In reality, both major parties have commenced their 2022 campaigns, and it is about time the media (you know who I mean) of this country admitted that there is more than one party running for election and give Labor equal billing.
So far, Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has given the Prime Minister a decent shirtfront every time he has crossed the boundary of lying. In January, I expect Albanese to announce minor preliminary appetiser policies that Australians will find more attractive than the LNPs.
Those who follow politics will acknowledge that the country’s political establishments, conventions, and political truth have been devalued and run-down to the point of being unrecognisable to the constraints we had but a generation ago.
We also have to recognise that it is not those who follow politics (the devotees of both parties) that we have to bring over but those whose vote is insecure-those willing to listen to a story of transparency, trust, fairness, honesty, ideas and sound policy.
Of all the issues, two have captured the electorate’s attention more than the meagre efforts of the Coalition in combating climate change and the decline in the standard of Governance. Rorting and unfairness have run amok and continued throughout the terms of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison.
A virtual wage freeze has typified the lot of the average wage earner while the ultra-affluent have increased their wealth astronomically.
Robodebt is but one example of the Morrison Government’s unfairness, whilst the largesse of Jobkeeper for companies in comparison boomed during Covid is another.
The country now has more than a trillion dollars of debt, which raises the question of how it is repaid. The usual way of doing so for conservatives is to slash spending.
The usual targets are the ABC, universities, education, the unemployed, women’s programs, etc. After lowering taxes, they would unlikely increase them.
The answers to many questions remain so, but one thing we know for sure: The Morrison government must be defeated at this election.
Here is my plan for defeating the LNP in 2022. (You may also want to read Rob Gerrand and Noel Turnbull’s list on Pearls and Irritations, on which my list is based).
Trust
There is no common thread for a recovering society/economy to cling to without trust. Everyone likes to feel they can trust the other person. On multiple occasions, Morrison has been called out for lying.
The French president called him a liar on the international stage. Albo must go in hard exploiting his untrustworthiness. What will he do if he regains power? Can you trust him?
By comparison, Labor will stand by its promises and commitments.
The economy
Labor sees the post covid economy as an opportunity to marry society with economics where spending is bonded to and justified by the common good. It will grow the post-covid economy in a new state/national government cooperative agreement, including infrastructure and new green technologies.
An electric future confronts us. Electric vehicles are just a starting point. Incentives for Australian companies to undertake research into tomorrow’s key developments and services must be front and centre of Labor’s platform. Even to the extent of introducing a ministry for the future.
Taxation
The tax cuts introduced by the Coalition may not be sustainable, and Labor must be truthful about it.
With a trillion-dollar debt, cutting taxes may not be advisable. Labor should trust the rich and privileged to understand that the debt problem will have to be brought under control. Any economist would testify that it is unsustainable, and the nation has to fix it. A high-level enquiry with the powers of a Royal Commission is the proper way to address the problem. The ultra-greedy must pay their fair share.
Whenever Frydenberg bangs on about tax, remember that the two highest taxing governments of the last thirty years have both been Liberal-National governments, including his. #factsmatter #auspol #qt
— Jim Chalmers MP (@JEChalmers) November 22, 2021
Climate change
The fear I have here is that Labor, after being burned in the past two elections, will fail to recognise that this time around that the climate is a red-hot topic and needs to be respected as such. Tell the country the truth. Coal is finished. It has no future.
Tell mine workers that Labor will ensure that they are looked after as Australia transitions out of coal. Insist that they will not be left behind.
Tell them that the “billions being spent on subsidies for fossil fuels and new gas exploration will be diverted to investment in green hydrogen plants (using solar and wind electricity to generate hydrogen).” Tell them they have a future.
Integrity Commission
Labor needs to go in hard with its promise to release a policy (before Christmas) for a Corruption Commission. Now that the Coalition has vacated the transparent government space, it must promise to end corruption and waste and establish a proper independent anti-Corruption Commission “that has the power to hold politicians to account and stop the rorting.”
The workplace
People may have jobs, and there might be more in the pipeline. However, “wages have barely increased since the Abbot/Turnbull/Morrison governments have been in power.” At the same time, company profits are overflowing.
Labor is, of course, “committed to good jobs with good wages and training all workers, especially the young, for tomorrow’s industries.” The promise of free TAFE places has been a good start, as has its pledge to increase JobSeeker to $450 a week, at the poverty line.
Health
Health has traditionally been one of Labor’s strong suits and it must keep with this tradition. A focus on prevention would appeal to the younger voter. Promising to work with the health funds to reward those willing to adopt healthy lifestyles would be popular with many.
With covid in mind, it must refund our hospitals for their incurred costs. Not only for their selfless efforts during the pandemic but simply because it is something that needs to be done.
Raising doctors’ Medicare rebates (deliberately held down for years) would show how much society appreciates their work.
International relations
Labor should promise to restore the principles of sound old-fashioned diplomatic principles and promise to restore relations with China. Whilst being a treaty nation with the US, we should diplomatically tell them that we will always do what’s best for Australia.
The ABC
Labor would assure the ABC that proper financial support would be legislated over five years instead of three. It would also undertake an assurance that Government would “stop undermining its independence.” The arts would also receive appropriate sustainable support.
Innovation
Labor has already undertaken to fix the balls up, known as the NBN (or Fraudband). It should empathise the urgency of the task.
Labor will make Australia the world leader in green technologies with a fund to support start-ups that show promise.
Labor should offer to increase university funding if they commit to more significant research programmes. It would also provide funding to launch new innovative firms and create thousands of jobs. It must also address the unfinished work of Gonski.
The standard of Governance
The one thing that Morrison is now disliked for that is revealed in focus groups, surveys, and polls is his appalling leadership and governance. You can add to that the performance of his cabinet and Ministers in significant portfolios. This pitiful governance can also be attributed to the junior partner in the Coalition, the National Party.
Morrison cannot even admit that he tells the most outrageous lies and lies on top of lies in the face of facts that show he does. He really believes he doesn’t.
When Howard was our dear leader I was certain I’d seen the worse PM we’ll ever have.
Then came Abbott, & I was convinced I’ll never see worse.
Now we have Morrison, & I’m certain, without a doubt, he can’t be topped as the worst ever.
Nonetheless, it’s a disturbing trend.
— Michael Taylor 🇦🇺🏴 🖤💛❤️ (@AusIndiMedia) December 12, 2021
I and many others have written over the year about the many examples of rorting in detail, almost to the point of boredom. Here are just a few reminders: Angus Taylor and Josh Frydenberg’s environmental stuff-ups; the sports rorts of Bridget McKenzie; the railway car parks fiasco; the gifting of billions of JobKeeper money to companies that earned record profits; the gifting of billions of dollars to the Government’s fossil fuel friends in the guise of meeting emission targets.
Need I go on?
“You can’t trust Scott Morrison” should be a slogan repeated ad nauseam throughout the election campaign.
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My thought for the day
The left of politics is concerned with people who cannot help themselves. The right is concerned with those who can.
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Mr Lord your thought for the day is spot on
” Labor should trust the rich and privileged to understand that the debt problem will have to be brought under control.”
yeh sure, how did that work with franking credits? the wealthy will forever be greedier than is necessarily good for themselves, never mind the economy, just look at Harvey Norman cutting retail wages then whingeing that retail sales are down because no-one seems to have the spare cash to purchase their products.
The ALP have, to their credit, renamed their proposed federal investigatory body, ditching the coyly worded ‘national integrity commission’ and opting for a ‘national anti corruption commission’ (NACC)
This is a welcome shift that should resound with the electorate if the message is driven home in hard concert.
It is difficult to convince people that you are willing to address corruption when you avoid saying the word.
No mention of refugee policy, treatment of asylum seekers, freeing the Biloela family, closing Australia’s Pacific gulags. No mention of justice for Julian Assange.
Arthur,
Sympathy for asylum seekers is not a big vote winner.
To quote an ALP stalwart, ‘if you want to clear the BBQ table, just mention refugees’.
Polls indicate that nearly 50% of Australians believe current immigration intake is too high, and less than 20% support an increase.
Apparently you don’t need to be a raving greenie to see the problem in adding another million people every 3 years.
In order to garner greater sympathy for refugee immigration, the ALP would have to match the maths by simultaneously addressing methods to decrease the voluntary migration that comprises the majority of our population influx.
That would require nuanced rational discussion of a complicated and controversial subject, which is not compatable with election campaigning.
Sure there are many other things l could have included but a small target campaign for Albanese is what’s warranted.
Climate change is not the main election issue. If people were genuinely concerned for climate change the greens would get more votes and people would get out of their cars neither of which occurs
yes, lord, small target tactics and, as you emphasised simple slogans like ‘trust’ with consistent messages about what the LNP have cocked up eg robodebt, wasted cash on pork barrelling including the verbals like station parking and tax and above scummo’s lies, holidays.
As you say small target and repeatable messages, ‘KISS’ may be the clincher.
ps
Barnaby on Assange was a bolt from the blue???
Once again John Lord your concentrated commonsense provides policy initiatives that would benefit LABOR’s chances at the 2022 feral elections. But are the LABOR Campaign Team listening beyond the so-called ”focus groups” usually located in metro cities?
Perhaps LABOR could offset refugee concerns by stopping the 1.4 MILLION foreign work visa holders undercutting the abysmal pay & conditions being exposed in horticulture. Being ”unable to pay” a living wage to Australian workers is no excuse for the heavily subsidised horticulture industries to be propped up for the benefit of landholders who would be better off selling up as city business proprietors are required to do when a business is not financially successful.
Indeed, properly managed, legal refugees could be employed in those jobs presently going through labour hire companies (that allegedly skim off the top of worker wages) rather than jailed without cause because successive Australian governments ignore their international treaty responsibilities.
Thank you for this thought provoking article, we have a lot to do to return Australia to an egalitarian society.
Yes to all of it, but I am terribly afraid that the wealthy will not be persuaded by any of it. They don’t care in the main ( wildly general as some do) about the climate, about truth telling, about the poor and the sick, about coal miners, about the future past their own lives – none of it affects them in their immediate view, they can afford to pay doctors and rents or mortgages, they don’t have borderline jobs or industries that might be obsolete, they don’t believe a couple of degrees increase will make a joy of difference.
I have two friends, one thinks ‘poor Mr Morrison, he’s so nice and all his advisers just tell him what to say’ and the other lives on franking credits and was horrified by Labor last time and won’t even consider voting for anyone else.
I regret that these two are multiplied enough times across the country to put them back in.
corvus, when I was working for the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commission (ATSIC) the minister in charge of us was overheard saying; “Bashing Aborigines is good politics” (or words similar to that effect). Disgraceful.
cb,
Another way of looking at it, the people that migrate often end up, maybe a generation or two in, having smaller families thus being of net benefit to the planet numbers-wise, but our consumption crazy society more than wipes out that benefit.
Despite all of this I cannot trust the people to do the right thing here. Believing the MSM over everything else.
Good article JL – thank you, you have given me some subjects for posting once the official election campaign gets under way.
Having read the commentary this far, I am concerned about the negativity and what could be seen as defeatism.
When the official campaign starts, I for one, will be using Facebook (as the widest possible audience) to post as many short sharp statements to challenging the swinging voters to vote left.
I hope that I am not alone
Another reasonable platform the ALP could adopt to address corruption would be to propose more stringent regulation against the predatory practices of gambling syndicates.
Gambling is acknowledged as a highly addictive behavior that is destructive to families and corrosive to society, as well as being intertwined with organised crime (match/race fixing, money laundering, etc) , yet they are allowed to lobby and peddle without restraint.
Newscorp (the ones who hack phones and bribe judiciary) are now seeking to muscle in on the bookmaking game.
Political attitudes to this unscrupulous racketeering need a major systemic overhall.
Nicotine and ethanol are subject to advertising limitations, but dodgy bookies are allowed to hawk unfettered.
Just visiting this site results in automated saturation marketing pushing me to gamble away my wages (SPORTSBET, PUNTAZ!!!).
I am not mug enough to feed these salivating parasites, but others may have more inclination and less discipline.
Labor adopting policy to rein in the exploitive ploys of these soul-sucking tapeworms (such as limitations/ban on advertising) would reinforce the idea that they are starting to get serious about both reducing corrupting influences and protecting vulnerable sectors of society. .
Simon Birmingham on coalition pork barreling, he turned it to criticising the ALP:
the ALP would also favour Labor seats and marginal seats and seats that they hope to win at the next election
So the ALP would spread the largesse throughout the community ??
I can see Scummo and crew laying in a huge supply of the LNP Wands of Rubbery Figures because of the, so far unannounced, election next year. The smell of burning rubber is going to be very unpleasant as each wand bursts into flame from overuse.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/15/federal-budget-update-josh-frydenberg-forecasts-unemployment-rate-to-fall-to-under-5
I’m surprised that “I’ve only got ten fingers and toes” Josh wasn’t almost neck deep, and wearing a clothes peg on his nose, in the stuff that cows leave all over the ground with this nonsense.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/16/myefo-2021-22-what-it-predicts-for-the-australian-economy-what-it-assumes-and-what-could-go-wrong
Darn, forgot there’s an election looming so means everything will be seen through the LNP rose-coloured glasses from now on.
The stuff that cows leave on the ground spewing from Joshy is now turning into what I could only describe as the end result of 50 elephants after eating curry loaded hay. It’s a huge pile of steaming…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-16/myefo-mid-year-budget-pre-election-morrison-albanese/100699040
Democracy is being gamed by big media and played to benefit big business. If businesses pay large amounts of money to “influencers” to gain advantage over their competition then how much is the influence of the media outlets of Murdoch, 7 and 9 worth to the L/NP? The Main Stream Media have been a life support system and cheer squad for a side of politics that has decimated Democracy. The MSM is the problem not the solution. Advertising with these media outlets should be counted as political donations to the L/NP.