In October 1980, before almost half the people voting in this election were born, US president Ronald Reagan posed what became one of the defining questions of modern politics:

Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Reagan would go on to beat Jimmy Carter in the election that year and, along with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, usher in the neo-liberal era to western democracies.

It’s been a standard in campaigns ever since.

Peter Dutton has revived it for the 2025 Australian campaign, asking voters to think about if  they are better off now than they were three years ago. 

He has deployed it with increasing frequency (with four references in the most recent leaders’ debate alone) confident that the retrospection will fall his way, because the rear-vision mirror is always a safer bet for a politician than the windscreen.

But it’s the wrong question. It always has been. In this current context, the question is asking you what? Are you better off now than you were before a global pandemic rocked your entire foundation? Are you better off than before you survived the global inflation crisis that followed that pandemic?

Are you better off than before you watched Israel carry out a genocide against the Palestinian people while your leaders pretend it’s not only not happening, but they have no role to play?  

Are you better off than before Donald Trump was elected? Were you better off before you saw the worsening impacts of climate change continue to devastate communities and the planet?  

Why not take it further? Why limit it to just one parliamentary term? 

Are you better off now or before you had consciousness? Would you be better off if you could go back to the ’90s, when the average home price grew only 0.3 per cent above household incomes, and instead of being born or going to school, or even just existing as cells, you bought a house? 

Is Australia better off now or before, when it had a focus on trying to raise people out of poverty and the Hawke government raised welfare payments to try to achieve that goal? 

Are you better off now as a worker or before, when unions had power, before the ultimately successful 30-year neo-liberal campaign to destroy unions’ collective bargaining power and usher in the era of employer dominance?

Are you better off having eaten the 20 mini easter eggs, or before you found the stash? Were you better off before or after you discovered why the chainsaw was invented? (Don’t do it if you don’t know, I beg you).

It’s not constructive to look back to ‘better’ eras.  Photo: AAP

Looking backwards, it’s easy to just focus on how maybe things were better. There are all sorts of reasons the past seems more rosy, one of which is because favourable events may take fewer neural connections to store and therefore make up more of our long-term memory.

Looking forward? That’s tricky. It’s murky. Unclear. Things could go any way. To look forward positively is to have faith in yourself and others to get through unknown terrain. 

Are you better off now than you could be in three years? No one can answer that. It could be worse. This could be as good as it gets.  

In which case, in three years’ time you’ll be asked to reflect on this period – the right now, the very same present moment you’re being asked to judge negatively when compared to the supposed sunshine and lollipop era of 2022 and decide THIS was actually the utopia.

It’s the wrong question, it always has been.

The question isn’t are you better off now than you were three years ago, before world events conspired to bring about a downturn that led to the rise of far-right populists across Western democracies, mask off authoritarian cheerleading and indifference to the genocidal impulses of nation states.

The question is who do you want making the decisions in the world we are about to face? Because the world is only getting more messed up. 

New alliances

Trump, to the surprise of absolutely no one except those who believed the sanewashing of “take Trump seriously, not literally” is literally doing exactly what he said he would. 

He’s gleefully swiped the chess pieces off the board and called it winning, not noticing the game has already moved on without him. 

New alliances are forming in this shifting world and voters need to think through who they want navigating it. 

That’s not just a question about a prime minister, it’s one for the Parliament as a whole.  

It suits Dutton and the Coalition to have voters looking backward.  So far, their policy platform has offered nothing for Australia beyond big dumb utes and tax breaks for those already wealthy enough to get into the housing market. Like Dutton’s son Harry and his siblings.

Anthony Albanese and Labor haven’t offered much better, hoping voters will settle for the tinkering of existing policies with the promise that if things go right it’ll get better.

Australia doesn’t need anymore regressive tendencies. Looking back has held the country back, but there’s not enough rosy reflections in the world to restrain the uncertainty of what’s coming.

Dutton is asking Australians to compare the now to a world that no longer exists. Albanese is trying to paint a picture of a future that pretends nothing has fundamentally changed in the now.

“Let’s make America great again,” Reagan supporters cheered in 1980, setting the United States onto the path that ultimately led to Trump and MAGA. 

Australia isn’t going to define who it is by looking back. It can only do that by looking forward, with clear eyes.  

Who ends up in the drivers’ seat should be judged on the ability to guide the nation through the tumultuous world we’re facing, not the world we’re leaving.  

Amy Remeikis is chief political analyst for the The Australia Institute. You can read more from her and the institute here