An Australian federal election is not imminent, but it is clearly on the horizon, with both major parties putting out their first pre-poll feelers. But if Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to stage a repeat of 2019’s miracle win, he needs to give even his party faithful a reason to actually vote for him.
So far, it’s not looking good. The newly-minted Coalition voters in Queensland, who largely delivered the last election, are showing every sign of walking away en masse. But deep-blue conservative voters, the party’s faithful, are also wondering why on earth they should vote for a party that repeatedly caves to the left, on everything from “rainbow” nuttiness to climate change lunacy.
At the same time, Labor aren’t looking likely to benefit from grass-roots dissatisfaction with the Coalition. Both parties are near-equally low in primary votes. The latest preferred-PM poll indicates that, while Scott Morrison has shed much of his lead over Labor’s Anthony Albanese, Albo is no hot favourite with voters, either. Both leaders’ ratings have fallen, across a range of indicators.
But, if Scott Morrison has learned anything from the Republicans’ thumping win in the latest round of elections, he’s not showing it. US voters in states like Virginia, and even deep-blue New York, have deserted Joe Biden in droves — especially over culture war issues. In Virginia, Biden poked the “Mama Bears” and felt their claws, as enraged, middle-class soccer moms rebelled against the creep of Critical Race Theory and Gender Theory into their kids’ schools.
So, what does Scott Morrison do? He warms over some lame rhetoric from John Howard.
Interest rates and petrol prices would be higher under a Labor government, Scott Morrison has claimed, putting inflation and cost of living at the centre of the government’s campaign targeting Anthony Albanese ahead of the next election.
As the Prime Minister attempts to pivot the political contest away from climate change, he used the inflationary pressures in the US as a warning against shifting from the Coalition amid the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Australian
And well he might want to shift the debate away from climate change. Coalition voters, especially in coal mining states like Queensland, are enraged that the Coalition government is now virtually indistinguishable from Labor and the Greens on climate policy. The PM’s spruiking of massive government spending to underwrite expensive EVs is going down with voters about as well as a wet fart in a Twister game.
In vain, conservative commentators are trying to remind Scotty from Marketing that politics is downstream from culture. Standing up to the far-left, as the Republicans did in Virginia, might enrage the Twitter set, but it will win grateful votes from parents across the nation, horrified at the woke garbage that schools are filling their kids’ heads with.
But, as they have for the past decade, the Coalition seem to think that just going along with the far left is a vote-winner. Voters are asking why they should ever bother voting for them again.
I voted Liberal in 2013 because they promised me Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. My vote was rewarded with Malcolm Turnbull.
I voted Liberal in 2019 because they promised to reject Labor’s climate madness. My vote is now being rewarded with a commitment to net-zero emissions.
Tell me why I should ever vote Liberal again?
The great danger for Morrison is not just caving to the left, but showing, yet again, that Scotty from Marketing apparently stands for nothing.
In 2017, Scott Morrison brandished a lump of coal in Parliament, taunting the opposition benches. In 2019, as PM, he insisted that, “you can’t run a strong economy in Australia on a 45% emissions reduction target”.
In 2021, he’s suddenly pivoted to “net zero”.
It seems that Morrison’s hobnobbing on the international stage has gone to his head. Rather than working for Australia and Australians, he is determined to gain approval from weak woke Western leaders by following their un-costed policies in search of an unachievable target.
It’s amazing what some people will do to ingratiate themselves with the celebrity/elite/entitled class.
The PM who sold himself as the champion of Quiet Australians is now prepared to sell them out just to get on the right side of Sleepy Joe, Chuckles Harris, Bonkers Boris, Crazy Charles and the teenage Goblin of Doom.
To steal a line from one of Morrison’s gaggle of new best friends, “How dare you!”
Spectator Australia
Australian voters can put up with a lot – but being repeatedly treated as doormats and the biggest mugs on the planet is not on their list. Neither are Labor, of course. The big winners at the next election are likely to be minor parties like One Nation — at least voters know that they stand for something.
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