Let’s be honest: it’s been a pretty dull affair to date, this election campaign. Apart, of course, from the mild schadenfreude of watching Anthony Albanese’s pratfall, going A over T in front of an audience of the bruvvas at some union beano.
But, finally, this election has delivered something to really make me smile and raise a coffee cup to the election gods:
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is in danger of losing his western Sydney seat of McMahon to local tech millionaire Matt Camenzuli, according to independent polling showing power bills a top concern.
This is the single best news of the election so far. The minor fillip of having Boofhead around to mock is heavily outweighed by the extraordinary damage his demented ‘Net Zero’ policies have inflicted on the country. It’s largely thanks to Boofhead and his bizarre belief that solar and wind are the cheapest forms of energy that household power bills have soared across Australia.
Worse, his insane zealotry in forcing the closure of coal-fired power, and the downstream effects of power prices, are crippling what’s left of Australia’s heavy industry base. And without heavy industry, a country’s defence capability is hobbled.
So, good riddance, if it comes true.
Mr Bowen holds the seat, which has always been in ALP hands, with a margin of about 10 per cent after an electoral redistribution, but Compass polling taken last weekend shows him on just 19 per cent support, well behind independent candidate Camenzuli on 41 per cent.
Matthew Camenzuli, a Maltese Australian, is a conservative-right former Liberal NSW state executive. In 2022, he unsuccessfully sued Scott Morrison over the latter’s ‘Captain’s Pick’ takeover of NSW preselections.
“I believe in free speech, I believe in free enterprise, I believe in small government,” he says. Camenzuli is running on a platform highlighting the cost of living and the proposed cut to the fuel excise.
If Camenzuli doesn’t unseat Bowen, the Libs likely will: Boofhead is polling behind both.
Voters in McMahon overwhelmingly rejected the same-sex marriage plebiscite Labor supported in 2017, as well as the indigenous voice to parliament.
Labor support in western Sydney is under pressure, with seats being directly targeted by the coalition.
If Labor lose western Sydney, their traditional heartland, they really are stuffed.
With household power prices a consistent first-order issue for voters in this election, Labor certainly aren’t doing themselves any favours with stuff like this:
Jim Chalmers has refused to apologise for not delivering a promised price cut of $275 on power bills, while defending attacks from opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor that Labor had been the biggest-spending government since Gough Whitlam and had failed to win an exemption from Donald Trump’s tariff war.
To combat Labor’s plundering of the national coffers, the coalition has announced a revamp of the Howard-Costello era Future Fund pillaged by Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan.
Peter Dutton would funnel 80 per cent of commodity revenue windfalls into two new Future Fund vehicles to pay down the nation’s $1.2 trillion debt bill and bankroll investments in regional Australia, as the Coalition ramps up its attacks on Labor’s big-spending budget and deficits.
The Opposition Leader on Thursday will unveil a centrepiece of his economic strategy to turn around Labor’s projected decade of rising debt and deficits and pledge to restore fiscal guardrails the Coalition accuses Jim Chalmers and Katy Gallagher of abandoning.
The first major economic policy released by the Coalition during the May 3 election campaign – added to announcements including reducing the public service, scrapping expensive Labor programs and reshaping the energy market with nuclear and gas – commits to establishing a Future Generations Fund and a Regional Australia Future Fund […]
The Future Generations Fund, which is intended to put a “hard limit on spending growth”, will primarily focus on debt reduction while also supporting sovereign capability including defence and broader economic reforms to “drive a better Federation and a growing economy” […]
The Regional Australia Future Fund, which will be well-received by Nationals MPs and senators campaigning on the “Wombat Trail”, would help repair roads, boost access to healthcare, and lift education and childcare investment.
Finally, I’m no fan of the Teals (to say the least), but this trawling of old social media posts seems like a pearl clutched too far.
A would-be teal MP’s historical social media refers to an online drinking game where he is quizzed about masturbation at work and on a plane.
Teal candidate for Wannon Alex Dyson’s Facebook page in 2016 also included a misogynistic expletive posted by a contributor.
Oh, give us a break.
Mr Dyson was 28 when he instigated a truth or dare drinking game online with hundreds of others while he was waiting at an airport lounge for his flight […]
The online game was Never Have I Ever, in which he was asked random questions and then drank beer if he had ever performed the act.
Suffice to say that none of the questions and answers involved anything actually illegal or involving children. Unlike certain others on the green-tinged side of politics.
Oh, and the ‘misogynistic expletive’? Not only was it not Dyson who used it, but it’s Marama Davidson’s favourite word.
Let’s just say, Benjamin Doyle he ain’t.
