OPINION
As I wrote for Insight yesterday, the weekend’s referendum result might not be immediately fatal to Anthony Albanese’s leadership and indeed government, but it’s a wound that will continue to bleed out over the coming months.
Albanese is the lamest of ducks. Elected on just 32% of the vote, the PM has squandered what little political capital he had by first pitching his weight behind a divisive racial campaign that was never once canvassed during the election, while abandoning his most-repeated promise, to lower power prices. But power prices are just the head of the festering sore of soaring cost of living. There is palpable fury that the government has done nothing to address it — in fact, caused most of it, with its lunatic obsession with “Net Zero”.
And the economic pain is only going to get worse. And Albanese won’t have a single answer.
Anthony Albanese has been warned he faces another disaster that could affect millions of people just days after his humiliating Voice defeat.
Economist and business leaders have warned the country could be headed to ‘economic and financial trauma’ unseen since the 1990s recession.
The recession brought down the longest-running Labor government in Australian history. Even after the popular Bob Hawke was ousted by his own party, replacement Paul Keating at least had the economic gravitas to win one more election. Voters didn’t like Keating, but they trusted him… at least a little.
Suffice to say that Albanese does not enjoy even Keating’s mixed reputation.
Frontier Economics Managing Director Danny Price claimed the Prime Minister had ignored crucial policy debates in lieu of pursuing a Voice to Parliament.
‘We’re going to find out what the government is made of in the next six weeks,’ Mr Hogan told the Herald Sun.
As we saw during the referendum itself: not a lot. Certainly no policy detail. Just a whole lot of “the vibe”. But “vibes” don’t pay bills which are going through the roof, thanks to an incompetent socialist government.
Australians are still shelling out more on essentials with food spending rising by 1.5 per cent in the year to July, as health care costs soared by 6.2 per cent.
The Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday left interest rates on hold at an 11-year high of 4.1 per cent for the third straight month.
But the 12 interest rate rises since May 2022 have caused a 63 per cent increase in monthly mortgage repayments for a variable loan.
Daily Mail Australia
Couple that with power price increases of nearly 30%, and grocery price hikes of around 25%, and it’s no wonder that mortgage defaults are on the increase. The pain is being felt hardest in the outer suburbs, among young working families. The more these people lose their houses, the angrier they will get as the PM continues to preoccupy his government with divisive, boutique racial issues even after roundly losing the referendum. “Airbus Albo” flitting off on yet another overseas jaunt, the week after the referendum drubbing, will do nothing to assuage voters’ fury.
Anthony Albanese will review Labor’s commitment to establish a Makarrata commission after the voice referendum failure, as Indigenous leaders, the Greens and crossbenchers increase pressure on the government to back truth-telling and treaty.
The Australian
Albanese is trying to walk a barbed-wire fence with a foot in each paddock. He knows that Australians have overwhelmingly rejected his racial agenda, even before he got down to the truly nasty stuff concealed under the “Makarrata” umbrella, which makes He Puapua look like a unity parade. But he also knows he has to deal with a feral party room and the gibbering nutcases on the Green and Teal benches.
And while the PM has shot his credibility to pieces with the wider electorate, that’s nothing compared to the epic tantrums erupting in the ranks of the Aboriginal industry. These troughers are watching a delectable trough of taxpayer’s money dragged from under their salivating snouts, and they’re squealing blue murder.
Albo’s big problem is that he’s got nothing else to offer. Nor has his hopeless Minister for Indigenous Australians.
And his government has nothing to offer ordinary Australians struggling to pay the bills.