Political slogans sometimes work in spite of themselves. Sometimes not. John Howard’s “Incentivation”, the awkward mix of incentive and motivation coined for the 1987 election, was without doubt one of the country’s worst.

It also lasted the shortest of times. Howard introduced it with a blazing blue and white banner, Prime Minister Bob Hawke ridiculed it (“It sounds like something you do to a cat”) and we never heard of it again.

This past week heralded a snappy catch phrase from our marketing minded prime minister Scott Morrison.

Working the crowd hard at a Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry event, Morrison said Australia was “primed and ready to go”.

This enthusiasm spawned the phrase “can-do capitalism” which might be a small step up from “incentivation” but could have a similar shelf life.

Here’s how Morrison introduced this concept: “… we’ve got to make sure that governments in Australia remember that we are a can-do capitalist country, not a don’t-do government country.”

Calling it a good “motto to follow”, Morrison clearly wanted to frame the debate as one contrasting “big spending (read high taxing) Labor” against “small government loving Liberal Nationals coalition”.

He undoubtedly has an eye to the mob who paraded through the street of Melbourne holding nooses aloft for leaders such as Dan Andrews.

However, as to his can-do caper, not only is this an historical fallacy, it might work against the electoral interests of Morrison and his team at the elections likely in March or May.

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First, it was that wrongly described “don’t-do government” that came to the rescue when the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic hit in February/March, 2020.

Government unwound the spending spigots and poured out tens of billions of dollars in business and family support as administrative mandates shuttered businesses, grounded transport and caused millions to “work from home”.

So much money flooded out of the Reserve Bank backed Treasury door, the nation wasted at least $39 billion and no one seems to care enough to kick up a populist fuss.

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Governments in Australia and around the world buttressed these truly unbelievable economic shutdowns with equally whiplash-inducing spending.

As economic historian Adam Tooze points out in his brilliant instant retelling of “How Covid Shook the World’s Economy”, $hutdown (Allen Lane), by April, 2020 four in five workers worldwide were on no or sharply reduced hours.

Growth slumped by 20 percent in a few months – the sharpest decline in more than 90 years – and equity and bond markets went haywire.

Can-do capitalism didn’t come to the rescue of the people and nations of the world. Government did.

Government also played a central, unequalled role in funnelling billions into medical research – primarily in the United States, Britain, Europe and China – to fast-track the mapping of the virus and developing effective vaccines at what Donald Trump’s administration rightly described as “warp speed”.

In many parts of the world, business pushed back, arguing against shutting down economic and commercial activity. Some were successful, usually throwing gasoline on the spread of the disease.

In Australia Scott Morrison spent a lot of time dancing between his animal instincts which fought shutdowns – he bristled at the word lockdown in March and April, 2020 – and the rational health advice to do whatever it takes to “stop the spread” and flatten the infection curve.

Despite all this, he promised an economic “snap back” in the third quarter of that year.

Now, with an election just months away, Morrison is reverting to type, wanting to let his capitalist freak flag fly.

As with everything else it’s a gamble carrying enormous risk.

Europe is entering what most health policy makers are calling a “fourth wave” and the massive inequity of vaccination between the global north and south is setting us all up to fail when it comes to turning the pandemic into a disease that’s endemic.

Low vaccination rates in Eastern European nations, breakthrough infections described as off the charts in nations like Belgium and Denmark and dangerous access from East and South East Asian nations are combining to prompt authorities to consider new restrictions, even lockdowns. Just this week Austria has imposed a snap 10-day lockdown of the unvaccinated.

Beyond this, chronically poor nations, especially in continental Africa, have vaccination levels barely reaching 2 percent of the population causing fears of new variants, perhaps exhibiting resistance to vaccines or surpassing Delta in infection and virulence.

On a global level, we are stuffing up our success.

Here in Australia, it’s going to be okay because “can-do capitalism” is going to fix it.

In Melbourne, Morrison used his “can-do” mantra to expand his climate change message, saying it’s this kind of entrepreneurial innovation that will solve the world’s problems.

“That’s the Australian way. That’s the way I’ve been championing on the world stage. And, you know, like-minded capitalist market-based economies should be doing the same.”

“The world does not need to be punished for climate change, we just need to fix it,” Morrison told his lunch audience. “And it will be fixed painstakingly, step-by-step, by the entrepreneurs, by scientists, by technologists, by innovators, by industrialists, by financiers, by risk-takers.”

A quick glance at the Biden administration’s $US550 billion new money infrastructure plan demonstrates what ambition looks like, including $7.5 billion in spending on half a million private and public electric vehicle charging stations across the USA.

This makes the Morrison plan to spend less than $180 million on 1000 new charging stations look like the nickel and dime scheme it is.

This is certainly the case but it’s not the only thing missing. First, the government is showing no ambition when it comes to investment with infrastructure spending always described as “unprecedented” only because of the burgeoning deficit for road, rail, bridges, ports and other fundamental needs.

The spending proposed barely keeps pace with need and inflation.  What’s delivered is in that column called “later on”.

If Morrison is fair dinkum about a can-do capitalism fired future it’s going to be one with sharply increased inequality.

Last year demonstrated that the government can come to the rescue. Morrison gave it grudging support at the time. Now he wants to cut the government loose. People should be afraid.