Miranda Devine: Albanese’s true disastrous colours yet to be revealed
Disunity on the US right helped usher in the worst president in living memory, Joe Biden. Australian voters must be wary of making the same mistake, writes Miranda Devine.
Opinion
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Quoting the Ramones and Taylor Swift is not going to get Anthony Albanese out of the jam he made for himself on the opening day of the election campaign.
At a time when the economy is in recovery and inflation is on the march across an increasingly dangerous world, the Opposition Leader’s inability to identify the unemployment and cash rates was inexplicable, unless he is a completely unserious person, hoping to skate into office on his working-class pedigree and hatred for “Tories”.
He proved that theory right when he resorted to pop tunes while trying to undo his gaffe, instead of demonstrating he was a safe pair of hands with the economy. “I fessed up, took responsibility, that is what I will do,” he said. “From time to time, if I ever make a mistake, I will own it and I will accept responsibility. But as I quoted, the Ramones of day one of the campaign, here is a Taylor Swift comment for you, my theory is ‘Shake It Off’.”
Glib one-liners just don’t cut it. It’s the economy, stupid, and never more than today.
The unemployment rate is actually a healthy four per cent. When Albo hazarded a guess, at 5.4 per cent, he was so off beam, he consigned about 200,000 people to the scrap heap, with all the misery, broken families, suicide and hardship that underpin such numbers.
Jobs are about people’s lives and dignity, something Labor’s welfare obsession always seems to miss. Albo may think that now he has dropped 18kg, bought a new pair of specs and had a cosmetic makeover that his good looks and charm will win over the Australian people in a canter on May 21.
He may think that the media’s relentless demonisation of Scott Morrison into a gargoyle unrecognisable from reality is his ticket to the Lodge.
But especially in marginal seats, where the numbers-driven Morrison will apply his usual campaign magic, people can think for themselves.
They know the election is not a popularity contest but a decision about which party will be best for their hip pocket, will protect our national security, ensure the borders remain secure and hold back the tide of identity politics which undermines the family.
Regardless of Albo’s new image as a “conservative”, lol, it’s pretty obvious which party that is. Labor’s embrace of the woke agenda and economy-wrecking climate policy is not a winning combination. The only thing between Morrison and victory is the Liberal party’s civil war.
The self-serving treachery of Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, the one time darling of the NSW Right, is the most egregious example. Slagging off the Prime Minister under parliamentary privilege on the eve of the election was the ultimate act of bastardry. Has there been a Liberal PM she has not turned against and undermined because she wasn’t anointed Attorney-General or felt in some way her personal political fortunes had been disrespected?
It is sad to see even principled conservatives become vandals in a misguided desire for an ideological purity that would render the party unelectable. Instead of working to change the culture using the levers of power they just want to blow up the joint.
The dormant old faction of conservatives also is taking the opportunity to settle ancient scores, in the delusion that by sabotaging Morrison on the eve of the election they will somehow allow the Liberal party to magically reform itself and rise like a phoenix from the ashes to win a glorious victory in three years. Yeah, sure.
Take the Australian Christian Lobby. In a tight election where every marginal seat counts, ACL leader Martin Iles has embarked on a campaign of irrational revenge against the Liberal Party, vowing to use his army of committed Christian volunteers to target Liberal marginal seat holders.
“If that means [conservatives] have to cast a vote which makes them uncomfortable in the short term but [creates] a longer-term opportunity for a Coalition to reflect and rebuild, I am encountering many people happy to do that.”
This sort of mentality on the right in the United States helped usher in the worst president in living memory, Joe Biden. Like Albo, Biden posed as a moderate, receiving very little scrutiny while the incumbent was flayed alive by the usual media suspects and then revealed his true disastrous colours after the election.
After a little more than a year full of self-inflicted crises, from Afghanistan to inflation, illegal migration and the blossoming corruption scandal involving his son Hunter’s laptop, Biden’s approval ratings are at rock bottom, as voters suffer acute buyer’s remorse.
Inflation is soaring because of out-of-control federal government spending that has flooded the US economy with trillions of dollars, yet Biden blames Vladimir Putin. The one thing left wing parties are competent at is gaslighting the public as they offload blame for their own catastrophes.
So, beware a leader of the Left, as Albo is, who presents himself in conservative clothing.
Like everywhere else in the world, Australia has been through the wringer the last two years, thanks to Covid. Few political leaders have escaped blame for the way the pandemic was handled, and Australia did go overboard on the lockdown, especially in Victoria.
But any fair assessment of Morrison would say he did a competent job, at a time of panic and uncertainty, managing the health and economic risks.
Just on the raw metric of death, the US lost about one million people to Covid. Australia lost about 6500, less than one 10th of the American rate. If Morrison is going to be blamed for bushfires and floods, he deserves a little credit for saving lives in the pandemic.
On money matters, it is as if he and Albo are speaking different languages. Albo can’t even get to first base and remember the most basic economic metric for social wellbeing.
Morrison can boast about getting unemployment down to four per cent and retaining Australia’s AAA credit rating and of course and, as he puts it, “the biggest economic turnaround in the Budget of over $100 billion in the last 12 months”.
On jobs and economic growth Australia has outperformed the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Japan, and Italy. And with food and energy shortages looming, no country is better placed to prosper.
The idea you would throw that all away in a fit of pique for Albo and his cabinet of Mean Girls is unthinkable.
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