Piers Akerman: Labor Party needs a miracle to win the next election

With an ineffective federal leader and an invisible state one, the Labor Party must replicate Scott Morrison’s miracle win of 2019 if it hopes to gain government, writes Piers Akerman.

It’s too easy to write off Labor’s electoral chances both in NSW and federally but realistically state leader Jodi McKay and federal leader Anthony Albanese would need a Scott Morrison-style “miracle” to have any show when they eventually face their electorates.

With the Budget providing an opening for a federal election later this year, and Albanese’s flaccid response to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s cash tsunami providing little of interest to any important electoral demographic, the Opposition leader’s expensive dental work and rigorous fitness campaign may prove to be of little benefit to his career prospects.

Labor was left on the ropes with no obvious areas of the budget to unpick without putting voters off-side.

The Morrison government’s cautious approach to the virus has paid off and, though the states carry the major burden of the quarantine responsibility, isolating the nation in the first instance — a move criticised by Labor — was clearly the critical factor in keeping community infection at a minimum.

Federal opposition leader Anthony Albanese will need a miracle to win the next election, Piers Akerman writes. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Jono Searle

With the exception of the Ruby Princess debacle in NSW, no Liberal state has under-performed and Victoria’s Labor Premier Dan Andrews was wounded by his farcical and in some instances, the totalitarian response, even before he came to grief after the mysterious incident in which his spine was damaged.

While Albanese flounders — though this would not be apparent to subscribers of the Nine Media organisation or viewers of the ABC — Morrison has taken tentative steps to win over conservative members of the Liberal Party who’ve been not unnaturally concerned with his dismissal of core Liberal values like freedom of speech.

His stout defence following a grotesque and extremely personal attack on his religious beliefs by both the ABC and Nine was unprecedented in the history of political coverage and demonstrated the editorial and managerial failures of both organisations. They would never have dared to question, let alone eviscerate, the beliefs of a Muslim politician in such a manner.

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ response to the pandemic was at times farcical, Piers Akerman writes. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

The ABC, as a wholly taxpayer-funded public broadcaster (unlike PBS in the United States which accepts advertising seemingly without any impact on its Left-leaning commentary) is a disgrace for which chairman Ita Buttrose must accept full responsibility for its editorial debacles.

There is plenty of room to criticise the Morrison government in numerous areas — its disappointing failure to abolish the Arts Council which continues to throw more money at pseudo-artists producing junk projects, or the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) which removed the core elements of Australian history from its new proposed national curriculum.

If anything, the government’s disappointing lack of action in this areas of critical principle points to the control wielded by the soft-Left so-called “moderate” faction in the Liberal Party, which pushes its positions on climate change and faddish social policies ever further toward those held by Labor, leaving voters searching for trustworthy conservative independents.

As for the Budget itself, the fact that the new national debt will reach $1.2 trillion and keep growing by 2024-25 now ensures our great-grandchildren will be forever in debt has been glossed over — as has the fact that Albanese wants to spend even more!

The new normal is debt to the horizon and beyond.

NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

Gladys Berejiklian’s relationship with Daryl Maguire may be looked at again by ICAC. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Damian Shaw

Just briefly on NSW politics, Jodi McKay has been a weak performer from the get-go and faced with Gladys Berejiklian’s almost perfect response to the pandemic she has been rendered irrelevant.

That’s not to dismiss Berejiklian's own missteps. Her bizarre five-year relationship with former MP Daryl Maguire will be exhumed and pored over should the DPP act on ICAC’s recommendation that criminal charges be laid against Maguire for giving false and misleading evidence to a 2018 corruption inquiry into activities of the Canterbury Council.

Just as Morrison has surrounded himself with factional supporters and wet-behind-the-ears staffers and ignored conservatives within his ranks, she has shown herself to be largely captured by sycophants and public servants who know little of the world beyond Macquarie Street.

Plenty of electoral ammunition for strong Oppositions but Labor just doesn’t have the talent to tackle even mediocre governments.