Well, we’re at the business end of the 2022 Australian federal election campaign. The two major parties are making their final pitches to voters. The government has unveiled its last-week big guns and the opposition are still playing small target. The polls are still pointing to a Labor victory… but then, they did in 2019, too. But then, Scott Morrison was largely an unknown quantity in 2019, so his ability to pull off another miracle win seems stretched.
But however the election goes, there’s one bright spot glimmering on the horizon.
Labor MP Kristina Keneally’s primary vote is collapsing in her NSW seat of Fowler according to new polling that has revealed voters in her electorate are turning to independent candidate Dai Le.
As I’ve written before, Keneally – one of Labor’s notorious “mean girls” bullies – is Australia’s Quota Queen. Despite her feminist blatherskite, her entire career has relied on the powerful men at the top handing her sinecures. As one wit put it, she’s so experienced at being parachuted, she should enlist for the SAS.
She’s an unflushable who keeps bobbing to the top purely thanks to political patronage. Every time she’s had to face the inconvenience of going to the polls, she’s been unceremoniously booted by voters.
Ms Keneally was parachuted into the southwestern Sydney seat, drawing sharp criticism even from within her own party and accusations she was a blow-in given she lives on the northern beaches some 40km away.
The Australian
Still, this is but a hugely entertaining sideshow. What’s happening under the big top?
Leaving aside Labor’s almost sole campaign strategy of personally attacking PM Scott Morrison, the big actual issue of the campaign is housing affordability. The respective policies demonstrate in the starkest terms the choice facing voters: do you want the government to own half your house, or do you want the government to let you use your own money?
Labor’s home equity scheme is built on the power of government, using taxpayers’ money, to invest in up to 30 to 40 per cent of the value of some first-home buyers’ homes. The scheme imposes tight restrictions on participants, who would be limited to 10,000 people a year. It is not known how they would be chosen.
The Coalition plan is simpler, without such limitations. Nor does it involve taxpayers’ money. It would enable individuals, couples or families to use part of their own superannuation savings to invest in their first homes, using up to $50,000 or 40 per cent of their super balances. It would be a boost for those unable to tap into the bank of mum and dad. And it would not, as critics with vested interests tied to the super industry claim, short-change home buyers’ retirement incomes. That is because when the property was sold, the original investment plus a portion of the capital gain would be returned to the owner’s super fund.
Which is the most important consideration for young people? Squatting on a pot of money – money that is largely used by institutional investors to strong-arm their political convictions on large corporations – for the next half-century, or buying a home?
Residential property is a proven investment. It outperforms many super funds over time. Even if owners decided to live in their first home for decades and not sell, they would be better off in retirement from owning it. Lack of home ownership is the major contributing factor to poverty in old age, especially for those depending on the private rental market.
The Australian
The striptease show on costings is being played out, as usual. Both sides are dribbling out policies and announcing dodgy “costings” piecemeal. As journalist James Morrow tweets, “The Budget Office should have a website where they announce the costings of everyone’s policies as they are released.” More importantly, all policies should be released and costed by a set date – before pre-poll voting opens, at the very least.
Even so, Labor have chosen to at least admit that their policies are the usual tax-and-spend. But, hey, they say, what’s a bit more taxpayer’s money?
Opposition treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers has signalled Labor’s costings may be higher than the Coalition’s when released on Thursday, arguing that voters should not be focused on whether Labor’s deficits are “a couple of million dollars each year better or worse” than the Coalition’s plan.
But if voters needed any other red flags about Albanese’s priorities, they can’t go past this one:
When asked to name what he thinks his legacy will be in three words or less, Anthony Albanese said: “acting on climate”.
The Australian
The defence rests, m’lud.