How the Coalition can win the next election

IF Scott Morrison wants to successfully lead his government to a third term, the campaign will have to be very different from the last. Here are the moves it needs to make, writes Peta Credlin.

IN seven days the new Morrison government has made a promising start.

To maximise its chance of victory, it needs to now pick some fights with Labor where the voters are likely to be on its side.

Don’t forget that it’s seeking a third term; defending a one-seat majority and a disappointing record, with Labor, the unions, GetUp! and the Greens all campaigning furiously against it.

The trouble with the last campaign was that the then PM treated it more like a coronation than a contest. Labor took no such approach and the result was a near-defeat. This time, the Labor Party — and the damage it will do to our prosperity and security — needs to be front and centre.

But to make Labor the issue, the government must have at least some policies where there is a big contrast between the two sides.

New Prime Minister Scott Morrison has made a promising start, but can do more to ensure his government wins the next election. (Pic: Lukas Coch/AAP)

This week, the government took some steps towards creating a contest it can win. “The minister for cutting power prices”, Angus Taylor, made his first speech committing the government to the ACCC report calling for recommended retail prices for power and for new baseload power supplies.

He said that getting prices down was his “first, second and third priority” and that cutting emissions was way down the list.

So far, so good; but Taylor knows more is needed. Why not order AGL to divest the Liddell Power Station to someone who will keep it open? Why not pull out of the Paris climate agreement — or at least make it clear that the emissions reduction targets are aspirations, not commitments? These are clear measures that voters might “get” and that would obviously pit the government and the opposition against each other.

Angus Taylor, the new Minister for Energy, is in charge of a portfolio which can make decisions, like cutting power prices, that will get voters onside. (Pic: Gary Ramage)

This week, the “minister for busting congestion in our cities”, Alan Tudge, flagged moves to force new migrants to move to the country. Again, so far so good; but what if small towns don’t want them or there are no jobs to keep them there? Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler just to cut the migrant intake until infrastructure, housing and integration have caught up? It would upset big business that wants more migrants to keep wages down and consumer demand up, but it would show fed up voters that the government is finally on their side.

Then there’s the issue of the most thuggish union in the country, the CFMEU — just joined with the second most militant, the Maritime Union of Australia — that’s had dozens of its officials before the courts and paid more than $15 million in fines over the past decade.

Yet it’s also the biggest single donor to the Labor Party, and a strong supporter of opposition leader Bill Shorten.

Back in the ’80s, the Hawke government successfully deregistered the old Builders' Labourers Federation for repeated thuggery and lawlessness on construction sites. Just two weeks ago, a federal court judge said that the CFMEU’s record was “disgraceful and shameful” because it had been “unwilling and unable” to restrain the “rogue, outlaw tendency” within its construction division.

The judge said that such a union “cannot expect to remain registered in its current form”.

Bill Shorten has already bragged if PM, he’ll run the country like a union, so it’s widely suspected he’d be a union puppet, but the government can’t just say this — it needs to find ways to demonstrate it. So why not use the Hawke precedent and deregister the CFMEU?

It wouldn’t necessarily require legislation, just an application to the Fair Work Commission. It’s something Scott Morrison should consider, and at least this vital portfolio is back in cabinet, despite its lacklustre new minister in Kelly O’Dwyer

Originally published as How the Coalition can win the next election