Watching the Albanese government this year, it’s hard to avoid the sense that this is a government and a prime minister in free-fall. It’s not just the poll numbers, which are dire and only getting worse, it’s the vibe. From Bondi, to immigration, housing, or the ‘melons’ saga, the government has been on the back foot for all of the past year. Even when it’s tried to get on the front foot and make the running, it’s just fallen flat on its face.
On the housing affordability front, Labor obviously targeted their tax changes at the ‘yoof’ demographic. Only to completely shaft them: the changes, to the surprise of absolutely no one with half a brain, have only damaged the housing market, strangled the rental supply and left young homeowners up the creek without a paddle.
Nationals leader Matt Canavan has accused Labor of fuelling “uncertainty” in the economy with its budget tax changes, taking aim at the contentious five per cent deposit scheme for first home buyers.
The problems with this are so obvious that it’s amazing even Labor thought it would work: young people have been conned into buying homes they can’t afford with mortgages that will saddle them with crippling debt. Crippling debt that’s actually outstripping the value of their homes as Labor’s wrecking ball swings through the market.
“A lot of people are predicting a 10 per cent or more fall in property prices, and with the government out there writing cheques, or underwriting loans with just five per cent deposits, you don’t need to be a mathematical genius to work out that a 10 per cent or more fall in property prices with just five per cent equity puts people in a lot of trouble.”
As Finance Minister Katy Gallagher’s embarrassing inability to distinguish between net and gross amounts showed, not only is Labor short of mathematical geniuses, they’d struggle to figure out how many shandies to order without taking their shoes off. Even then, they’d just lie that they hadn’t touched a drop.
Defence is rarely a big issue in voter calculus, but the sense that Labor have stuffed up badly on that front, too, is also building. It’s too obvious that the world is sailing into dangerous waters – and the government doesn’t have a compass, a life-jacket or a single clue.
The Albanese government is claiming credit for buying air-to-air missiles that are yet to enter service and aren’t due to be delivered to Australia for years, sparking criticism it is engaged in “performative procurement” to shore up its defence credentials.
Defence Minister Richard Marles last week announced a $736m acquisition of AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missiles, declaring they would “soon” be carried by Australian fighter jets.
To paraphrase Morrissey, How Soon is ‘Soon’? It turns out, not very soon at all. Try seven years away.
But the AIM-260 is yet to achieve “initial operating capability”, and military news sites say Australia won’t get them until 2033.
Mr Marles also said the air force would get “up to 450” of the Lockheed Martin missiles – the number the US has approved Australia to buy – when the disclosed $736m outlay is likely to buy fewer than 100.
There’s those Labor mathematical geniuses at it again.
Opposition defence spokesman James Paterson said Australia needed missiles to deter conflict now, “not in the never-never”, given Xi Jinping had ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready for a potential Taiwan conflict by 2027.
You’d almost be forgiven for suspecting that that’s exactly why Labor is dragging its heels.
Tangentially related to defence, the government is steadily digging itself into a diplomatic hole with one of our most important regional allies. Domestically, too, the PM’s boneheaded ‘melons’ gaffe is only creating more and more pain for a government that is steadily losing by explaining.
Teal independent Monique Ryan has called on Anthony Albanese to “pick up the phone” and apologise to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi for making fun of her “melons” […]
Ms Ryan told the Today Show on Tuesday morning the podcast appearance was “pretty cringe”.
“I think we can probably expect a bit better from our … chief of state, you know, especially when we’re talking about a really special gift that the Japanese state has given to the country,” Ms Ryan said.
“If I were the prime minister, I’d call, pick up the phone to the Japanese prime minister and apologise to her on this one.”
Word to the not-so-wise: when you’ve lost Mongo, you’ve lost the middle-class university-degree white woman vote. For all their blatherskite about the coalition’s ‘woman problem’, Labor are only proving that all the quotas in the world can’t disguise that Labor is very much the party of the crass middle-class blokes who think it’s OK to grab the hostess’ bum on their taxpayer-funded business class flights.
And Labor’s women are showing that they really are just Quota Queens running cover for the blokes.
Six weeks ago, Tanya Plibersek – Labor’s most senior female minister in the House of Representatives and a decades-long women’s rights warrior – refused to criticise Anthony Albanese’s stupid and crass declaration that he would “shag, marry, date” pop icon Kylie Minogue.
Another Labor Quota Queen, the Mean Girl herself, Katy Gallagher also got trotted out to unsuccessfully try and explain away the crass gaffe.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has declared there is no “greater supporter of women” than Anthony Albanese as he faces calls to apologise to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi over a “melons” podcast joke.
That Labor’s own minister for women is trying so desperately to defend what everyone and their guide dog can see was nothing more than Albanese’s inner creep bursting out of the carefully stage-managed exterior, only goes to show that Labor’s ‘male feminism’ is just the gigantic red flag all ‘male feminists’ are.
Not only are Labor so clearly on the back foot, both they and the coalition are constantly playing second-fiddle to a One Nation who are more and more setting the policy agenda.
Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam says the coalition could support One Nation’s plan to block ISIS fighters seeking to return to Australia.
That is about as close as we’re going to get, for now, to the coalition gritting their teeth and acknowledging that they’re the third force in politics, right now. The real opposition is One Nation and they’re confident in acting like it.
One Nation’s 22-page Protecting Australians from Foreign Terrorist Fighters Bill proposes creating a foreign terrorist fighter exclusion order, stopping the automatic issue of return permits while court cases are on foot, and making it a crime to organise or facilitate a return.
This is the sort of grit voters want to see from their leaders. They’re sick of governments who throw up their hands and let unelected judges and bureaucrats run the show for them.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has called on Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to “release” the legal advice that prevents him from blocking the return of ISIS fighters […]
“Labor can rush laws through to protect Australians from gambling. Will it move just as fast to protect Australians from terrorists?,” Senator Hanson posted to X.
“And if Tony Burke says legal advice stops him acting, One Nation call on him to release it.”
The problem is that voters have concluded that it’s not that Labor can’t block jihadis from polluting Australia, it’s that they don’t want to.
