This was the week ALP lost the election

WE may look back on the past week as the period Labor lost the election, barring any huge surprises over the next 34 days.

Those who claimed to find no difference between the two major parties now have one major point of differentiation – competence. Opposition leader Bill Shorten has been unable to lift his game despite the media training he has endured. Affable, and certainly more of a regular bloke than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Shorten cannot shake the fact that he is still committed to running the nation like he ran his trade union. That is, as the Trade Union Royal Commission so quickly exposed, he was happy taking money from employers while agreeing to cut the pay and conditions for the poorly-paid men and women who were paying his salary and expecting him to be in their corner while he was in fact doing ­secret deals with their bosses. Little wonder that Shorten remains under siege from those on the Left of the ALP who have dragged the party into the unhealthily poisonous Green area of the political spectrum ducking and filling on border protection policy. Australians can’t trust Labor on border protection ­because Labor can’t articulate a clear policy on this critical issue. It has learnt nothing from Kevin Rudd’s reversal of his pledge to stop the boats or its failed Malaysian solution, or its East Timorese solution. The current spiel about a Canadian solution is just as hollow. For a seasoned campaigner like Anthony Albanese to spruik Canada without even asking the Canadians how they might feel only shows how little thought goes into Labor’s policies. The Greens, for their part, have been shown to be utterly hypocritical on the issue, flaunting their phony compassion credentials while supporting open borders policies which would inevitably lead to the deaths of even more illegal people smuggler clients. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young may as well hold an onion to her eyes as she weeps oceans of tears for ­people her party’s policies have undoubtedly lured onto the treacherous seas. Greens leader Richard Di Natale is just as naïve. During a debate on regional issues last week, he made the preposterous suggestion that all of the Aboriginal Australians who currently hold real jobs in the live cattle industry could be employed as park rangers should the Greens ever manage to halt the live meat trade. Spare a second to think how ludicrous a proposition that is. The cattle trade provides real work for real wages. No matter how sincerely many Aboriginal park rangers feel about their work, the ­reality is that it is for the most part not much better than a work for the dole program . National Party leader Barnaby Joyce was on the money when he said that Labor’s kneejerk cessation of the live cattle trade to Indonesia ­angered Indonesians. In fact it outraged the Indonesian government. And there were veiled threats made about reducing the co-operation the Indonesians had shown in ­preventing illegal people smuggler activities. Fortunately, the strong ­national security ties forged by the Australian Federal Police with Indonesian forces in the wake of the Bali bombings largely kept a lid on things. While Shorten has shown he is willing to descend into the gutter politics beloved of the Left, Malcolm Turnbull has not yet taken the opportunity to stake out his principles, leaving those on the conservative side of politics to keep questioning his willingness to uphold core Liberal values. Rather than vacillate, he should quietly but resolutely add to his aspirational economic theme a creed supporting the age-old, traditional social virtues that have made Australian society the envy of the world for over a century. We have attracted – and ­selected – the best migration has to offer because of who we are. For those still reluctant to believe that Turnbull, who has postured with the best the ­effete put forward, can restrain himself from embracing the full Green social agenda, there is always the reality that the most successful Australian governments have been coalitions of the Liberals and the Nationals (or their predecessors, the Country Party). Last September, Turnbull had to seek acceptance from Warren Truss, then the ­Nationals leader, and sign a 10-point agreement which the Nationals had prepared, before he was able to approach the Governor-General and ask he be named Prime Minister. There is nothing new or sinister about this, Tony Abbott also had to get the agreement of the Nationals before he met the Governor-General, because he, too, had to assure Quentin Bryce that he had the support of the Nationals to form a Coalition government. It follows then that should the Coalition win the election, Turnbull will inevitably have to secure the same support from the Nationals before he asks to be reappointed Prime Minister. It is just as certain that the agreement Turnbull reached with Truss last September will have to be renegotiated with Joyce and that while the key points on climate change and same sex marriage will remain unaltered, and that the water portfolio will remain with the Nationals, there may well be some extra points the Nationals will demand and Turnbull will accept. It should also be remembered that Joyce is fearless, as the hapless Johnny Depp and his since-separated wife Amber Heard discovered in the matter of their toy dogs. He didn’t hesitate to threaten their pets with a deserved death penalty and he wouldn’t hesitate to cross the floor and bring down a Coalition government should Turnbull take it upon himself to breach their formal agreement.