As we near the end of the second week of the Australian election campaign, events are taking a turn for the dramatic again. Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has been forced off the campaign trail by Covid, Labor’s China ties are coming back to bite, and PM Scott Morrison has finally found an issue with real clout.
First, Albanese’s Covid woes.
Labor has rushed to implement its Covid-19 election contingency plan after Anthony Albanese was struck down with the virus, with senior shadow cabinet ministers being sent out on the campaign trail to fill the void.
The party’s campaign was plunged into disarray after the Opposition Leader returned a positive PCR result on Thursday night, stalling Labor’s momentum after Mr Albanese had claimed victory in the first leaders’ debate.
The Australian
It points to just how disastrous Albanese’s first campaign week really was, that he “claimed victory” in week two for no other reason than he didn’t stuff up spectacularly. Most pundits called the debate a draw, with no real killer blows, although Morrison landed at least one good uppercut: when Albanese boasted that “Labor does the big things and we also do the big reforms”, Morrison retorted, “It’s always the Liberals and Nationals who have to work out how to pay for [them]”.
Some have speculated that the Covid diagnosis is a cynical strategic retreat for Albanese. Comparisons with “Joe Biden hiding in his basement” are already doing the rounds of social media. That’s probably unfair: on balance, who have Labor got, without even their small-target commander? Penny Wong is poison right now, thanks to the “Mean Girls” bullying allegations. Wheeling out Bill Shorten again will only awaken memories of 2019. The rest of Labor’s team are virtual unknowns.
Perhaps coincidentally, on the same day Albanese was forced into isolation, his deputy is copping a broadside on another significant election issue: China.
Anthony Albanese’s deputy leader – Labor’s proclaimed Pacific guru Richard Marles – only months ago argued that island nations should be free to hook up in any way they liked with Beijing and dismissed fears about China setting up military bases in places such as the Solomons […]
Since 2019, when he took a trip to Beijing funded by controversial think-tank China Matters, which has now been stripped of its Australian government funding over concerns about its agenda, Mr Marles has argued Australia should encourage China’s involvement in the Pacific.
Marles is only the latest in a cavalcade of senior Labor figures with shady ties to China. Elder statesmen Paul Keating and Bob Carr are both linked to CCP-run organisations. Former powerbroker Sam Dastyari was caught passing on intelligence to a CCP-linked Chinese businessman. The NSW branch of the party ran fundraisers where China-owned companies showered them with Aldi shopping bags full of cash.
In his book Mr Marles, tipped to be defence minister in an Albanese government, repeatedly dismissed concerns about China setting up military bases in the Pacific – a development Labor now says the government should have been alive to.
The Australian
So far, China hasn’t been a front-and-centre issue in the campaign, perhaps because both sides are wisely cognizant of not being seen to smear Australia’s sizable Chinese diaspora. But the issue is lurking at the back of voter’s minds. When Pauline Hanson points to vast tracts agricultural land especially being bought by Beijing-linked businesses, she is tapping into a deep vein of unease at what Clive Hamilton dubs the “Silent Invasion”. Australian student Drew Pavlou, who was famously persecuted by University of Queensland at the behest of Chinese agents, is running candidates on an anti-CCP platform.
But the really big issue that’s biting for Morrison is, surprisingly, a Culture War flashpoint.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and ex-Prime Ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott are right to support Katherine Deves, the Liberal candidate for Warringah, in her campaign to protect biological girls and women from men identifying as female wanting to compete in women’s sports.
As well as being the right thing to do – as men competing against women are generally physically stronger with higher levels of bone mass, muscle strength, and body weight – it’s also a political winner in a campaign where voters are finding it hard to differentiate between the two major parties.
Spectator Australia
Women are finally waking up to the dangerous misogynist ideology that is erasing women in everything from sport to childbearing — and is also coming for their children. Despite the furious backlash from the inordinately amplified transgender lobby, women across Australia are quietly arking up.
This is especially significant given that women have been the largest undecided group in opinion polling so far. There are signs, too that voters are growing fed up with the constant personal attacks on the PM from the left, in lieu of substantial policy announcements. The two parties are unlikely to sway voters on either of their traditional strengths — healthcare and education for Labor, the economy for the Coalition — so it seems likely that a Culture War issue like transgenderism could be the decider instead. In which case, woe betide woke Labor.
