Federal election 2022: Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s eleventh-hour pitch to voters
In an eleventh-hour pitch to voters, Scott Morrison has explained where he sees new opportunities for Australians to get what they want.
Federal Election
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After two years of federal and state governments dictating life during the Covid pandemic, Prime Minister Scott Morrison will on Sunday pledge he is giving power back to the people.
With “aspiration” the theme of the Liberal Party launch, the prime minister will outline how his government will help Australians reach their goals, including freeing up significantly more housing for families.
In an eleventh-hour pitch to voters, Mr Morrison acknowledged the past few years had been “tough” – while admitting things such as the vaccine rollout could have also been done better.
However, the “car had more gears” and now was not the time to be changing course.
“The last few years have been really tough for the whole country. It’s been tough in government and that has required us to be in a very strong mode to push through and help the country push through, but at the same time we have been laying the foundation for the opportunities that are ahead,” Mr Morrison told News Corp.
“That is what I am excited about. It’s about seizing these opportunities that we’ve worked really hard for and over the course of this last week, I’m just really keen to encourage people to seize the opportunity that is there.
“What I am looking forward to is being able to demonstrate the many other gears the government has. Australia has necessarily seen us acting in that mode of getting Australia through, setting the opportunities up, but you know, the car has a lot more gears. it’s the same car, but it has much more potential into the next term because the environment in which we’ll be operating in will be different” Mr Morrison said.
“We are moving into a period of opportunity.
“This is about fuelling people and supporting their aspirations, not just protecting them from the worst, which as been the battle over these last few years in getting the country through.”
Should the Coalition be returned to office, Mr Morrison said the government would “step back” from the necessarily visible role it had taken as a result of the pandemic.
While the government would be just as active, it would focus on implementing its economic plan to enable Australians and business take up the opportunities that it offered.
“At the start of the pandemic, we talked about needing to build a bridge to the other side, and that’s what we’ve done,” Mr Morrison said.
“Now we are coming across that bridge, into a period of opportunity and the economic plan that has got us there will now allow for the seizing of those opportunities.
“We will be just as active – but it’s now time for the Australian people and Australian business to be taking centre stage.”
While the past term had showcased the government’s strength, it had also highlighted its weaknesses.
Mr Morison conceded there were things he would have done differently, and that these lessons would be learned from.
“One of the weaknesses was when we were doing the early stages of the vaccine. The health department became quite overwhelmed in the delivery of those vaccines and so I brought in the co-ordinator general (John Frewen). I brought him in around May. If I had my time over again, I’d would have done that differently because we found during the course of the pandemic that the government couldn’t – in the way that it conventionally worked – deliver all of the things we needed to.”
Mr Morrison also referred to the tensions between his government and the States and Territories – exacerbated by the Commonwealth being seen as a “cash machine” – and signalled he planned to address the issue should he be granted another term.
“Our federation spreads the powers and splits the powers between the Commonwealth and the States and I’m sure there are lots of ways we could do that better.
“I think by and large we worked together pretty well compared to other countries, but I know there was a lot of frustration in trying to get the States and Commonwealth on the same page, not just the Commonwealth treated as a cash machine, but a genuine partner.
“We were able to achieve that on JobTrainer, and we were able to do it on things like occupational licensing, so that gives me some encouragement that we can make that process work better in the future.”
Asked how he planned to navigate the nation through the challenges the economy posed in the near future, Mr Morrison said the key issues boiled down to skills and infrastructure, lower taxes and reducing red-tape for businesses.
“Young people all the way through their working life, they need a training system that helps them keep getting ahead and staying ahead staying ahead. We also need to help small businesses by getting their costs down, and we get their costs down by getting their electricity bills down.
“Our strengths are our economic management, our understanding of the economy.”
And despite recent criticisms of its handling of national security – fuelled by the controversial security pact between China and Solomon Islands – Mr Morrison said it was the Coalition that would keep Australians safe, “particularly in our own region”.
“The way we stood up to the Chinese government against their coercion and the way we worked with our partners around the world, that experience is incredibly important to deal with the challenges ahead,” he said.
Another major focus of the government would be fixing up the aged care system – a policy area Mr Morrison described as “one of the most difficult” that he had ever contended with “and there are a lot of difficult ones”.
“We’ve got an ageing population, The services, acute nature of care that is needed is actually increasing. We’ve got a balance of those who want to be ageing at home – and that’s great – and we’ve lifted the number of in-home aged care places from 60,000 when we came to government t to 220,000 now – so we are dealing with the choices that people want to make.
“But the key thing is people have got to have dignity in their ageing years. The whole business model has changed dramatically. Peoples’ care needs have risen dramatically. People are living longer. This is a very, very difficult challenge.”
And unlike Labor leader Anthony Albanese – whose aged care policy involving around-the-clock nurses was criticised for being undeliverable – Mr Morrison said his plan was both comprehensive “but very realistic.”
On wages, these would be going up under a Morrison government – but through pushing unemployment down, he said.
“I’d love to see people getting wage increases, but I don’t want to see that occur and then see inflation go even higher because of the way that’s been handled,” he said.
“You can’t just go shooting your mouth off the way Anthony Albanese has without thinking through all of the potential implications because there are real world implications”.
As for why voters should stick with the Coalition, Mr Morrison it came down to a choice of what is “known” and could be made better, to the unknown risk of Labor which would result in things becoming “significantly worse.”
“My message to voters is that this is an incredibly important decision, it’s going to have a big impact and carefully consider the risks – Labor, loose on the economy and a leader that doesn’t have that economic experience, and as a result could make things significantly worse, or, our strengths in this area which means there are opportunities to be secured.
“Things can and will be better.
“It’s a choice between what is known and what can be made better, or the unknown of Labor.”
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Originally published as Federal election 2022: Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s eleventh-hour pitch to voters
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