New Politics: Australian Politics, News, Analysis & Commentary

Scott Morrison must now be rueing his decision to embark on a six-week election campaign, and it appears the longer it continues, the worse his position has become. Week five of the campaign commenced with a leader’s debate which closely resembled a combination of a rugby scrum and an all-out brawl, before the sands of time put an end to proceedings, leaving the public no wiser as to who was the better performer.

This was Nine Media’s version of a leaders’ debate, and a semblance of normality returned when Seven West Media hosted the final debate: at least the studio audience was able to adequately assess the performances of the two leaders and recorded a decisive victory to Anthony Albanese – 50%, to Morrison’s 34%.

But the election is not going to won by undecided voters housed in the studios of Australia’s media moguls, and Morrison decided his best bet is to channel Donald Trump and attack lawyers, barristers – any elites will do – and push out the message that he is ‘one of the people’. Not any type of people though, but those who reside in the realms of bogan land, because it appears Morrison believes these are the people that offer him the narrowest pathway to victory: the snarlers, the anti-vaxx crowd, the disaffected, the people who believe the whole world is against them. These are not the “quiet Australians” who supposedly delivered victory to Morrison at the 2019 election, but the rowdy ones who hate everyone and everything.

However, it’s far too late. According to all published opinion polls, the Coalition is on track to record a massive election loss – thoroughly deserved – but the ghosts of 2019 are still haunting those who dare to make a definitive prediction. The most courageous words we can hear from political experts is that this election is Anthony Albanese’s to lose, but it also has to be remembered that no political party has ever come from this far behind in the final week of a campaign, and managed to win the election. Can Morrison repeat his success of 2019? It’s not impossible, but it must be close to impossible.

The worst-case scenario for the Liberal–National Coalition is a Labor majority victory, coupled with a team of teal independents who create a massive buffer between them and the Coalition, pushing government out of reach. If this scenario comes to fruition, the Coalition will be out of office for a long time.

And one of the forgotten parties of Australian politics – the Australian Democrats – is making a comeback and we speak to two of their candidates: Elena Mitchell and Steve Baty. Their halcyon days were well over twenty years ago, when they held nine Senate seats, and even if they manage to win one seat, it will complete a remarkable comeback, after losing their final Senate seats in 2008. And it seems like it’s the right time for a political force to “keep the bastards honest”, the original slogan created by the original Democrat, Don Chipp. It’s well overdue.

Four weeks into the campaign and real votes are being cast, with the acceptance of postal votes and the prepoll period commencing soon. In 2019, Labor won the two-party preferred vote – but lost the vote by a wide margin during the prepolling period and, as a result, has reworked it’s campaigning processes and is viewing the 2022 election not just as ‘election day’, but the ‘election fortnight’.

Some people were bemused by Labor’s relatively early campaign launch, but it makes sense when taking this ‘election fortnight’ strategy into account. The Liberal Party will hold their campaign launch in the final week – which means they’ll still collect public funding until this time – but this epitomises Scott Morrison perfectly. If there is a public handout available there, he’ll be there to collect it.

As predicted, there was a cash rate rise during the week, but it’s not the Prime Minister’s fault: it’s all about external events, the war in Ukraine… maybe it’s even Labor’s fault, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s not about politics and mortgage holders have factored into account these rate rises through their savings. Apparently.

Morrison takes the credit when the good news arrives, and always finds someone else to blame when the bad news arrives. But it cannot be like this: a Prime Minister has to take responsibility for everything, not just pick and choose the narrative that suits their agenda at the time.

And, once again, Morrison claims a federal ICAC will be a ‘kangaroo court’, but we feel he doesn’t want an anti-corruption commission because he is likely to one of the first MPs to appear once this body is established. And, more than likely, followed by many of his frontbench team: this has the potential to keep a federal ICAC busy for a least a decade, decimate the Liberal and National parties, and keep them out of office for another decade on top of that, so it’s obvious why Morrison is not keen on a federal ICAC.

A debate between Josh Frydenberg and Jim Chalmers focussed on ‘cost of living’ pressures: a civil affair, but if the Coalition wins the election, will Frydenberg actually be the Treasurer? He’s facing a difficult task in the seat of Kooyong and there’s inside speculation that the seat might already be lost to the independent challenger, Monique Ryan.

There was also a new batch of opinion polls, and it’s the same story as before: no change – if anything, they’ve become worse for the Coalition. Labor is in a winning position in all of these polls, and has been for the past 104 surveys, but we have to remember what happened in 2019: Labor ahead in over 100 consecutive opinion polls, only to lose the election. It’s unlikely, but it could happen again in 2022 – the only hope for the Coalition is that it’s happened before, but this time around, they are much further behind.

And we answer audience questions: this week, our opinions on the chances of The New Liberals; and the possibility of a Royal Commission into COVID management. We think there should be one.

Anthony Albanese was missing from the election campaign for one week, and didn’t the media have a field day. Unfortunately, the media has it in for Albanese, and instead of the predicted nightmare disaster that was meant to be caused by their leader’s absence, Labor managed to highlight key members from their frontbench – the differences between the two sides of politics could not be more stark.

Perhaps it might have been better to focus on all the occasions Scott Morrison has been absent over the past three years?

Climate change also entered the campaign, but Labor didn’t really need to make too many announcements on this issue. The King of Coal, Matt Canavan, suggested the net zero by 2050 target for the Liberal–National Coalition was “dead” and was never going to happen and, as a result of his statements, the eternal colour of happiness is teal. Candidates from the Voices Of group of independents could barely conceal their delight and the stupidity of Canavan and Colin Boyce in voicing their opinions so stridently. As Napoleon Bonaparte suggested, never interfere when your enemy is making all mistakes.

ANZAC Day was held during the week, and what better way for a politician to show disrespect and disdain for those people who died in Australian wars, by talking up a war with China, or driving mobile Liberal Party billboards during an ANZAC Day service in Geelong.

Really, we have to start questioning the sanity of leaders such as Peter Dutton and Morrison, because it’s these types of foolish leaders who sacrifice the lives of young soldiers, while hiding in their coward’s castles, far away from any mortal danger.

And this foolishness was also on display in the Solomon Islands, where Australia threw away high level hard and soft diplomacy measures and allowed China extend its sphere of influence into the Pacific. The Prime Minister has really found himself on the sticky end of a fried dough stick.

It’s also becoming more apparent this foolishness in Canberra is about to end, with all opinion polls predicting a Labor victory on election day – 21 May – they also predicted a Labor victory in 2019 but, this time around, it’s hard to see where Scott Morrison’s victory is going to come from. It really is.

Scare campaigns need to have a semblance of truth behind them to work effectively and Labor’s strategy of making pensioners think they’ll have their income managed through the cashless debit card if the Coalition wins the federal election, does gave some solid foundations. For a start: the scheme already exists. And the legislation to apply the scheme to age pensions also exists. And footage of many ministers outlining their support for the scheme – that also exists as well.

Is it a “scare campaign” if it’s actually close to the truth? The media has been quick to point out that it is, and make the claim it’s hurting pensioners to have this “scare” aired in public, even though they didn’t seem so concerned during the 2019 election campaign, when they were very happy to talk up “Labor’s retiree tax”, even though such a plan has never existed, and never will.

But given Scott Morrison was the architect of the disastrous “Robodebt” scheme – which cost the Australian taxpayers $1.2 billion – and was also Minister for Social Services when the Indue card trial was implemented, it’s likely that he’d also like to apply this draconian system to age pensioners. Why? Because that’s who he is.

“Where’s the money going to come from?” It’s a question asked of Labor, but never of the Coalition, even though the answer is the same for both parties. The money comes from the Reserve Bank of Australia, as it always has. Why do political journalists continue to humiliate themselves by asking the most basic questions available to them?

The opinions polls are still pointing towards a Labor victory at the next election, although a hung parliament is also a distinct possibility. If this comes into play, who would the crossbench support? It’s quite possible their numbers could come up to 13 and, as most of these would be taking seats away from the Liberal Party, would they support the Liberal Party to form government? It’s unlikely: all of these independents are campaigning strongly on several key issues – climate change, integrity in politics, women’s safety, corruption and mismanagement.

It would be hard for them to support the Liberal Party, considering their lack of action on all of these issues over the past nine years.

And it’s still quite predictable: the media has an intense dislike of Anthony Albanese, and doesn’t it show. He’s the man who cannot do anything right. He’s on stage at the Byron Bay Bluesfest: he ‘gatecrashed’, that’s obviously wrong.

He wins the leaders debate on Sky News, 40 to 35 in an audience of 100 undecided voters: but the public doesn’t understand, so that result is obviously wrong too – Albanese didn’t win, Scott Morrison did. And, oh goodness me, now he’s gone off to catch COVID: that’s obviously wrong and it’s an absolute disaster and ‘nightmare’ for Albanese and Labor’s campaign! (hint: no, it’s not really).

Australia has a paucity of quality political journalism and it’s a pity so many journalists swayed towards the one-sided disaster-style reporting when Albanese revealed he had contracted COVID. They could have thought a little more creatively and looking at the possibility that it might actually work in Labor’s favour. But squawking from the sidelines is far easier and far more enjoyable. And what better to make people disengage from politics by telling everyone how “boring” and “dismal” the election campaign.

Who’s got time to report on the important matters?

A very hostile first media conference for Anthony Albanese in the marginal seat of Bass in Tasmania, where he couldn’t answer or gave the wrong answers to two questions from a journalist: what’s the Reserve Bank’s cash rate, and what is the official unemployment rate.

A classic ‘gotcha’ question from the media, and it’s just another example of how poor political journalism is in Australia, where the value of catching a politician out – and getting the headline propaganda – is placed far higher than providing a vision for the future of this country, which is sorely needed after nine years of driftless and aimless government provided by the Liberal–National Coalition.

But, these are rules of the game: Albanese should have known these figures or, at the least, had a strategy for dealing with this situation, which inevitably happens during an election campaign.

If only he’d been quick enough to recite three words – “Google it, mate” – and all would have been forgiven. Adam Bandt from the Australian Greens put a journalist in his place for asking a ridiculous ‘gotcha’ question, but it’s unlikely to stop journalists from asking these inane questions, because the current crop of Australian journalists don’t have the intellect or depth of knowledge to provide a clearer analysis: best to trip over a political leader, and that’s the day’s work day. And if they’re lucky, score an invitation to the Prime Minister’s private drinks session for the travelling media: you never know who you might meet there and, hopefully snort some free cocaine in the Nepean Rowers Club bathrooms.

Labor does receive different treatment from the media, there’s no questions about this: hostility and impatient demands for answers are always made of Labor Party leaders; for Scott Morrison, any answer will do – whether it’s correct or not, doesn’t really matter either – and then it’s off for some photo opportunities at a sewing machine centre in western Sydney, or shooting some hoops at a basketball court in Melbourne. Morrison is the media’s man: he can do no wrong, because he’s the convenient idiot for the media moguls. Or perhaps the Manchurian Candidate, but that might be a bit too sophisticated for legacy media, which prefers to glide with those in power, rather than hold power to account.

Will this cost Albanese the election? Elections are more than just about first-day blunders: this election should be about climate change, cost of living pressures, wage stagnation, a lack of action for bushfire and flood victims, saving Medicare, women’s safety, the failures in the vaccination rollout and quarantine measures, incompetence, corruption, and all the rorting.

These are the issues the election should be about, not about who can recite random statistics on a podium. The media is trying to hoodwink the electorate: they’re as evil and insipid as the Liberal Party that they keep cheering for. It’s just a question of whether the electorate can see through this, or keep swallowing the lies they’re been happily accepting over the past nine years.

We’ve never seen a government in so much trouble entering an election campaign and it’s just a question of whether Scott Morrison has the political skills to turn matters around. But before everyone starts drawing a line through the Liberal–National Coalition and ending nine years of brutally poor government and incompetence, it has to be remembered that we’ve seen this story before – 2016 and 2019 – when a divided Coalition was expected to at least lose one of those elections – 2019 – before being return by a wafer-thin majority on both occasions.

But as bad as a government has been for most of its existence, it only has to be on its best behaviour for five weeks – the length of the election campaign – of a 156-week parliamentary term, and all sins can be forgotten by the electorate. That is what Scott Morrison is hoping for. The big problem this time around is Morrison is not an unknown figure: the electorate suspects that he’s working for someone else, and not for the Australian electorate. They suspect he lies for most of the time, even when he doesn’t need to; they suspect that he’s incompetent, and they suspect that he might even be corrupt.

He’s also looking for the same tactics and election tricks that worked so well for him during the 2019 election – the photo opportunities, the grand misrepresentation of Labor policies, and Bill Shorten the bogeyman, also known as the “Bill Australia can’t afford”. Again, it’s 2022, and it’s all so different. The electorate is tiring of the endless photo opportunities; they’ve worked Morrison out. Bill Shorten is no longer the leader of the Labor Party, replaced by the innocuous and inoffensive Anthony Albanese – but after years of division promoted by Morrison at every opportunity, being innocuous and inoffensive might be just what the election is looking for as they enter the third year of this COVID pandemic.

The free character assessments offered by Liberal Party MP – and the long-departed Michael Towke, who reappeared like Banquo’s ghost after 15 years in exile, reminding the world what the media would hope would be forgotten – the brutal attack on him by Scott Morrison in the 2007 Liberal Party preselection battle in Cook. The media will do whatever they can to justify and promote the return of the Morrison government, even though it’s patently clear – especially over the past three years – that this is not a government worth saving. It might fall on deaf ears anyway: based on what all the polls are saying, it might not matter anymore, and the Liberal Party is heading for a period in exile, so it can lick its wounds, and return as a much better political party.

Jane Caro is a social commentator, writer, academic and public education advocate. And she's running as a Senate candidate for the Reason Party – David Lewis caught up with her to talk about public education, aged care and the upcoming election campaign. If Labor manages to win the next election – and Caro also manages to enter the Senate – we could be in for some interesting times as far as reform of the education and age care sectors are concerned. But, first things first: there’s an election campaign to be held and the election in May.

It’s going to be a wild ride.

The Budget was announced this week, and not only was it one of the most political ever, it was also one of the most expensive job applications in history for the federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who is clearly angling for the leadership of the Liberal Party after the next election, win or lose.

Is this a good Budget? Budgets should be all about the community and the economy but, once again, the media has focused on whether the Budget will be enough to get the Coalition government re-elected or not, which seems to totally miss the point of national finances.

And is this government incompetent, or is its mismanagement – inaction on climate change, bushfires, flooding, vaccination rollout – a deliberate strategy by design? Many people have suggested it’s impossible for a government to be so incompetent, and the Morrison government is following in the footsteps of the Bush administration in the United States: deliberate incompetence and recklessness that opens up the pathway for an obscene ideology that brings in all the spivs, charlatans, and private operators. Everything is against the public interest and in favour of the chosen few.

We’ve had yet another once-in-3500 years weather event in Lismore and northern New South Wales. And, once again, government has acted slowly and its response has been too late. This is an issue that is going to feature in the background of the federal election campaign, once it is announced.

Labor preselections always seem to attract controversy, especially when a white male economist from an affluent area is parachuted into a diverse multicultural western Sydney seat. Should parties insert high quality candidates into winnable seats, or choose the local who works the branches for many years, and ends up doing nothing once they become the MP?

This, of course, is an issue. But nothing compared to the criticism being thrown at Scott Morrison by his own side of politics. Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has, effectively, been dumped by the Liberal Party and her final speech in the Senate shared her opinion of Morrison as a bully who is unfit to be Prime Minister and lacks a moral compass.

There’s no come back for Morrison. Fierravanti-Wells is leaving politics but it appears there might be quite a few of her Liberal Party colleagues following her at the next election, whenever it is held.

The electorate in South Australia has removed a one-term Liberal Party government and installed a Labor government under Peter Malinauskas. And with a state election so close to a federal election, will there be any implications for Scott Morrison?

We keep being told that there’s no relationship between state and federal issues, but we think there is much for the Morrison government to be worried about. In almost every election result since the pandemic commenced, aside from a state election victory in Tasmania, there hasn’t been very much good news for the Liberal–National Coalition.

A byelection loss in Eden–Monaro, general election losses in Western Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory, ACT and South Australia, even a 3.5% swing against the Coalition in the Queensland byelection in Groom. Massive byelection swings in New South Wales. This is not really a recipe for success, if the federal government is looking for any guidance.

And if the federal government is not having much success in the management of the economy, the bushfires, the floods, COVID… and pretty much every else we’d expect from government, what better way to distract the public than highlighting factional problems in the Labor Party.

The media’s behaviour – and that of the Coalition – has been unedifying in reporting on the death of Kimberley Kitching, and the innuendos, gossip and half-truths about Labor Party factions. Anything at all to smear Labor and try to prove to the public that Labor is unworthy of high office.

The only problem is that very few people in the media understand what factions are – and the Liberal Party does have them too, despite what Malcolm Turnbull suggested several years ago – but presenting the idea of “factions: bad”, and something that only exists in the Labor Party is all the media is interested in.

The polls keep getting worse for Scott Morrison and qualitative research confirms that the Prime Minister is considered to be incompetent and untrustworthy. If a half-decent Premier in South Australia is given a 5% swing against and thrown out of office, what type of punishment will be inflicted upon the Morrison government?

Budget week will provide a few more answers and it will be the last chance for the federal government to turn everything around – and also a last chance for the Liberal Party to make a leadership change before the election: if it does indeed come to that. That’s how bad it has become.

It was Anthony Albanese’s turn to appear on 60 Minutes, but not as much enthusiasm as they displayed for Scott Morrison, even though more people tuned in to watch Albanese, compared to Morrison’s episode several weeks earlier. And his appearance brought the ire of Morrison, who complained about Albanese’s weight loss, his lack of interest in Italian cakes and his choice of glasses. In Morrison’s mind, these are critical issues for choosing a prime minister and it explains why his time as prime minister has been a disaster.

In his attacks on Albanese, Morrison claimed “he's not pretending to be someone else” – except for sheep shearer, hair beautician, racing car driver, carpenter, barre dancer, gnocchi maker, chef, court sweeper, ukulele musician, a pilot. If these are Morrison’s ambitions, he should follow his dreams and allow someone else to become the prime minister but, with the opinion polls still pointing to a Coalition loss at the next federal election, perhaps the decision is going to be made for him.

Senator Kimberley Kitching died last week and the grieving hadn’t even started before the media started blaming the Labor Party for causing her death. It was unedifying and yet another example of the mediocre standards of the Australian mainstream media, and how willing they are to support anything that is detrimental to the progress of the Labor Party.

When Don Randall died in 2015, there was no discussion of the “stress of the job”, or Liberal Party preselection issues. But when it’s a Labor parliamentarian, it’s an open attack and no point is too low to go to.

And election signage is causing problems in Melbourne. Michael Sukkar and Tim Wilson rarely do anything in Parliament – their ideological pursuits are based on that libertarian theme of no government at all, but they’ll jump to action when it comes to election posters. Wilson has actually gone to the Supreme Court to stop his opponent, Zoe Daniel, from putting up election posters. Parliamentary work: forget it. But work to get yourself re-elected into parliament to not actually do anything: that’s a definite yes. Wilson has got his priorities all wrong.

And we feature Sahar Khalili from the Fusion Party, candidate in the federal seat of Reid. It’s an amalgamation of several minor parties and find out what their ambitions are for federal politics and the future.

Dedicated to the memory of Senator Kimberley Kitching.

The floods in northern NSW and Queensland are causing major political headaches for the Morrison government and, as the floodwaters flow back into the oceans, their ideological obsession with small government has been laid bare.

Communities expect governments to act when events occur that are beyond their control and beyond their abilities to repair. Otherwise, what is the point of government? Are they not also made up from the people that live in these communities? Scott Morrison’s response has been haphazard, confused, illogical and, when it finally arrived, it was far too late.

And with an election around the corner, the federal government’s chances are receding as quickly as the northern waters.

Although current polls are indicated a change of government is in the air, Morrison has to continue what he has always been doing – announcing. A nuclear submarines base has been “announced” to be built in either Brisbane, Newcastle or Wollongong – areas where the Coalition needs to hold seats, or gain seats, if wants to have any chance of an election victory in May.

But these three locations are not even in the top five recommended by the Australian Defence Force, but why should this matter if there’s an election to be won? And for the most “transactional” Prime Minister has ever seen, this is all that matters: the public interest comes a distance last.

And what type of company does Peter Dutton keep? The Minister for Defence has some very peculiar relationships with a few Brisbane-based companies who, in turn, donate to the Liberal–National Party. It’s a stark reminder the Joh Bjelke-Petersen corruption of the 1970s and 1980s has never really disappeared: different faces, different characters, but the same old malfeasance. If only we had a federal anti-corruption commission that could look into these activities.

It was also International Women’s Day this week: it seems Morrison was too busy to make any announcements or statements about IWD, but after his performances in 2019 and 2021, it’s probably a good thing he kept quiet. Anything he says will remind the election about the incredibly low number of women in the Coalition – just 21 per cent – and who wants to be reminded of that?

And we might see another one-term government next week, with the South Australia Government facing a 5 per cent swing against it, and facing a loss of at least four seats. It’s a part of an international swing against the conservative regimes who want to see their role reduced, at a time when electorates are seeking more involvement of governments during an insecure and unpredictable time.