By Mark Kenny

A version of this article was originally published by The Canberra Times.

Maybe it is because their careers can end so summarily that reformist MPs "over-learn" from rejection and often over-correct.

This 'retreat loop' is hardly conducive to courageous problem-solving.

Politicians are not alone, though. For all its mastery, the Reserve Bank is over-correcting right now having left the cash rate too low for too long in late 2021-22.

The bank should revisit the early 1990s recession and perhaps recall the gritty wisdom of Pulp Fiction's Marcellus Wallace: "Pride only hurts, it never helps."

Overstretched households would agree as the economy skirts close to recession.

Labor over-corrected in 2013 when it was banished to the opposition benches for mauling two of its own prime ministers. The remnant caucus responded to its ouster by embracing loyalty ... perhaps to a fault.

An ensuing "groupthink" saw it eschew leadership changes, which was good, and take a raft of tax increases to the 2019 poll - without all the usual internal friction - which wasn't.

The shock of defeat then yielded a new lesson: "Don't be ambitious with your election platform."

Anthony Albanese's leadership rested on a more minimalist presentation. And his subsequent victory in 2022 confirmed the new "small target" orthodoxy.

However, there have been downstream consequences. With its reform aspirations carefully abridged in opposition, Albanese's Labor has restored competence but has not communicated an inspiring governing ethos since coming to power.

Despite a more than serviceable list of portfolio achievements, the PM has slipped into negative approval territory. Staggeringly, the party's pallid 32.6 per cent primary vote may have contracted since 2022. Several polls have the Coalition level-pegging or better, two-party preferred.

Too many voters feel the government has been ineffective in reversing the high cost of living, high rates and rents, and punishing energy prices. Even among progressives, a 'frustration' gap yawns between Labor rhetoric and actions - its commitment to emissions cuts against the approval of new coal and gas projects, and its hand-wringing over civilian deaths in Gaza (and now Lebanon) without clear consequence for Israel.

Voters sense a procedural government struggling to adjust its language and cadence to circumstances of increased urgency and upheaval.

This ennui can be traced right back to its risk-minimisation mindset in opposition - demonstrating small target oppositions inevitably risk small aspiration governments.

The one big risk it did take, the Voice referendum, failed. Badly. The government's confidence has not recovered.

What is to be done? For a start, Labor should decide if 2019 was a rejection of fairer tax arrangements per se, or rather was a rational response to the large quantum of ideas put forward (from opposition) and then not adequately explained. Among those proposals had been changes to market-distorting tax breaks for property investors - negative gearing and the CGT concession.

A third proposal which generated more heat than light in 2019 was the abolition of tax refunds paid (franking credits) on share dividends - even when tax had not been paid. After 2019, these worthy ideas were abandoned on the grounds of brutal political reality. Commentators categorised them as political kryptonite. However, might another attempt be viable?

How many electors, for example, genuinely understood the concessional tax treatment of share dividends?

Clearly, this was a technical reform better suited to the mid-term authority of government than an opposition in an election campaign.

It is interesting that tax breaks for property investors have again arisen as we approach the 2025 election. Will this go the same way as before or has the idea of crimping negative gearing - and more urgently CGT - become newly viable as young voters make up a larger share of the electorate? Perhaps then, it has even become politically necessary.

Few new electors can buy their own home let alone afford another property. To them, a consensus skewed to investors is a closed shop.

Crucially, these voters now have alternatives.

Albanese came of age politically through Labor's golden years of Hawke and Keating, when his party could present itself as both left-of-centre and pro-market liberalist at the same time.

This dualism fanned strong dissatisfaction on its left flank, but electorally, such umbrage amounted to little of consequence.

Those days are gone. The Greens party quadrupled its holdings in the Reps in 2022. It has since made housing affordability, and the muscular representation of renters, a high-profile national focus.

Add in the Greens' signature commitment to faster climate action and Labor is now taking fire from both sides.

Happy to highlight Labor's predicament, Peter Dutton is also making a virtue of bold - if uncosted - change with his plan to build seven nuclear power stations.

Ironically, even in this ostensibly radical policy, Labor's caution was facilitative because it was Albanese's lickety-split acceptance of AUKUS in 2021 that opened the door to nuclear submarines and hence, nuclear power.

Last week Dutton used a speech on nuclear to tie his themes together, railing against what he termed "a government more interested in prioritising green activist crusades than balancing economic, energy and environmental imperatives."

Dutton's pitch is to tell Australians he will deliver "economic security, defence security, and energy security".

It's a big call, especially from someone known for war-baiting and divisive rhetoric.

But in uncertain and unsettling times, it may yet cut through.

Mark Kenny is the Director of the ANU Australian Studies Institute and host of the Democracy Sausage podcast.