Election 2016: Poll to be called for July 2, marathon campaign ahead
AUSTRALIANS will go to the polls on July 2 in a double-dissolution election preceded by one of the longest campaigns in history.
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AUSTRALIANS will go to the polls on July 2 in a double-dissolution election preceded by one of the longest campaigns in history.
Ending weeks of uncertainty, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will today make good on his double-dissolution threat, confirming Australia will go to the polls after the chaotic Senate brought a swift end to the government’s Australian Building and Construction Bill last night.
The country will now be subjected to a 74-day election campaign, a torture rivalled only by Julia Gillard’s eight-month-long campaign 2013.
Mr Turnbull will call a July 2 election this morning but both houses of parliament won’t be dissolved until after the Budget next month.
That will allow the government to hand down a Budget on May 3 and allow Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to deliver his Budget reply speech.
In the end, the much talked about ABCC didn’t even make it to a final vote, after Senators Jacqui Lambie, Ricky Muir, John Madigan and Glenn Lazarus joined Labor and the Greens in blocking the bill at the second reading stage by 36 votes to 34.
The move means all 76 senators and 150 members of the House of Representatives will face the voters on July 2.
Back-to-back Newspolls, which show Labor leading the government 51/49 on a two-party preferred basis, mean rookie Treasurer Scott Morrison’s first Budget could ultimately determine if voters give Mr Turnbull or Mr Shorten the keys to The Lodge in July.
While the ABCC trigger was sunk shortly before 7pm last night, Mr Turnbull elected not to confirm an election straight away.
Instead, he will front the media this morning to lay the platform for why the government should be re-elected for a second time.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce last night conceded it would be a close election and urged Australians not to experiment with their vote on smaller parties.
“It is going to be tough and it’s going to be tight,’’ Mr Joyce said.
“This is one election where you can’t experiment with your vote.
“If you experiment with your vote Mr Shorten will be running the country.”
Mr Joyce said the July 2 election would come as no shock to Australians and urged voters to stick with the major parties in both houses: “We’ve always been pretty straight. We said we’d go to a double dissolution if (the bill) didn’t pass.”
He said the government would be focused on getting the “Budget nailed” before campaigning started.
Mr Shorten said Labor was ready for the election.
“Mr Turnbull’s grandstanding is irrelevant, Labor’s ready for an election whenever it is,’’ he said.
“This will be a contest between Labor putting people first, and a Liberal Party looking after vested interests and the big banks.”
Mr Shorten said Labor would campaign on health and education.
“Australians know where Labor stands and what we stand for: decent jobs, protecting Medicare, better schools, renewable energy and a fairer tax system.
“We will campaign on our plans for a growing economy, delivering opportunity for everyone.
“Australians are fed up with a Prime Minister who dithers but doesn’t deliver.”
Earlier in the day, Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove had formally recalled both houses of parliament from a seven-week recess so the Senate could consider the ABCC and Registered Organisations Bill.
Three weeks had been set aside for debate, but in the end just one day was needed.
Sir Peter said parliament was recalled because the bills were critical to the government’s agenda.
“The cause for which I have recalled the parliament is to enable it and, in particular, the Senate to give full and timely consideration to two important parcels of industrial legislation — the bills to provide the re-establishment of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Bill to improve the governance and transparency of registered organisations,” he said.
MARATHON FIGHT WILL BE TURNBULL’S TO LOSE
COMMENT Simon Benson
THE torture is over. And yet it has also just started.
We now know the date of the election. And that means an excruciating 74-day campaign. Only Julia Gillard has inflicted a greater abomination on voters.
But what we don’t know still is the answer to the more important question — what is the election actually going to be about. In vague terms, the rules of combat are self-evident. It is a contest over who can be trusted to better manage the economy.
Malcolm Turnbull is already ahead on this measure.
This is despite his failure so far to articulate what his plan to manage the economy actually is.
And Bill Shorten has a Labor legacy of fiscal mismanagement to carry with him, which will be difficult to overcome.
But then it is not Shorten’s election to win.
It is Turnbull’s to lose.
And his July 2 gambit comes with great risk.
He finds himself in unexpected territory.
He has called an election as the political underdog. While he is the more popular leader, the Coalition now finds itself trailing Labor again on a two party preferred basis.
And, in this context, he has now put the fate of the government in the hands of Treasurer Scott Morrison.
His first budget will determine who wins.
The Budget has become the government’s election manifesto. This scenario is almost unprecedented. If it fails, so does Turnbull.
Many Coalition MPs, including perhaps Turnbull himself, have been living in cloud cuckoo land since Tony Abbott was rolled. They believed that Bill Shorten was unelectable.
This is the arrogance that got Daniel Andrews elected in Victoria and Annastacia Palaszczuk become the Premier of Queensland.
Who knew?
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