Josh Frydenberg hadn’t written for three days and I was beginning to wonder if I’d offended him in some way, but last night there it was. A plea to remember that a vote for anyone but the Coalition was effectively a vote for Bill Shorten.
I’ve read this idea in a few places and it did make me wonder if they’d really thought it through. In summary, what they’re saying is if an independent third party is elected, there’s no way that any independent person would be prepared to back Scott Morrison.
Yep, they’re certainly rattled. The Liberal twitter account keeps tweeting about Labor talking about a death tax. Personally, I’ve only heard Shorten say Labor wouldn’t be introducing one, but that didn’t stop them editing it so that he was saying just the words “death tax” and playing just those words in an ad…
I also read on social media that it’d be 40% and if you couldn’t pay, you’d be forced to sell your parents house or car and the government would take their cut. It was amazingly specific for something that isn’t Labor policy and it does make one wonder if it’s actually a secret plan of the Liberals. After all, their ad did say that Shorten was the only one “talking” about a death tax. (Two can play at that scare campaign nonsense.)
Not only that but Scott Morrison hardly gave himself a ringing endorsement after announcing his first home buyer scheme. Later in the day, Labor back it and Scottie says they’re silly because they haven’t done due diligence and, unlike the Cabinet and the voters, they shouldn’t trust his idea without extensive modelling because he certainly hadn’t done any. Why should he? It’s not like he’ll ever have to implement it.
On the way home, I heard an angry man call Shorten “shifty” because of the so-called retiree tax. Now, I don’t know how the rest of you interpret “shifty” but if I tell you that I’m going to steal your wallet, you can call me a “thief” but it’s hardly what I’d call a shifty crime. Still, the man concerned seemed very confused anyway. Apparently, if those who are getting a franking credit were to no longer get it, then they’d be forced onto the pension and then the taxpayer would have to pay. This sort of overlooks the fact that it’s the taxpayer who’s refunding the franking credits. Whatever way you look at it, paying tax on future income is not taking the money people already have, even if that the way some are trying to spin it.
It made me remember Jean. As the Murdoch press told us:
So poor Jean won’t get that $12,775. This means that she’ll have to struggle to make ends meet on a meagre $3,000 a week. Perhaps we should take up a collection…
And speaking of spin, I also noticed a couple of dozen ads where Clive Palmer’s UAP was telling us that Labor was planning to tax us an “extra trillion dollars”… It didn’t mention a time period, so maybe he was just assuming that they’d be in a long, long time. Just for your information a trillion is $1,000,000,000,000. And that’s extra on top of the taxes we already pay. Yes, it’s interesting to notice the shift in Clive’s ads since the preference deal. While he was attacking both major parties a few weeks ago, now it’s just Bill and Labor that seem to be attracting his disgust.
It has sort of disturbed me that the media have been treating the whole campaign as though the Liberals record over the past six years is an irrelevant detail and what really matters is the campaign. As though you should give the contract to the firm of the person who interviews well, even if they represent a company who has had two previous CEOs stand down after a revolt, and who completely failed to deliver on their previous contract. “Let’s give them another go,” you say, “because Bazza cracked those great jokes in his presentation about the other guy’s name. And he did say all the right things about getting jobs done on budget even if he hasn’t managed to do that in the past. It’s not really his fault that his environmental manager hasn’t turned up to work for the past month and he had to do the whole presentation by himself…”
If you get a chance to read the Australian Financial Review editorial. In simple terms, it basically lamented the lost opportunities, the incompetence and the lack of courage of the Coalition, but hey, let’s stick with them because Labor is influenced by those unions and unions are so yesterday.
But hearing that Sportsbet has already paid out on a Labor win, I had to wonder if the media are going to stick to their “It’s just too close call” line, or whether they say that there’s always Brexit and Donald Trump to make us a little circumspect, but Saturday may end up being an early night.
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