Paul Starick: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Adelaide dress rehearsal for election campaign
ANALYSIS: If Australia is heading for a July 2 early election, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is using his three-day South Australian visit as a campaign rehearsal.
Opinion
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IF Australia is heading for a July 2 early election, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is using his three-day South Australian visit as a campaign rehearsal.
Today has all the key elements — election-year photo opportunities with babies at a childcare centre and meeting with marginal seat punters for pub drinks.
It follows a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday and the announcement of a $230 million defence industry headquarters for Adelaide, engineered by senior SA Liberal and Industry Minister Christopher Pyne. This is good news for the defence industry, even if serious questions remain about the future of ASC’s naval shipbuilding workforce.
The 3000 workers at Whyalla’s struggling Arrium steelworks will be hoping Mr Turnbull can find some money for them too, when he visits the city later on Wednesday.
Mr Turnbull on Tuesday heightened speculation of a double dissolution election when he left open the prospect of moving the May 10 Budget, allowing more time to call an early poll ahead of the May 11 cut-off.
Asked if he was open to bringing the Budget forward, Mr Turnbull said only: “The Budget will be delivered in May.”
The vague answer was typical of that given by a Prime Minister trying to bat away questions during an election campaign, so as not to give opponents any ammunition.
Mr Turnbull’s rhetoric in recent times has been indicating an election during August or subsequent months. But his ministers are adding to the campaign fever by dropping clues about a July 2 poll.
Even if Mr Turnbull’s mind is not made up yet, it might soon be easier to go ahead with a July 2 election than dash expectations, just to build them up again in a few months.
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