Who can scare you the most?

1 If you didn’t know an election was on and campaigning had been in progress for a few weeks, then you could be excused for not remembering that yes, the election is on the twenty-first of May.

So mundane has been the campaigning that you would think we were having a debate about what side of the street we should walk rather than the future of our nation.

My thoughts, as usual, are drawn to who is telling the most truth because it is better to be comforted with fact than controlled by lies. For some reason, I find it essential to the voting process. When I talk to people about this election and mention Scott Morrison’s lying, I’m often surprised at how many men forgive him because “they all do it.” Imagine what sort of a society we would have if all we did was lie to each other.

The opposite is that women hold him in such low esteem that they could cost him the election.

When the two leaders commenced their campaigns, who would have envisaged that the three most significant issues after nearly three weeks of campaigning would be Albo’s senior moment, a female candidate’s views on gender and the Solomon Islands’ relationship with China?

In the absence of Anthony Albanese, a fantastic opportunity exists to showcase some of Labor’s pre-eminent media performers. Jason Clare is stepping up to the plate as the media spokesperson, and Jim Chalmers, with his ever-present smile, seems to have a handle on any subject.

Unlike the Coalition, at least Labor is putting on an upbeat show, whereas Morrison, Dutton, Joyce and Taylor seem to be negatively defending everything. Taylor has been caught out again presenting dodgy figures, as this headline points out in The New Daily fact check: “Angus Taylor was caught in a dodgy climate scare campaign.”

And as for the warmonger, Dutton. really, what does one say? He hasn’t got a brain in his head or a diplomatic bone in his body. He is anticipating a war with China and wants us prepared. These scare campaigns do nothing more than treat us with contempt. Meanwhile, they increase the size of their army by the size of ours every year.

 

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A message for union members and supporters on scare campaigns, disinformation and lies during the election campaign #auspol pic.twitter.com/zMdYYuMufM

— Sally McManus (@sallymcmanus) February 21, 2022

 

2 While watching the dawn service and at the same time fiddling on my iPad, I came across a piece from Crikey that I had saved in my “to read” file. It caught my attention because I don’t subscribe to it, and it’s not often one finds an entire article without subscribing.

The headline read; “The Liberal Party wants us to ‘look at the facts’. But just whose facts?”

Of nine claims in the Liberals’ new ad campaign, one is correct, two are deceptive, and six are barefaced lies.

The piece is written by Alan Austin, who will be familiar to some readers. In essence, it was a put down of Scott Morrison’s claims that:

i) ‘Australia’s recovery is leading the world.’

But claiming Australia is still a leader on this metric is quite false.

ii) “Through the pandemic, we’ve had fewer deaths … than almost any advanced country”

A more valid comparison, I would argue, is with advanced nations far from those countries and using current figures.

iii) “Less debt than almost any advanced country.”

Twenty-nine advanced economies now have less debt than Australia.

iv) “And more jobs growth than almost any advanced country”

The Liberal graph again compares Australia with seven non-comparable nations and ignores the advanced economies beating Australia. These include Norway, which improved employment by 3.11%, Argentina by 3.3%, Cyprus 3.7%, Israel 4.1%, New Zealand 4.3%, the Netherlands 4.5%, Denmark 5.3% and Malta by 5.9%.

v) “The Liberal government is building a stronger economy.’ ‘… With lower taxes.”

This would make Donald Trump blush. Last month’s budget papers showed that from 1969 onwards tax to GDP has been much higher under the Liberals. The highest-taxing administration was John Howard’s. Morrison’s was second highest.

vi) Lower unemployment

Yes, the headline jobless rate is lower. But you could argue that is due to migration shifting into reverse, to thousands of “workers” on one hour or zero hours a month, and to the blow-out in the public service – not a strong economy.

vii) “More apprentices.”

Apprenticeship numbers have recovered slightly in the past year, but from a low base. Relative to population, apprentices in 2017 and 2018 were the lowest in two decades.

viii) “More funding for health and other essential services.”

This claim is correct. But that’s due to higher population and the larger budget relative to 2013, not sound management.

(In regards to point iii you might want to read Alan Austin’s Worst debt blow-out in the developed world refutes Coalition claims of economic competence published recently on The AIMN.

2 Last Sunday, the LNP gave a guilt-edged guarantee that taxes overall wouldn’t rise above 23% of GDP. At the moment, they are on 27%. The highest ever taxing Government is the current one, and the highest after them is John Howard’s. Labor has never reached 27%.

3 The Kevin Rudd Facebook page report into Murdoch bias finds that 90% of their articles so far are favoured towards the Coalition.

At this stage, the respective campaigns of both parties are being dominated by scare campaigns. Labor is scaring pensioners to death over the Government’s welfare card, and the Government is more than a little upset. Having said that, Morrison is running around like a headless chook saying all sorts of negative things about Albo and who can forget his scare campaigns about Shorten’s negative gearing and franking credits.

Labor has conceded that all this negativity does work and that there is no point in being as pure as snow. A pity, but that’s the truth of the matter.

Pensions, the NDIS, Medicare, open borders, Chinese Reds under Labor beds, frightening, isn’t it?

But that’s the way the game is played.