There will be an overuse of the word “elites” by the Coalition when the federal election campaign kicks off. Already their media backers have warned Labor from cosying up to the “elites” at the expense of caring for the ordinary forgotten folk.

How does one define elite? Would it include multi-billionaires like Gina Rinehart, Donald Trump and Elon Musk? They were all at Mar-a-Lago when Trump celebrated his election victory. Former deputy leader of the Liberal Party vice-president Teena McQueen, special adviser to Rinehart, was sitting right next to her exclaiming, “It was the best night of my life!”. I would say all of the above.

Earlier this year Peter Dutton flew to WA just for an hour to pay homage to Gina Rinehart’s at her 70^th birthday celebration. This was just before the Dunkley by-election. Radio announcer Ben Fordham, no friend of Labor, said it was a “bad call”. Needless to say, Dutton received accolades from Rinehart for being an “outstanding leader”.

Who are the ordinary folk? They are generally the every-day folk who don’t earn 6-digit salaries. They are the folk who mostly did not get a single cent of tax cuts from the government which included Peter Dutton as a prominent minister. They are the folk who were all given a tax cut when Labor’s Jim Chalmers had settled in as Treasurer of Australia.