As Labor thrashes around attempting to feed out decade and a half old non-stories about Peter Dutton’s successful investing (do we not want a PM capable of making good financial choices?) one thing becomes clear: you can’t really blame them for trying.
It’s all they have left this late into their three-year term to try and convince voters to re-elect them by demonising the alternative.
But will it work when the supposedly unelectable Dutton is already the preferred PM to Albo? Not that Labor’s primary or two party votes are faring much better.
Fear often trumps hope in politics, which is why negative campaigning has long been the go to option for governments and oppositions alike.
But in this case I wonder if Labor might be better off simply reminding voters of their distain for the Morrison government by the end of its time in office, and asking if the Coalition really deserves a return to power after just one term in opposition.
Don’t forget what happened during the Morrison years: the bushfires response of the PM, the vaccine rollout failures, allegations of rape in a ministerial office, video evidence of Liberal staffers masturbating on the desks of female MPs.
Then there was the Robodebt scandal, the sports rorts scandal, Barnaby Joyce declaring his distain for Morrison, former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian calling ScoMo a ‘horrible, horrible person’ in a text exchange with a cabinet minister who in reply said he was a ‘complete psycho’.
Even the President of France said Morrison wasn’t to be trusted when asked about the submarine contract backflip.
Anthony Albanese needs to rethink his attacks on Peter Dutton leading up to the election, says Peter van Onselen
The attacks on Peter Dutton (above) handed out by Labor’s dirt unit just seems desperate, not to mention a beat up with a false narrative
Then there was the Robodebt scandal, the sports rorts scandal, Barnaby Joyce declaring his distain for Morrison, former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian calling ScoMo a ‘horrible, horrible person’ in a text exchange with a cabinet minister who in reply said he was a ‘complete psycho’.
Even the President of France said Morrison wasn’t to be trusted when asked about the submarine contract backflip.
On reflection, how on earth did Albo only manage to win with a one seat majority?
Criticising the last Coalition government as reason not to return them to power so soon after defeat feels like a stronger argument and less grubby than raising already disclosed decades old investments Dutton has legitimately made.
The Dutton attacks handed out by Labor’s dirt unit just seems desperate, not to mention a beat up with a false narrative.
But facts rarely matter when it comes to political spin, and the fact Dutton did nothing wrong (and wasn’t even in government) when making his share investments won’t stop false assertions in the sewer of social media.
Which of course was always Labor’s plan: stoke that sentiment.
The timing is interesting too. It follows long-term attempts to use the Coalition’s nuclear policy to stoke fear of the alternative government, which hasn’t as yet shifted the polling numbers – perhaps surprisingly given Australia’s historical shunning of nuclear power.
Labor might be better off simply reminding voters of their distain for the Morrison government by the end of its time in office, and asking if the Coalition really deserves a return to power after just one term in opposition, writes Peter van Onselen
And the grubby personal attacks of Dutton come after Labor’s big Medicare announcement, which was quickly nullified by the Coalition matching it.
Labor strategists had hoped that wouldn’t happen, certainly not as quickly as it did. They were hoping a Medicare scare campaign not unlike the one used at the 2016 election might generate a turnaround in the polls.
Now Labor must call the election in the coming weeks if it wants to avoid handing down a budget with wall-to-wall red numbers. There will be debt and deficits across the forward estimates, highlighting blowouts in spending despite record tax collections.
But calling the election soon means starting the campaign right as private health insurance premiums are mandated to rise significantly on April 1.
And it likely means that when the RBA next meets, during the formal campaign, it will announce that it isn’t issuing another rate cut. The Governor, Michele Bullock, might even say it’s because government spending continues to pose a risk to inflation.
That would certainly be suboptimal for Albanese’s re-election chances. One rate cut after 12 increases during Labor’s time in power isn’t the way into the hearts of mortgage holders.
Promises on the campaign trail Labor will soon announce should rightly be met with cynicism, given the numerous promises it broke from the last election campaign. Chief amongst them was the pledge not to repeal stage-three income tax cuts as well as a promise not to increase taxes on superannuation.
But I still think, despite all its problems and failures which also include the Voice referendum, that Labor will narrowly secure re-election. Albeit as a minority government dependent on the support of the Greens (and perhaps others on the crossbench) to cling onto power.
It is now almost impossible to conceive of Labor winning the next election any other way.
Albo’s majority from the last election was wafer thin, meaning that comparisons to other first term government’s that struggled in the polls before finding ways to secure majorities are invalid.
They all started from a stronger position than Albanese does, with much bigger majorities.
A final danger he must worry about is that if voters cotton on to the fact his only pathway to victory is with the support of the Greens. Some voters who lean towards giving Labor a second chance might decide that they don’t want to do so under circumstance which empower the Greens.
Such voters may therefore decide to switch to the Coalition instead, in the hope Dutton can form either a majority on his own, or with a band of right of centre crossbenchers rather than by empowering the Greens.
That outcome might be the lesser of evils for some swinging voters worried what happens if the influence of the Greens was to rise in the next parliament, as powerbrokers in an Albanese second term.
