CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
While the Liberal Party is being skewered by voters and journalists over their lack of pre-election policies, Labor campaigning on the fact that they need to stay in power in order to do all the things they’ve been thinking about doing.
Prime Minister Albanese has not been able to explain why it feels like he hasn’t done anything since being elected in 2022, but insists that replacing him with someone who is promising to do other stuff will interrupt their plans to eventually do something.
After Australians spent the last three years white-knuckling through the brutal cost-of-living, blatant corporate profiteering from the airlines duopoloy and the supermarket duopoly, and an unprecedented housing crisis, it is not clear why Labor are feeling all warm and fuzzy about the next term of Parliament, given the fact that the voters had a better time during a global pandemic than they did in the years since Albanese was elected.
While the government will argue they were trying to maintain a cool hand in the face of brutal inflation and interest rate figures, the fact remains that not much happened other than a referendum that most people assumed wouldn’t get up in the middle of a culture war heavy cost of living crisis.
With a rate cut in the current government’s favour, and an Opposition who appear to be doing their best to lose against them, voters are far less inspired by the current election campaign than any of the journalists or political staffers think they are.
Will this lack of faith result in yet another surge in Independents and minor party candidates? Or will the voters trust that Labor is now finally ready to do the stuff they said they were going to do last election.
Or, will the voters decide to elect their fifth Prime Minister in ten years, and hand the reigns to Peter Dutton’s Coalition?
With Trump causing global economic instability in his second term as US President, and China’s reciprocal tariffs set to come into effect tomorrow, Australia’s domestic political landscape looks incredibly different to what it was 6 months ago.
Australian voters are once again making the decision between an impulsive and highly emotive Coalition government and a steady pair hands. What is going to result in cheaper groceries?
