
For a long time the prevailing political orthodoxy was that Scott Morrison had had a good pandemic and only needed to get Australians vaccinated to roll to an easy election win later this year or, less likely, in the first half of next year. After all, every government that had gone to an election since the start of the pandemic had coasted to victory.
The only fly in this particular ointment was that Morrison’s government remained, stubbornly, the only one that continued to poll at level pegging with or even behind the opposition, despite the apparently obvious flaws of Anthony Albanese. Still, who believes polls these days anyway?
Then February arrived and, bit by bit, everything went bad for Morrison. Most particularly, the vaccine rollout.
As of yesterday, we’d just passed 1.9 million vaccinations, nearly a month after we were supposed to reach 1.8 million. Vaccinations via primary care have ramped up to more than 40,000 a day, but the vaccine rollout actually controlled by the Morrison government, for the aged and residential disability care sector, actually slowed down last week, from an average of 4700 a day to fewer than 4000 a day — despite assurances that the rollout to the hitherto-ignored residential disability sector were about to ramp up.
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And the Indian outbreak has again focused attention on the government’s refusal to take its quarantine obligations seriously.
All of that piles enormous political pressure on the forthcoming budget, which was originally intended to begin charting the course back to fiscal discipline off the back of an economy performing significantly better than anyone dared hope — due, in part, to the government’s strong fiscal stimulus last year.
Now it has to be a good old-fashioned pre-election spendathon budget, with the government aiming to put out multiple major fires. Consider what’s been announced, dropped ahead of the budget, or which some diligent journalists have ferreted out.
- More than half-a-billion on distractions from the government’s climate inaction, for hydrogen and the carbon capture scam, plus another $100 million for oceans
- $10 billion over four years on aged care
- Multiple media stories about increased childcare subsidies worth $5 billion a year plus further superannuation concessions for women
- An extension of the low- and middle-income tax offset (LMITO) for another year, costing about $7 billion for one year.
Plus, naturally, whatever extra spending will be needed to expedite the arrival of more vaccines in Australia.
Each of these is to address a problem of the government’s own creation: Morrison’s refusal to take action on climate while the rest of the developed world is ramping up efforts; his government’s failure on aged care during the pandemic (as well as decades of underfunding for the sector by previous governments); the absence of women from the 2020 budget and Morrison’s wretched mishandling of gender and workplace issues in the wake of the Brittany Higgins and Christian Porter allegations; and his tax cuts skewed toward high-income earners that required a political fix to avoid alienating low- and middle-income earners — meaning the government is now stuck with having to retain the LMITO every year or risk a political backlash.
Don’t underestimate the political impact of throwing money at problems. There’s no such thing as a budget bounce, but governments can spend their way out of trouble. John Howard — before Tampa and 9/11 put him in the box seat for the 2001 election — needed to spend billions on the Liberals’ core constituencies to bring them back onside, and in doing so clawed his way back to competitiveness with Kim Beazley’s opposition.
Then again, the same strategy didn’t work for Howard six years later, and his government died projectile-vomiting money in all directions, to no effect. Maybe voters have only a limited appetite for being bribed by governments they think are out of touch.
The worst-case scenario is that the tens of billions in extra spending doesn’t restore the government’s fortunes, and it has to hang on into 2022 and try another, early pre-election budget ahead of a late election. Then we’ll know they’re in real trouble.
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Ahh…polls “who trusts them anyway?” Yes, but they do serve as a snap shot in time. And the only means to test how a Government of the day is being perceived.
I’d like to know who thought ending the LMITO was a good idea? Even conservative media is calling this as it is – a tax hike.
Can we also call any spending by this Government on climate ‘action’ for what it is – about as useful as Angus Taylor’s plan to reduce emissions.
The difference with the Howard era is that Howard had lots of surplus money to throw at the voters. He ran out of ways to get it back directly so they came up with the so-called Future Fund.
Howard had surpluses because he sold off everything that wasn’t nailed and riveted tight and not because he and Costello were some sort of economic geniuses. Quite the opposite. Australian public seems not to understand that. Well, sell everything you have and we’ll talk again when the money from those sales is gone. People seem not to understand that. It’s mind boggling.
There was also a mining boom, with Howard and Costello frittering that away with Tax Cuts aimed at garnering Electoral support.
HawKeating started the sell off – Commonwealth bank, Telstra, CSR, Veteran Home Loans etc.
Howard, for all his blind ideology, wouldn’t have dared do such things had it not not been for those class traitors.
…not CSR, – CSL- Commonwealth Serum Laboratories.
Rortsthon coming to an electorate near you!
Nope. I can’t do it again. Morrison is a vacuity but they’ll still win.
“The PM looks to spend his way back to what should have been an easy victory”
I always thought it odd that some thought that ScoMo would have an easy win at the next election, considering that he barely won the last.
Exactly. The spin put on Morrison’s ‘miracle’ win that wasnt a miracle at all but the narrowest of victories marred by cheating & controversy, but the media……..
Ah yes, the bloody media……..
Sorry Penny, but I think Shorten and Labors’ combined poor campaigning and lack of vision lead directly to Morrison’s ‘miracle’ victory.
Oh dear Bref. Come in spinner is all I can say.
What? You think Labor ran a good campaign?
Agree utterly with Bref. Shorten and Labor lacked the ability to articulate a cogent argument for their (iconoclastic?) tax reform policies… particularly the tax concession reduction proposals. Even with the unexpected support of several Liberal -voting/SMSF retirees who stated on national TV that the status quo in this respect was unsustainable and that Labor’s proposals were fair and sensible.
Nonsense. The ‘miracle’ win was no miracle. It was a stolen election. If you think Palmer spent over 60 million dollars just for the hell of it, you really did come down in the last shower.
They made that huge mistake of the franking credits on the election eve. If they’d been happy with where they were, they might have got in. They killed their retiree vote.
I think Palmer threw 60 plus million at Facebook & targeted ads, electoral commission let LNP know that anything goes, even purple signs resembling electoral commission signs telling people to vote Liberal…..
Then Murdoch’s Kill Bill……
How any one could fail to notice these elephants in the election astounds me. People have such woefully short memories. Or an inability to connect the MANY dots.
It was Shorten, voters didn’t take to him. Bowen’s policy’s were sound.
“If you don’t like it, don’t vote for us“, Chris Bowen – on the removal of franking credits.
Many didn’t.
And thus didn’t, though few would have been ALP voters in a pink fit.
I actually think he has a good chance of winning again. Not because he did a great job during Covid. But because people seem to buy the bs that he did. And the media does nothing to put to clarify that he didn’t. Just look at this article. It mentioned the ‘government’s’ strong fiscal stimulus. Was it tho? Most of the responsibility to keep the economy afloat was outsourced to those who could afford it least. Or what do you think allowing people to access their super was (apart from opportunism and getting on with destroying super)? Sure, they’ve increased the unemployment benefits for a while allowing people to have a dignified existence for the first time in decades. They even made childcare free for 3 months or so but most ‘stimulus’ came from those who actually needed help. And now the ‘government’ hopes we spend whatever we’ve saved to help them keep their not at all deserved title of ‘superior economic managers’. And unfortunately, continuing to be as short-sighted as ever, many Australians do. Well, not me. I’m holding on to every cent as I suspect the ‘regressives’ to win again. And when they do they’ll screw people like me (not rich, in creative industries) again.
Well said, they’d screw over their mothers if it could keep them in the luxury we’ve had to let them get accostomed to, all at our expense.
There is a term I use frequently to describe Liberal Party members, predicated on that very idea, but respect for you all and an unwillingness to be caught by the WordPress profanity filter prevent me from repeating it.
Scomo never won the last election, stupid Shorten and Bowen lost that unlosable election.
They had a little ($80M) assist from Clive Palmer, to say nothing of the free ride Morrison got from the media, esp the Murdoch/Stokes/9 Propaganda “press”
Not to mention Sportsrorts & other abuses of taxpayer funds to buy voted!