The ABC’s Laura Tingle has decided what voters are thinking, a rather dubious stance taken by some journalists who assume mind-reading accreditation as well.

We simply don’t know why many vote the way they do, but one notable observation by former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair in his autobiography A Journey, is that often elections are decided by voters who are politically clueless.

It’s obvious that Dutton is going all out to pull off a Trumplike victory by concentrating on cost-of-living and immigration. He is being ably supported by Newscorp and other media apparatchiks. The first is the easiest to work on because many respond easily to being told they’re worse off today than they were yesterday. It is usually the case after all that a dollar today is worth less than it was yesterday. Prices will inevitably rise but people confuse that with inflation which is actually the rate at which they rise. They were rising at over 6 per cent when Labor came to office, and at first nudged up to over 7 per cent before being brought down to the present figure of 2.8 per cent. So, while Tingle argues voters are unsure what Labor stands for, let’s say, inter alia, they are trying, with notable success, to bring down inflation.

In terms of immigration, when they tried to bring down student immigration numbers, Dutton used the Trump and Abbott formulae and opposed it. The Greens, who sometimes live in fairyland, would never support such a move.

Voters don’t like early elections and as Anthony Albanese has said, three years is far too little time to get policies really going. In case Tingle hasn’t noticed, Labor has shown very clearly in which direction it is going: it is fighting against inflation and alleviating cost-of-living.

It has been a while since millions of us have paid an electricity bill. Also worth noting is that interest rates have not risen for over a year.

Duttons costly nuclear ‘plan’

Peter Dutton’s plan for nuclear energy is beset with problems. Not only is he asking Australians to spend billions of dollars in new spending, but he’s asking for taxpayer subsidies to build the industry.

A recent Resolve Political Monitor poll showed renewable energy more popular with 45% of voters backing subsidies for rooftop solar and 34% backing subsidies for home batteries. Only 21% support
subsidies for nuclear power.

In the hope of scoring an election win, Dutton is prepared to defy the basic Liberal Party principle of small government. He seeks to stifle investment in renewables whilst loudly proclaiming they are still part of the energy mix. His nuclear policy is dependent on prolonging the life of coal-fired power even though this source of energy is expected to close down within two decades.

The CSIRO found that nuclear power in this country would be 50 per cent more expensive than renewable energy. Dutton’s claim that his plan would be 44 per cent cheaper than the government’s is dependent on the power grid being 40 per cent smaller than that of the government in 2050. Much of the cost of his nuclear reactors are not counted in his figures because they will only be met after 2050.

It is also important to remember that due to a long-standing moratorium on nuclear power, Australia has no civil nuclear industry. Therefore, we would be starting this nuclear energy scheme from scratch, making it exponentially more expensive than it would have been anyway.