Post by pim on Dec 9, 2021 6:53:27 GMT 10
Like it or not the country is in election campaign mode. By custom and practice - not by law, the federal Parliament could take control by legislating fixed term four year federal parliaments but the politics are against this happening - the date of the federal elections is in the hands of the prime minister so only Scott Morrison knows when the elections are to be held. It won’t be in January because the country is on summer holidays. February is a theoretical possibility but it would be a first. The country has never held national elections in February. It’s the hottest month of the Australian summer and if you’re going to get heatwaves with 40 + degree days plus bushfires it’ll be in February. Maybe that’s why we’ve never gone to the polls in February.
March is sometimes touted as a possibility but I disagree because there are state elections scheduled for South Australia on Saturday 19 March. There are ten federal electorates in South Australia. Four are held by the Liberals, five by Labor and one, Mayo (Alexander Downer’s old seat), held by the Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie. There is no margin for error for Scott Morrison in these elections and he has to keep every electorate that he holds. If he muscles aside the SA state elections which are fixed by statute he risks alienating SA voters. He could lose government in SA alone. I happen to know that there is a plan B in SA state politics to reschedule the state elections for April if the feds go in March but the politics would be high risk for Scott Morrison. Will he go in March? Time will tell but my gut feeling is that he won’t. April is a non-starter with the Easter break on the weekend of 17 April followed by Anzac Day on 25 April. That leaves May as the most likely month for elections to the 47th Australian parliament. The Morrison government will hand down an early Budget in April or maybe even in March and go straight into an election campaign for an early May election. It’s going to be a long six months between now and then.
March is sometimes touted as a possibility but I disagree because there are state elections scheduled for South Australia on Saturday 19 March. There are ten federal electorates in South Australia. Four are held by the Liberals, five by Labor and one, Mayo (Alexander Downer’s old seat), held by the Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie. There is no margin for error for Scott Morrison in these elections and he has to keep every electorate that he holds. If he muscles aside the SA state elections which are fixed by statute he risks alienating SA voters. He could lose government in SA alone. I happen to know that there is a plan B in SA state politics to reschedule the state elections for April if the feds go in March but the politics would be high risk for Scott Morrison. Will he go in March? Time will tell but my gut feeling is that he won’t. April is a non-starter with the Easter break on the weekend of 17 April followed by Anzac Day on 25 April. That leaves May as the most likely month for elections to the 47th Australian parliament. The Morrison government will hand down an early Budget in April or maybe even in March and go straight into an election campaign for an early May election. It’s going to be a long six months between now and then.
Morrison and Albanese rev up for a race to the finish
Niki Savva 9 December 2021 www.smh.com.au/national/morrison-and-albanese-rev-up-for-a-race-to-the-finish-20211208-p59fr9.html
As he has done for a few years, Anthony Albanese will spend Christmas Day with the Reverend Bill Crews at the Exodus Foundation’s free kitchen in Ashfield in Sydney’s inner west, helping serve lunch for thousands of homeless people and abandoned youth. Albanese will have a short break either side of that, then crank up again in early January with a major speech to set out his priorities for government and announce more policies.
Albanese knows if the gap between the Coalition and Labor narrows over Christmas, Federal Parliament is unlikely to be recalled for February 8 and Josh Frydenberg will not deliver a budget on March 29. By then the election could well and truly be over. If so, Albanese will either be prime minister or looking for another job. He knows he will only ever get one shot at an election.
“I am not going to die wondering,” he tells people, promising to give it his all. The question, of course, is whether his all will be enough.
Albanese’s most remarkable achievement so far is that he has survived. That is not said flippantly. Not when you consider the fate of so many other opposition leaders during the pandemic and the efforts at the beginning of the year to inveigle Tanya Plibersek or Jim Chalmers to move against him.
His other achievement is that he has managed to keep Labor largely – not completely and not always – united after defeat in an election it should have won in a landslide. He has kept Labor competitive while chipping away at the Prime Minister’s character, helped immeasurably by the man himself and even more by Emmanuel Macron.
Albanese has been criticised for lacking a broad agenda, deemed by his critics to be a prerequisite for every Labor leader to secure victory, citing Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd as examples of winners who dared to dream big.
If that was true, Bill Shorten would have been readying to celebrate his third anniversary as prime minister. Hawke’s 1983 campaign ran on a three-word theme of reconciliation, recovery and reconstruction, under the slogan “bringing Australia together.” Or as one Labor man at the weekend wryly rephrased Hawke’s pitch:“come to the pub and have a beer.” That was by way of saying how much the public adored him. Few knew or cared what policies, if any, Hawke had.
Rudd styled himself as a young John Howard, starring in his own ads declaring himself a fiscal conservative. True, he branched out on climate change (then dogged it in government) and delivered one memorable line during the 2007 campaign:“this reckless spending must stop.” At which point he stopped releasing policies.
Others worry Albanese will struggle to sell the policies he has and that he will be outpaced, outsmarted and out-talked by his opponent. At Sunday’s unofficial launch, Albanese had a stinging one-line response which sought to cast his weakness as a virtue while simultaneously slicing into the Prime Minister’s character.
“I may not always be the smoothest talker – but I can promise you I’ll always tell it straight,” he told party faithful.
Albanese has a habit of using several dozen words when often a simple yes or no will do, burying his message in a version of English favoured by politicians wary of getting into trouble or by police sergeants at crime scenes.
At times you could feel your life slipping away before he got to the point, so it was easier to stop listening. “Mate, why don’t you just be yourself,” a friend told Albanese recently. “Let the real Albo come out.” Colleagues and staff have been at him too.
During his two big recent outings, the first last Friday announcing Labor’s climate change policy, followed by the rally on Sunday where he announced free TAFE to address skills shortages, Albanese sharpened up. He spoke clearly and with more authority.
He has lost weight, he has new suits, and after he stepped on his old glasses, he bought a new pair of black-rimmed ones which garnered more attention than anything else. His increasing confidence has helped improve his performance. He is not there yet, but the juxtaposition of images and messages on Sunday night gave Australians a chance to compare and contrast both leaders.
Albanese was trying mightily to impress those who still can’t picture him as prime minister, promising to use government to help make their lives better by “renewal not revolution”. Scott Morrison had squeezed himself into the passenger seat of a Ford Mustang with six-time Bathurst 1000 champion Mark Skaife for a lap around Mount Panorama.
The actual Prime Minister fashioned himself as a hoon outsider to people who had a “gutful of government”, promising to get the government (which he heads) out of their lives and road-testing lines for the scare campaign on Labor’s climate change policy by warning Albanese will cave to the Greens.
Labor MPs speculate Morrison will try to narrowcast scares on the ground in NSW seats like Hunter and Paterson. Remembering what happened to Julia Gillard, Albanese and Chris Bowen have vowed they will not to bow to the Greens. Holding their nerve, Labor marginal seat holders say they had to pitch higher than the government to get a “moral mandate” for their policy.
Meanwhile moderate Liberals fear a scare campaign will alienate voters in inner urban seats threatened by independents. Acutely aware of the dangers, Treasurer Frydenberg trod carefully on Insiders on Sunday, avoiding outright criticism of Labor’s target of 43 per cent emissions reductions by 2030. It’s not just that he is facing a fight against an independent in Kooyong. Business – the Business Council of Australia, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Australian Industry Group – have backed Albanese’s policy.
It showed Albanese was smart strategically to end the class war, anti-business rhetoric early in his tenure, then to strike an emissions target slightly lower than business itself had chosen. Even if business was so inclined – and it wasn’t – it couldn’t oppose it, depriving the Coalition of a key ally in the climate wars.
Niki Savva 9 December 2021 www.smh.com.au/national/morrison-and-albanese-rev-up-for-a-race-to-the-finish-20211208-p59fr9.html
As he has done for a few years, Anthony Albanese will spend Christmas Day with the Reverend Bill Crews at the Exodus Foundation’s free kitchen in Ashfield in Sydney’s inner west, helping serve lunch for thousands of homeless people and abandoned youth. Albanese will have a short break either side of that, then crank up again in early January with a major speech to set out his priorities for government and announce more policies.
Albanese knows if the gap between the Coalition and Labor narrows over Christmas, Federal Parliament is unlikely to be recalled for February 8 and Josh Frydenberg will not deliver a budget on March 29. By then the election could well and truly be over. If so, Albanese will either be prime minister or looking for another job. He knows he will only ever get one shot at an election.
“I am not going to die wondering,” he tells people, promising to give it his all. The question, of course, is whether his all will be enough.
Albanese’s most remarkable achievement so far is that he has survived. That is not said flippantly. Not when you consider the fate of so many other opposition leaders during the pandemic and the efforts at the beginning of the year to inveigle Tanya Plibersek or Jim Chalmers to move against him.
His other achievement is that he has managed to keep Labor largely – not completely and not always – united after defeat in an election it should have won in a landslide. He has kept Labor competitive while chipping away at the Prime Minister’s character, helped immeasurably by the man himself and even more by Emmanuel Macron.
Albanese has been criticised for lacking a broad agenda, deemed by his critics to be a prerequisite for every Labor leader to secure victory, citing Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd as examples of winners who dared to dream big.
If that was true, Bill Shorten would have been readying to celebrate his third anniversary as prime minister. Hawke’s 1983 campaign ran on a three-word theme of reconciliation, recovery and reconstruction, under the slogan “bringing Australia together.” Or as one Labor man at the weekend wryly rephrased Hawke’s pitch:“come to the pub and have a beer.” That was by way of saying how much the public adored him. Few knew or cared what policies, if any, Hawke had.
Rudd styled himself as a young John Howard, starring in his own ads declaring himself a fiscal conservative. True, he branched out on climate change (then dogged it in government) and delivered one memorable line during the 2007 campaign:“this reckless spending must stop.” At which point he stopped releasing policies.
Others worry Albanese will struggle to sell the policies he has and that he will be outpaced, outsmarted and out-talked by his opponent. At Sunday’s unofficial launch, Albanese had a stinging one-line response which sought to cast his weakness as a virtue while simultaneously slicing into the Prime Minister’s character.
“I may not always be the smoothest talker – but I can promise you I’ll always tell it straight,” he told party faithful.
Albanese has a habit of using several dozen words when often a simple yes or no will do, burying his message in a version of English favoured by politicians wary of getting into trouble or by police sergeants at crime scenes.
At times you could feel your life slipping away before he got to the point, so it was easier to stop listening. “Mate, why don’t you just be yourself,” a friend told Albanese recently. “Let the real Albo come out.” Colleagues and staff have been at him too.
During his two big recent outings, the first last Friday announcing Labor’s climate change policy, followed by the rally on Sunday where he announced free TAFE to address skills shortages, Albanese sharpened up. He spoke clearly and with more authority.
He has lost weight, he has new suits, and after he stepped on his old glasses, he bought a new pair of black-rimmed ones which garnered more attention than anything else. His increasing confidence has helped improve his performance. He is not there yet, but the juxtaposition of images and messages on Sunday night gave Australians a chance to compare and contrast both leaders.
Albanese was trying mightily to impress those who still can’t picture him as prime minister, promising to use government to help make their lives better by “renewal not revolution”. Scott Morrison had squeezed himself into the passenger seat of a Ford Mustang with six-time Bathurst 1000 champion Mark Skaife for a lap around Mount Panorama.
The actual Prime Minister fashioned himself as a hoon outsider to people who had a “gutful of government”, promising to get the government (which he heads) out of their lives and road-testing lines for the scare campaign on Labor’s climate change policy by warning Albanese will cave to the Greens.
Labor MPs speculate Morrison will try to narrowcast scares on the ground in NSW seats like Hunter and Paterson. Remembering what happened to Julia Gillard, Albanese and Chris Bowen have vowed they will not to bow to the Greens. Holding their nerve, Labor marginal seat holders say they had to pitch higher than the government to get a “moral mandate” for their policy.
Meanwhile moderate Liberals fear a scare campaign will alienate voters in inner urban seats threatened by independents. Acutely aware of the dangers, Treasurer Frydenberg trod carefully on Insiders on Sunday, avoiding outright criticism of Labor’s target of 43 per cent emissions reductions by 2030. It’s not just that he is facing a fight against an independent in Kooyong. Business – the Business Council of Australia, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Australian Industry Group – have backed Albanese’s policy.
It showed Albanese was smart strategically to end the class war, anti-business rhetoric early in his tenure, then to strike an emissions target slightly lower than business itself had chosen. Even if business was so inclined – and it wasn’t – it couldn’t oppose it, depriving the Coalition of a key ally in the climate wars.
