Piers Akerman: Don’t let Bill Shorten within coo-ee of the Lodge

Opposition leader Bill Shorten ­believes the election contest has now become one of “hope versus fear” — and for once he is right. Sensible people have every reason to fear his policies and hope that he never makes it to the Lodge, Piers Akerman writes.

• Mob roams the landscape in a quest for outrage
• Lefties make about as much sense as a goose’s fart

If every nation gets the government it deserves, special attention must be paid to the current mud-wrestling masquerading as electioneering because pre-polling voting for the May 18 federal election begins tomorrow.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten ­believes the contest has now become one of “hope versus fear” — and for once he is right (never let it be said that I’ve always disagreed with Mr Shorten).

Sensible people have every reason to fear Mr Shorten’s policies and hope that he never gets within coo-ee of the Lodge. Only the treasonous, treach­erous or extremely dumb would wish a Shorten-led government with its ­demonstrably nation-destroying economic and environmental policies on Australia and don’t even mention the social policies which the Greens are ­demanding for their support.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten should not get “within coo-ee” of the Lodge, Piers Akerman writes. Picture: Kym Smith

There is just no way — repeat no way — that the nation can survive Labor’s renewable energy target, let alone the mindless goals of absolutely fixated Green or independents like GetUp’s gormless go-to girl Zali Steggall, who is standing in Warringah. Traders in the renewable energy certificate market which Labor and the Greens (and the Turnbull family) want to Australia to embrace estimate that the impact on the economy of this measure alone would add anything from $3 billion to $6 billion to the already astronomical $387 billion estimate of the cost of Labor’s big policy ideas.

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The choice between Mr Shorten and Prime Minister Scott Morrison is not that difficult.

Mr Shorten has repeatedly shown that he is not on top of the details of his party’s policies and Mr Morrison has continually been able to recite the minute particulars of the effects of his policies and his budget.

You wouldn’t buy a standard car from a dealer who didn’t know how many kilometres it got to the litre and you shouldn’t buy a policy proposition from a politician who was going to make your standard car obsolete and force you to buy an electric vehicle while not knowing how long it may take to charge its battery or how much the electricity would cost, let alone whether there would be sufficient power in the grid to charge the car without the causing the entire network to crash.

Too many veterans of the press gallery have licked the hands of Opposition spokesmen and played along with the time-consuming diversions.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison picks up a fleece in a shearing shed on Eumungerie Farm, 32km North of Dubbo in NSW, while on the campaign trail. Picture: AAP/Mick Tsikas

Last week hours of airtime was taken up in the pursuit of the ­Coalition’s signing off on a water buyback deal which had been approved and recommended by the Queensland State Labor government of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Shock horror, a member of the ­Coalition government had once been a member of the board of a company which owned one of the properties which benefited from the deal though he was no longer on the board when it was approved.

Quelle horreur, as the French may have said, if they weren’t so concerned with the Islamist threat in their own nation and the recent burning of Notre Dame Cathedral.

In reality, there was no scandal apart from the danger of hyperventilation on the part the naive (a polite way of saying ignorant) reporters who tried to use it to derail the Coalition campaign. There is always the potential for shame when government money goes out the door but not one of those writing about this phony outrage mentioned that there had been a real scandal involving water buybacks just eight years ago.

the Coalition’s signed off on a water buyback deal approved Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Tara Croser

Let me take you to the reporting of that event by The Age on November 23, 2011, and the story which began: “THREE retired Labor MPs have shared in a multimillion-dollar business windfall as a result of changes to rural water trading rules made by the former Brumby government.

“An investigation by The Age has found that changes made in June last year allowed the ex-MPs and their company to sell a three-billion-litre water entitlement to a joint federal-state buyback scheme.”

Whoops. The Labor Brumby government in its dying moments granted an exemption worth an estimated $7 million to Sustainable Soils & Farms, a company led by former federal Labor MP Neil O’Keefe, and which includes among its shareholders former MPs Gavan O’Connor and Bob Sercombe.

The exemption was signed off by then water minister Tim Holding, based on a recommendation from his department. It was one of a string of federal and state decisions that have been favourable to the company.

Mr Holding said that at the time he signed off on the change, he was ­unaware that Mr O’Keefe’s company was to be the beneficiary.

“The project was a water recovery project previously approved by the Murray Darling Basin Authority. I was not aware, and nor would it have been necessary for me to be aware, of the ownership of the company when granting such an exemption,” he said.

The then federal Water Minister was Tony Burke. He denied the company’s Labor connections had helped it secure government support and said he had acted on the recommendations of his department. Last week this hypocrite was one of the most vociferous critics of the Coalition.