Those of you who can remember 2019 may remembered that various people tried to frame it as an election on climate change. Why, even the Labor Party had such radical policies as fifty percent of new cars sold in 2050 would be electric. While that may not seem very radical to some – after all it only refers to new cars and it was a whole eleven years away – it was a pretty extreme according to some people who don’t include the Prime Minister who just recently told us that he’s always supported electric cars and any suggestion otherwise was just more 1984-type disinformation from the Labor Party who like to pretend that they haven’t been in power when we all know that everything that’s gone wrong in the past few years has been because of their refusal to govern properly.

No, the Liberals and the Nationals have committed to net zero by 2050 and so climate policy can’t be an issue in the upcoming election. How are we going to get there? Technology, not taxes. So problem solved and in the meantime we can go along subsidising industry to invest in technology which we do from something we call government revenue which is raised by a thing called ‘not taxes’. As Scott Morrison said just yesterday:

“What you need in today’s energy economy is you need to run your coal-fired power stations as long as you possibly can. And that is our policy: We want them to run as long as they possibly can!’

So, there you have it. The climate can’t possibly be an issue because everyone’s on board with net zero and the only argument is how we get there. It doesn’t matter whether we elect a Labor government whose policy may be to tax companies with high emissions or whether we elect a Liberal one whose policy is to keep doing nothing and let someone else find the solution. Yes, the Liberals are committed to net zero but not at the cost of actually doing anything different.

If not climate change, then will it be about the disaster response? Well, that would be just looking in the rearview mirror which one should never do, so it makes one wonder why cars are fitted with them? The Covid response? Again looking in the rearview mirror, but look at well we managed it.

The Liberals were going strong on national security and they’ll continue to push that one pretty hard but it’s a problem for two reasons. First, the problem of talking about China when it’s the conflict between Russia and Ukraine which seems to demand more attention. And if we talk too much about that conflict there’s the danger that peace could break out and leave the Coalition with nothing to talk about. Secondly, Labor keeps agreeing with everything they say, so it’s hard to win voters back when you’re not presenting a difference.

Economic management is usually the Coalition’s happy place. Over the past fifty years, they’ve managed to present themselves as the superior economic managers by arguing that anything that happens while they’re in power is Labor’s fault while anything that happens while Labor is in power is also Labor’s fault. Labor have not only caused our current trillion-dollar debt but they also caused the oil shocks of the 1970s, the GFC and the slow response to Covid… Ok, they weren’t in power for that last one, but they should have left better preparations for a pandemic. The trouble with using economic management this time is that it’s a bit confusing for the average voter when they hear our political leaders say something like: “There are tough economic times coming and there’s not a thing we can do to stop it, but this is a great reason to vote for us because you wouldn’t trust Labor to manage the economy at a time when we’re going to have higher interest rates, inflation, shortages, cost of living pressures and enormous government debt.”

So what’s left. Well, the important issue is going to be Anthony Albanese’s weight loss. Yes, you heard me. No longer are the Liberals appealing to the aspirational voter; they’re after the fat and lazy. Scotty knows who he is and he’s not someone who changes. He’s wearing the same suit, the same glasses, the same set of swimming togs. He cooks the same curries and is married to the same woman and has the same daughters. He has the same outlook and the same slow response to any disaster. He has the same answers to the questions he doesn’t like and the same person to do the inquiry into whatever scandal and he will tell you in the same way that he isn’t releasing the results of the inquiry for the same reason that he said before.

Learn from your experience? No way.

Get your hair fixed so that you don’t look as bald? Nah, what are you talking about? Next you’ll be suggesting he said that electric cars would ruin the weekend.

Yes, the pitch will all be about Albo and how you don’t know what you’re getting.

Of course, the converse of “I’m ScoMo and you not what you’re getting with me!” may not be the winner he thinks it is…