I once wrote that the Liberals would be releasing their policies closer to the election and, by closer, I mean a few weeks AFTER the election.
Of course I was being facetious and I never expected that a Liberal leader would think that it was a fantastic way to avoid scrutiny of his policy but then this is the party that’s been trying to prove lefties wrong every time they say, “Well, they can’t have a leader who’s worse than Tony Abbott/Wishywashy Turnbull/ScottyfromMarketing…”
Yes, Peter Dutton actually thinks that it’s…
I got halfway through writing that sentence and I realised that the first five words would be controversial. Let me try again.
Yes, Peter Dutton actually expects people to buy the idea that it’s entirely reasonable to go to the election with a “Don’t you worry about the detail, you can trust us on climate change!”
You know, Pete with his “Don’t Know, Vote No” on the Voice because THERE WAS NO DETAIL… according to him.
Well, I think I know what his strategy is. The first part is to retain the leadership and the surest way to do that is to not worry about the opinion polls or what people think and just please the people who elect the leader who won’t worry about the opinion polls until they realise that the most recent one put them in danger of losing their seat. While he’s not under immediate threat, Holly Hughes sort of let the cat out of the bag when she said that she’d still be around until July next year and she wouldn’t be voting for that incompetent, Angus Taylor.
This would be a strange thing to say – even for Senator Hughes – and it must make one wonder whether the Shadow Treasurer has been thinking about numbers that don’t just relate to the economy. And when I say “thinking”, I also mean sharing his thoughts…
It would seem that Dutton’s theory is that, if he can just hold onto the leadership till the election, the cost of living and the high immigration numbers will deliver some of those traditional Labor seats in the outer suburbs. He’s clearly given up on the ones lost to the “teals”. I mean, you can’t really see telling those electorates: “You thought that we weren’t doing enough on climate change, but now we have a policy that we can’t tell you about but it doesn’t involve setting targets like Labor have that we have no hope of meeting. We think it’s silly to set a target we have no intention of aiming for! Whatever you can see by the nuclear policy that we are fully committed to doing something about climate change even if the exact thing is a little vague but you can trust us to have a policy in place in due course.”
So, I guess you’re wondering why I called this the potential Labor landslide. Well, that’s because nobody seems to looking at how this is all going to play out. Let’s take things one at a time.
- Dutton has all but conceded certain once blue ribbon Liberal seats to the independents. (Goldstein Liberals are giving Tim Wilson another crack. Enough said.)
- He is therefore hoping that he’ll pick up votes from a number of areas where people are disappointed in Labor: Coal and gas approvals, Gaza, help for the unemployed, border security, inflation and housing supply.
- However the first items on the list would more likely result votes leaking to The Greens and independents rather than the Coalition, so that’s more like to lead to a larger cross bench. After all, can you really see people saying that Albanese should be condemning the horrific situation in Gaza more strongly, so we’re going to vote for Dutton because at least he’s fully supportive of the people doing it. At worst Albanese will lose seats to the cross bench; at best, he’ll still hold on to enough seats via preferences.
- However, if the inflation continues to trend down and there’s even one drop in interest rates, that will blunt Dutton’s attack. Yes, there will still be people thinking that the Liberals are better economic managers because every time Labor gets in there’s a world-wide crisis: the oil shocks of the 70s, the GFC, the current inflation, but most people will just decide that they shouldn’t rock the boat now things are getting better.
- While the opinion polls have gone up and down for Labor, I don’t remember too many where their vote was lower than the at the 2022 election… ok, I don’t remember any but then some smartarse is bound to tell me that there was one that appeared in “The Congupna Times” where Labor were well behind their election result. In other words – if you took polls as being 100% accurate – you’d only have two scenarios: Labor gets the same as 2022 OR Labor increases its numbers in House of Reps.
- Labor are facing a state election in Queensland. From what we’re told, they’re on the nose there and an LNP victory is an even bigger certainty than John Hewson was in 1993 or Bill Shorten was in 2019. While this seems like a good thing for the Liberals, it must also be remembered that Labor hold fewer Queensland seats than Scott Morrison had ministries. (FACT CHECK: It was 5 in each case so, that’s equal not fewer!!) If the LNP take over then you can imagine them a) announcing that state is in a deep financial mess which needs b) lots and lots of cuts to services and c) the end of all those bribes you were promised by Miles! All this undoubtedly will win them praise from important people like newspaper editors, and when you have their praise and a whole government term ahead of you, who cares about the people who lost their services and their fifty cent fares. They might – unfairly – think that Dutton is the sort of man to say one thing, one day and another thing, another day, when he usually says one thing and then somebody else comes out and tells us that not only did he not mean it the way we’re taking it, but he didn’t even say it all. All of which, doesn’t lead to LNP picking up any seats in the next federal election, and leaves the real possibility that Labor could end up with an increased majority.
Of course, it’s always remembering that politics is like a cricket match. A side can be batting along smoothly and a couple of wickets changes everything. On the other hand, if Dutton keeps bowling the same rubbish, he may find that the game is over before he knows it…
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The fact that the delusional LNP STILL maintain that it is THEY who are the “better” economic managers when history has shown – and will continue to show – that their abhorrent, preferential funding to the Top 1%, waste and economic mismanagement achieved NOTHING to benefit ordinary working- and middle-class Australians and, indeed, left our nation with the BIGGEST, almost insurmountable national deficit of more than $1 TRILLION – the WORST debt in our political history! (Scoff) so much for the LNP’s grotesque lie that THEY are the better economic managers – what a sick, twisted joke THAT turned out to be! The LNP have a horrific history of defunding ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that provides any benefit (whatsoever) to working- and middle-class Australians and openly favouring their avaricious, non-taxpaying supporters in the Top 1%. Ordinary working- and middle-class Australians foolish enough to support the corrupt, totally depraved, lying political psychopaths and condescending elitists in the LNP can be compared to turkeys voting for Christmas!
Of course the Libs are better financial managers, they have lots of very rich people in their ranks.
Haven’t got a list close at hand but both Dutts and that Taylor bloke are pretty well heeled for starters.
And they have lots of very rich people who vote for them.
And they will come to the electorate with another tax cut promise….. maybe, when there is a no idea what to offer thingo, go for tax cuts for the already rich, works (almost) every time.
And then get the Murdoch people to rig the poll numbers.
Mmmmmmm
It is just a hope for labor but I share it. You are closer to qld than I, Rossleigh, but the leaks over the nt border say Labor will return to 1986 with a massive win to joh and the liberals. If so, labor will not hold its 5 seats in qld ps Last year Crisafulli, Qld’s opposition leader, declared he would solve youth crime in the first 100 days. This year he is fixing the olympics in a 100 days. I notice Dutton listened to him and will stop children’s access to social media in a 100 days.(susson everthing missed importance of ‘a ton’ and said ‘3 months but I know she is the stupid one not dutton) We may know what the lnp is fullof but ordinary voters read murdoch, watch sky or the commercial chs and the ABC and, as there is no labor friends there, dutton, the loonies, katter and the just turned 70 please explain will have a ball with bullshit
Well at least Labor has a handy promo for the next election that dutton can’t object to – If you don’t know, vote no.
On the sixth point above, if you mean that Labor holds only 5 federal Queensland seats, you’re right. On a State Level, however, Labor has a wafer-thin majority, so all it would take would be a few seats to change hands.
Potty Boy Dutton has just engaged in an act of political hara-kiri that makes John Hewson’s inability to explain the proposed GST in 1993 look like a minor boo-boo on a driving test!
Firstly, with the exception of the 1984 Election which coincided with the expansion of Parliament, each & every single Government seeking reelection has gone backwards in both the total 2PP vote it was first elected to office on, & in terms of number of Seats, were it not for the extra seats, Bob Hawke would’ve lost seats too, I see nowhere that Labor can gain seats. Secondly, as someone normally predisposed to voting for Labor, but whom along with 60% of the nation voted no in the referendum, who’s rabid pre Covid19 pro-Labor tribalism dissolved in the face of due to being lucky enough to live in Tasmania during the pandemic, I think you’re all looking at this wrong. I’m guessing that the vast majority of posters here are, viscerally—it being saintly & can do no wrong, unlike Liberals, whom are always evil—pro-Labor, supported all policies & aspects of policy in the Labor States in the pandemic, & ‘trust the science’ of it & Climate Change, unequivocally, which is fine. Which, is fine, but not all voters, especially the ones needed to secure a 2nd Term of Majority Government, feel & think that way. Whereas pre-Covid19 perhaps a supermajority of voters so did ‘trust the science’ of Climate Change unequivocally, after it, I’m uncertain that this is still the case. Looking further afield to Europe—Greens going backwards at EU Elections & very angry protesting Farmers, for example—specifically, it does seem as though political support for Net Zero has collapsed. I am guessing that Peter Dutton has also calculated that Political Support for Net Zero has peaked, I realize to this audience, I am speaking heresy, but I don’t care, I always speak the truth as I see it. And if as American Journalist Seymour Harsh suggests that the pro-Net Zero Biden Administration is responsible for the destruction of the NordStream Pipeline—which released voluminous methane—I for one find it very hard to continue taking any of this seriously, have a nice day.
I would be extremely disappointed of Boofhead Duddo and his side-kick $us$san LeyZee were not the so-called (mis)leaders of the Liarbral$ NOtional$ COALition in (long) Opposition to learn that every day more Australian voters are waking up to the Murdoch Media Monopoly misinformation and muck throwing at a competent LABOR feral government.
Boofhead has very kindly provided LABOR with the ideal political slogan; ”If you don’t know, vote NO!!” for which the LABOR voters may reply, ”If you don’t know then you go!!”.
In Queensland, independent media are reporting that the state economy is flowing along ”just lovely”, much to the enraged frustration of the Murdoch Media Monopoly. The Crisafulli survivor of the horrendous Campbell Newman ideologically driven FRWNJ misgovernment and malfeasance has done nothing to change, except produce a few press releases claiming nto be doing something, without describing exactly what. Nothing changes, especially in the FRWNJ NLP, the party you have when you want nothing changed.
We look forward to Captain Boofhead continuing to bowl underarm and treating spectators to his underwhelming kow-towing to foreign owned multinational corporations.
Note on Venus Boy’s comment
Thanks Rossleigh, it’s so useful and a joy to read your articles injected with irony and wit bringing home contemporary political issues.
It seems Venus Boy is missing a few things, eg. that the majority of The AIMN articles and comments are objective, and reasonably considered, and not ” .. viscerally pro-Labor ..” come what may. On many occasions the articles and comments are critical of Labor, sometimes stridently. Further, after reading all articles and comments over more than a year an a half, it is apparent many (if not most) are based upon significant in-depth research and analysis of the subject matter, not only the politics and media, but also the underlying issues, and usually, for the matters more complex, the authors will include url links to further and more detailed information.
And to that extent numerous non-politically aligned organizations promulgate their media releases through The AIMN.
It is fair enough that Venus Boy comments “Looking further afield to Europe .. EU elections ..”, but striking in its absence of analysis, opting for a conclusion at the extremities; ” .. specifically, it does seem as though political support for Net Zero has collapsed.” And that Dutton’s on to it. One might ask, is he, in his conclusion, captured by the wiles of the FRWNJ / Fossil fuel / aspiring neoliberal putocrat funded media machine? Or is it just convenient to the tenor of his comment as a whole?
It is disappointing to note that his closing comment; “I for one find it very hard to continue taking any of this seriously, have a nice day.” It might leave one wondering whether if he was faced with the imminent destruction of his home and livelihood, and those of other citizens, he would take that seriously.
Nevertheless, Venus Boy’s comments bring home the importance of politician’s narratives being well thought out, with complexities properly condensed, all to engage and reveal clearly to all ears, their achievements, and intended path to a universally better future.
@ Clakka: Venus Boy wants Boofhead & his Murdoch Media Monopoly (MMM) handlers to have ”[political] narratives well thought out, with complexities properly condensed, all to engage and reveal clearly to all ears, their achievements, and intended path to a universally better future.”
This is a BIG DEMAND!! MMM scribblers are chosen on their ability to dumb-down soft drink advertisements rather than provide analytical objectivism deemed essential in most thinking forums (fora). Then there are the difficulties of using a presenter with all the charisma of a fresh cow pat and a personal predilection for racist abuse of Aboriginal youth.
Somehow a sceptical political observer could reasonably interpret this contribution from Venus Boy as a FRWNJ ”toe in the water” to test the reaction of the loyal AIMN readership.
@ NEC: Yep. Seems that way.
Ah, the Liberal Party, past masters of infighting, political bastardry and corrupt practices into off the planet levels of farce and absurdity.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/game-of-thrones-council-axes-10th-ceo-in-eight-years-20240617-p5jmfs.html