As widely predicted – because he’d left himself little other option – Anthony Albanese has called an election for 3 May. Mostly, I suspect, Australians will be heaving a sigh of relief. But, having promised tens of billions of our own money in just the last few weeks, and delivered a widely derided squib of a budget, what’s Albanese got left to run with?
Mostly, it seems, the rehashed, badly microwaved leftovers of the same ‘Mediscare’ lies they’ve tried to put over for the last three elections. Throw in an overdose of Albo’s trademark ‘I grew up in a council house’ bullshit and Australians are reaching for their barf bags.
Albanese’s voice wobbled and a tear came to his eye as he mentioned his mum when promoting the values of Medicare.
God, he really is a shameless little twerp.
He’s also trying on the ‘misinformation’ bullshit.
Any foreign or malicious actors intending to spread mischief, disinformation and misinformation have received a message from Albanese.
“Anyone who tries that, I say back off,” he says.
Yes: spreading mischief, disinformation and misinformation is his job.
Having left the election call ’til the last minute, Albanese had little option, but the timing is still bad optics. Announcing the election the very morning after Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech gives every indication of panic. Which is probably true enough.
What did Dutton’s budget reply actually say?
In his fourth budget-in-reply speech, the Opposition Leader on Thursday night put energy at the heart of his election fight with Anthony Albanese and unveiled the Coalition’s national gas plan to “prioritise domestic gas supply, address shortfalls and reduce energy prices” […]
Mr Dutton’s move to provide short-to-medium-term energy certainty until the coalition brings nuclear power online from 2036 came within hours of the consumer watchdog issuing warnings about gas shortfalls on the east coast from July to September […]
He also committed the coalition to higher defence spending, more cost-of-living supports, cutting the permanent migration program by 25 per cent and restoring a school curriculum that “cultivates critical thinking, responsible citizenship and common sense”.
Now we’re in an actual campaign, rather than the phony war of the last few months, what are the likely big issues? Few of them are likely to be winners for the government.
Do voters want Labor’s “Building Australia’s Future” vision of an economically interventionist government with a large public service, a big-spending agenda on cost-of-living sweeteners for voters, and addressing climate change by focusing on renewable energy?
Or do Australians want the coalition’s “Get Australia Back on Track” policies that emphasise smaller government, a cut in taxpayer-funded spending, nuclear power, and a return to traditional values?
Albanese can blither weepy anecdotes about public servants handing out sandbags in flood zones, but Australians know the truth: we are overburdened with an over-paid, under-performing, bloated public service class. While the private economy has steadily raised productivity in the past decade, the public service has gone in the opposite direction. The sight of public servants demanding massive pay rises while they’re sitting on their arses at home four days a week sticks in the Australian worker’s craw.
As does so-called ‘cost-of-relief’ spending, which is nothing more than Labor dropping a pittance of worker’s own taxes back in their pockets, while government policy sends cost-of-living through the roof. Specifically, out-of-control mass immigration making rents and mortgages unaffordable for working Australians and ‘Net Zero’ making them choose more and more often between heating and eating, providing, of course, that they’re not simply blacked out when ‘renewables’ fail to meet demand yet again.
These are the issues that most focus voters’ minds, but bubbling away under the surface is the sense that Australians have lost their own country and culture, whether it’s anti-Semites bellowing open Jew-hatred in the streets or men in dresses smashing girls in women’s sports. This is what propelled Donald Trump to a sweeping victory last November. Dutton just needs to have the guts to grasp the nettle and ignore the inevitable screeching of the chattering class.
Then there’s the Greens factor. Australians have seen what happens when the Green tail wags the Labor dog before with Julia Gillard. So, the Greens openly campaigning on a repeat performance is the last thing Albanese would want.
The Greens will mount its “biggest ever national campaign” to force a minority Labor government, the party says.
Expect the Liberals to wedge Labor on the Greens: will Labor show some decency and preference the Greens last, or will they let the party of vile anti-Semitism get their hands on the lever of government?
