Managing Editor of RMIT ABC Fact Check