Economy

Can you imagine our governments encouraging our food producers to export all their product even if it meant Australians would go hungry? We have done this with gas, which is so important for household heating and cooking and as an input for many industries.

In many ways, the economy is a poisoned chalice for the incoming Labor government. So much for the Coalition’s boast of being ‘better economic managers’ – perhaps they were just better economic manipulators.

Isn’t it reasonable to expect our political leaders to put our people first? It is instructive to recognise that the election campaign has spent most of its time on point-scoring against opponents, blame-shifting and gotcha moments. 

Morrison can argue that Albanese has never held an economic portfolio and can’t recall key economic data. However, Morrison would have to concede that his opponent is better able to manage industrial relations, with a Bob Hawke-like capacity to pull employers and unions together for accord-style discussions and pathways forward.

Unfortunately for the prime minister, he himself is a known known, with a record over the past three years that he is having great difficulty defending or explaining. How sweet must be the memory of the blank page that he presented the last time he faced the voters.

What a tragedy that the campaign is now ‘my scare is bigger than your scare’. We all have to fear that the more frustrated and desperate the major players get, the more they will resort to dirtier tactics and less substance in terms of what they would propose as a future for our nation.

At the end of week two of the campaign we are confronting the prospect of neither major party being able to govern in their own right, which says everything about how underwhelming voters see the choice on offer.

The election campaign is off to an early and intense start. There was no need to wait for the governor-general to dissolve the house – Morrison stopped governing months ago and has been swamping the media with taxpayer-funded ‘government’ ads that are blatantly about returning the Liberals to power.

The priority is simply winning. And it is not even about winning to lead, it is about getting the position and power but with little or no commitment to creating a meaningful future for our nation and its people.

Talk about mixed messages on the economy. The government deliberately politicised the budget by moving it forward to March 29, so it could be delivered before a May election, and having set aside $16 billion in the most recent midyear economic statement for pre-election spending.