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The election result must have been a shock to all those who predicted that Anthony Albanese would only last one term. Here’s a few pointers why this did not happen.

His opponents opposed their key policies, even though they were designed to relieve the major issue confronting the electorate, namely, cost of living. They went off on a tangent about the wonders of a futuristic nuclear policy and temporary fuel excise relief. They believed Sky-after-dark and internal polling when they were telling them they were on track for victory.

When Albanese gave, he was accused of over-spending, by an opposition that had produced nine deficits in a row. They had also given billions of dollars of handouts during Covid to companies that did not meet the requirements to receive that largesse. Some never returned the money.

When Albanese tried to be level-headed about the war in the Middle East he was accused by the Greens of committing genocide and by the Coalition of being anti-semitic. He was vilified for lying by those who had turned a blind eye to sports rorts, robo-debt, killing the weekend and stealing our utes. He was pilloried for daring to say that Peter Dutton had deprived Medicare when an examination of the records of his time as health minister shows that that was indeed the case.

Last, but not least, Dutton’s party failed to encourage more women into politics. The Coalition has only about 20% female representation in the House of Representatives. Today Labor has a majority of women MPs in the lower house.

But the opposition is not facing an existential crisis. Such is the nature of a good democracy. Annastacia Palaszczuk was left with a coterie of 7 MPs and yet she came back to win government in less than 3 years. It is now up to a battered federal Liberal party to pick up the pieces.

Qld LNP Government off to lacklustre start

Winston Churchill is reputed to have said “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”

It seems constitutional experts need to refine a precious gift given to those who believe in freedom of the press, speech and religion and on how those freedoms are interpreted by those who wish to push the envelope.

While we do have the separation of powers, conflict between the judiciary and politicians still clearly exists. David Crisafulli may say “Adult time for adult crime” as much as he likes, but the reality is effective policies need more than a slogan. He has already bungled with omission of the crime of “attempted murder” in his reckonings. Nor is the evidence reassuring that youth crime is coming down. If anything, from daily press and television reports it is increasing.

As we await the belated release of the Mid-Year Financial and Economic review by treasurer David Janetski next week, eminently respected economist Saul Eslake says it will be difficult for him to explain how he is going to lower debt by promising not to sell assets, cut projects, raise taxes and/or reduce public service numbers. New infrastructure minister Brent Mickelberg has already been called out for embellishing Labor’s debt by unprecedently including maintenance costs. Janetzki will need to realise that simply blaming the previous government will not cut the mustard.

Democracy in Queensland has chosen a ‘Newman Mark II’ government whose key personnel are a chip off the old block. Regrettably, they don’t appear to be much of an improvement on the old model.

Federal Coalition still failing on key issues

The usual cry comes to bring on the election. I also cannot wait for the federal election in May. The real issues are cost of living, housing, health and climate change.

As the federal government bends over backwards to alleviate cost- of- living pressures with electricity rebates and tax cuts for all including the real battlers in the lowest tax brackets (those whom the Coalition left out of their tax cut package altogether), the opposition complains of over-spending, this from a government whose 3 leaders gave us 9 deficits in a row. I’ve hardly needed to pay an electricity account in months. I’ve just received my car rego and was pleasantly surprised to see it had a 20% discount.

We all know that Australia has one of the most expensive housing markets in the world and we know the main reason why. Coalition PM John Howard, made capital gains tax changes to cater to his home-owning base. The true acceleration of house prices began in the early 2000s and apart from a brief slowing down during the pandemic, took off again right up until now. No wonder that voters up to the age of 34 have angrily turned their backs on a party that puts power before people. They have had the housing door slammed in their faces.

As for health the Coalition has a long history of trying to undermine Labor’s health reforms. In 1974 Billy Snedden pledged to fight Medibank till it was defeated. In 1984 John Howard said he would “stab it (Medicare) in the guts.” Later he and successive Coalition governments gave up on abolishing it because they finally realised that was a losing tactic in an election.

But once they regained office in 2013, they made subtle attempts to undermine it. Health minister Peter Dutton regarded then by the Australian Doctor magazine poll as the worst health minister in 35 years took the cue from Tony Abbott to introduce a $7 Medicare co-payment to be inflicted on even the poorest Australians (so much for his much-vaunted battlers) before an outcry led him to opt for a $5 cut to doctor rebates a measure met with the full fury of the AMA.

In 2016, after three years in power they had effectively gouged health funding to the tune of $50 billion and were ready to cut back on bulk-billing incentives affecting pathology and imaging. They also continued to freeze the GP rebate much to dismay of the AMA.

When it came to effective climate change action, they opposed any policy that would impact fossil fuel companies the owners of which are their elitist benefactors. Consequently, Australia became an embarrassing laggard in the eyes of the international community. Dutton continues to do that by vowing to scrap 2030 emissions targets, and flying a kite on nuclear energy with all the hidden costs that would land on taxpayers.
Is this really the future which Australians wish to see?