Day to Day Politics: Turnbull’s Election Campaign. Making something of nothing.
Saturday 2 April 2016
Given that the independent Cross Bench Senators fail to pass the ABCC legalisation its odds on that we will be going to the polls on July 2. An extremely important one for Australia’s future I might add.
So I’m thinking what will Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition campaign on. What will he fight the election on?
We need to keep in mind that this is going a very lengthy campaign so whatever the overall theme is, it needs to run the distance. We can rule out ‘Stopping the boats’ as this is to closely associated with Abbott. We can rule out Labor disunity as there doesn’t appear to be any. And given Abbott’s broken promises after the last election it can’t be a ‘who do you trust one.’
Media reform, Senate reform and fixing bankruptcy laws are nor heart and soul issues. Perhaps negative gearing and capital gains.
Union corruption and Shortens involvement might be a goer but Labour could counter that with accusations of corruption in big business and donations to the Liberal Party.
He certainly can’t campaign on the Governments record. Everyone knows it has been abysmal.
Scaremongering about a new carbon tax might get a run but it can easily be countered with a better story. The economy is usually the Coalitions strongest point but since coming to power promising to reform the taxation system and making utter fools of themselves, the public will be wary.
The Prime Minister is trying to pass off responsibility for Health to the states so he can hardly make health stand out like a beacon.
In the end it comes down to his favourite. That being ‘Innovation’
There is nothing wrong with the narrative of being an innovative country with an innovative economy. In fact it should be a worthwhile pursuit.
There are three problems though. Firstly, all innovation is generated by education and Turnbull’s proposal for the states to raise their own tax is regressive. The response thus far to this pie in the sky thought bubble has been dreadful. It was so lacking in any detail that the electorate thinks it sus. A two tier system. One run by the Commonwealth, the other by the States.
He will be accused of prioritising Christian schools and Private ones. Inevitably Labor will accuse him of religious preferentialism and class nepotism. Innovation born of educational privilege is a hard sell.
Turnbull said:
“I suspect no federal government would retreat from funding and continuing to support the non-government school sector because there would be a concern that they would not get a fair go from state governments who obviously would have a competing interest with their schools”.
Really? That statement smacks of privilege.
Strangely conservatives have never realised that kids from low socioeconomic backgrounds are our greatest untapped source of potential growth. They are our most undervalued resource..
Secondly, it’s also hard to sell a theme of innovation based of nice words alone. Their actions thus far with the dismissal of hundreds of scientists from the CSIRO doesn’t fit. And when he announced his $billion policy he failed to mention the $4billionAbbott had already taken out.
Thirdly, innovation requires the best technology to advance itself. Turnbull himself has made a complete mess of the construction of the NBN. Young people have not forgiven him for it.
So there we have it. I may have missed something but there isn’t much left.
Maybe you have some thoughts.
My thought for the day
The ideas of today need to be honed with critical reason, factual evidence and scientific methods of enquiry so that they clearly articulate the currency of tomorrow.
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18 comments
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Deidre Zanker -
Pilot -
Terry2 -
hood -
Kaye Lee -
Terry2 -
Suziekue -
Steve Laing -
David -
Kaye Lee -
Gangey1959 -
wam -
David -
wam -
Julian -
Florence nee Fedup -
Florence nee Fedup -
Otto von Heidelberg
Return to home pageTurnbull will probably do a “Trump”. Ignore facts and the truth while manipulating voters emotions by increasing fear and bigotry.
I agree with Deidre, Turnbull will go Trump. They built their 2013 election win on baldfaced lies, so they’ll do it again with the able assistance of the Murdoch led MSM.
An utter disgrace!!!!
The way that this ” fundamental change to federalism” on state collected income tax was handled by Turnbull is not only disappointing it is totally unprofessional.
As Queensland Premier Palaszczuk noted on leaving CoAG, there was never a formal proposal, there was never a written brief and the first anybody had heard of this was a leak to News Corp on Wednesday.
Now, Weatherill has suggested that a fixed amount of income tax go to the states (17%) rather than forcing the states to go cap-in-hand for grants each year : this makes sense.
‘Very disappointed in Malcolm or, was this a ploy as one commentator suggested, to get Arfur off the front page ?
If by creating ‘ chaos ‘ on every topic from tax to school funding and health the coalition may be surprised at the the views of the
electorate.
The fact that the ‘ coalition ‘ is allowed to campaign as an entity, when they are in fact two separate parties is in itself, fraudulent.
The ‘ coalition ‘ only ‘ occurs once the relative no. of seats has been decided and that determines how the ‘ spoils ‘ of office will be
distributed.
BRING IT ON !
“It was all over the news in India. The Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley would be meeting Future Fund chairman Peter Costello to discuss using the Fund to help finance Adani’s Carmichael coal mine. There was no announcement of the meeting in Australia.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/01/australias-future-fund-should-not-consider-financing-the-energy-projects-of-the-past?CMP=share_btn_tw
“The Future Fund is Australia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. It invests for the benefit of future generations of Australians.”
At the moment it consists of…
$118.40 billion Future Fund at 31 December 2015
$3.71 billion Education Investment Fund at 31 December 2015
$3.65 billion Building Australia Fund at 31 December 2015
$4.29 billion DisabilityCare Australia Fund at 31 December 2015
$3.14 billion Medical Research Future Fund at 31 December 2015
http://www.futurefund.gov.au/
How DARE they tell us they don’t have the money for health and education and then talk about using OUR money to fund an Indian coal mine that no bank will touch with a ten foot pole.
Back in 2014 the ANU divested itself of investments in fossil fuel companies. At the time the then Prime Minister said this :
‘Prime minister Tony Abbott has blasted the Australian National University’s “stupid decision” to get rid of its fossil fuels share portfolio.’
Subsequently the offloading holdings in Iluka Resources, Independence Group, Newcrest Mining, Sandfire Resources, Oil Search, Santos and Sirius Resources has proved to be a prudent and informed investment decision as the shares in the resources sector have since crashed.
Example : Santos have lost 79% of their value since September 2014.
There is always the “terrorist” cage to rattle.
He’s got nothing. So it will be fear and lies, fear and lies.
With the news of the catastrophic bleaching on the Grt. Barrier Reef and the coward Hunts almost complete silence, I can’t see Turnbull wanting to go anywhere near climate change. He is surrounded by planet warming deniers and his Govt’s effort in Paris was a disaster.
No I doubt the carbon tax will rate highly on the agenda, certainly after Barny Joyce’s absurd statements in Opposition (leg of lamb $100) that will be fodder for his popular opponent in New England. My money is on Tony Windsor to win it.
I am not sure what this means but Tony Windsor has just posted “BREAKING : Small oversight in New England .. Nationals forgot to preselect a candidate . Unlike them to forget about the ppl !!! ….#auspol”
I have just the thing for mr turdbullshitartist and his team for the upcoming election.
” MAKING NOTHING OF SOMETHING ! ”
Or maybe billy shortarse and the rest could use it in a negative campaign………
they will campaign, as they have done since khemlani, on labor borrowing,
billy/tanya will refuse to capitalise on the abysmal economic management over the last 3 years. they will fail to capitalise on the 457 rorts for fear of unions they will fail to capitalise on billions for ships and they will not promise subs to south australia they will not capitalise on the copperman’s NBN just as one is quietly heading to an election loss the other is noisily trying to lose ie a pair of moles????
ps has the pinkbatts finished????
Wam if you haven’t anything intelligent to say, go and play with the other children
wow david sorry, I confused you but perhaps you had a quick unthinking look to make an ass out of you and me??.
do you believe turnball et al wont continue the lie and remind us through murdoch how bad labor’s debt was?
do you think billy and tanya will counter the lie any better now than in 2013?
do you think labor will campaign on the FIJI 457 rip offs?
do you think labor will attack robb’s signings that allow subcontractors to import unlimited chinese workers?
Speaking of lamb look at the NZ china free trade compare with robb’s and look at the impact on NZ lamb.
Have you spoken to workers who have been spooked by the rabbott’s lie of gillard’s debt into voting for the libs?
No mate your cat may have a higher IQ than both of us but it, like the greens, can go feral .
ps tony windsor and oakeschott, were and still are, heroes in the selection of gillard (who I think was the most capable, the most informed and the best PM since Curtin who told the warmonger churchill to shove it.) but only a gambler would put money on him retaking new england. Especially when there is plenty of evidence that political lies almost invariably transcended truth
I agree with Deidre. The LNP will resort to their old tried and proven method of fear. We will probably see another so called terrorist attack if they look like loosing. Works every time.
Aesop’s Fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is worth keeping in mind. The faulty fire alarm that goes off too often is ignored by all within hearing. Yes, PM might make threats bus but suspect their used by date is well passed.
I suspect the PM has made nothing of something this week, Has taken serious proposal cloaking it in a stunt. Set out to lower expectations when it came to health and particularly education. To discredit the state’s.
Is a desperate ploy to regain control of the election agenda.
Getting the GG to unnecessary end this session of government, restarting on 18th April another.
I suspect many don’t take the PM seriously. Bad place for any PM to be.
At LAST we have transparent Government it seems and there’s not much there to see! That is unless you had Paul Keating’s fantastic
X- Ray glasses which he borrowed from Superman which would enable you to see a cherry on top of a compost heap when looking at the present PM. Wait, it could change any minute because Kevin has chimed in! The cherry might turn to horse manure or at least blend in with the compost! This is comedy at its best and right now quite possibly, if Paul Hogan was ever nominated, he’d be the preferred PM by a large margin. At least he could sell cigarettes (thus raise the government revenue to fund schools where he could sell more cigarettes), whilst waving his arms to Classical music, though Tchaikovsky was turning in his grave! Just WHY are we having a DD? Is it because the Government cannot govern or is it just a good time to spend another 200 million dollars?