As Labor gains ground, it’s time to imagine a Bill Shorten Australia

As the Turnbull government kicks more own goals, we should take a good hard look at what a Bill Shorten Australia would look like, writes Peta Credlin.

I don’t know who is running the show in Canberra but it doesn’t seem they’re learning from their mistakes.

It was about this time last year that the Turnbull government’s popularity started to fall off the cliff.

You might recall at the time, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer were at odds over increasing the GST.

They became caught up in budget speculation and couldn’t get any clear air. Then the leaking started about who was at fault, things got scrappy and the chance to use March and April to set up their economic narrative before May’s budget was lost.

This meant a tepid budget for backbenchers to sell and a poor start to their eight-week election campaign. The end result last July was a devastating 14-seat loss, a barely-there majority and polls that have only slumped further.

It beggars belief that this is happening all over again.

If the Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t stop the blunders and own goals, he runs the risk of a Bill Shorten checkmate.( Pic: Kym Smith)

Despite unleashing his inner mongrel with a spray against Bill Shorten, Malcolm Turnbull’s government is being weakened by unforced errors and amateur mistakes. Take the speculation about capital gains tax ­increases last week. The Finance Minister tried to deal with it first up in the morning but the offices obviously weren’t talking because the Prime Minister tried a different defence during question time that allowed Labor to whack him multiple times before he eventually got his lines straight.

This capped off a messy week for the Coalition with the much-needed budget repair bill sunk by Nick Xenophon and leaks accusing the Treasurer of the ill-fated strategy to link NDIS funding to the bill’s passage.

And of course there was the damning speculation that the government would be forced to raise taxes now that its saving measures were blocked. It was like a scene out of Monty Python: “OK, you won’t do what I want, so I’ll do what you want.”

It would be funny if it wasn’t so ­serious. After the Howard government lost office 10 years ago, Labor inherited no net debt and money in the bank. Our debt has now ballooned to $317 billion in net terms and we’re paying over $16 billion in interest every year to our creditors, many of them overseas.

Just like your mortgage, this interest is “dead money” that would be better spent on roads, hospitals or paying back the capital.

Expect this to be a familiar sight in a Bill Shorten Australia. (Pic: supplied)

This debt is the result of Labor’s mismanagement: overpriced school halls, stimulus cheques to dead people, roof bats that caught fire and cost lives, an NBN that was all talk and no bandwidth as well as the unfunded big promises of Gonski and the NDIS.

It’s also impacted by unsustainable Howard government family payments that we could afford in times of surplus but simply can’t afford now.

And let’s not forget the farce of your taxpayer dollars still being spent on compensation for Labor’s carbon tax that Tony Abbott got rid of three years ago. But rather than feeling the heat, Bill Shorten is getting off scot-free. Based on poll after poll, there’s every chance Labor could win the next election. Now it would be no surprise to you that they won’t get my vote but where’s the pressure on Labor to tell us what they would do if elected and what sort of prime minister Shorten would be?

It’s about time we considered what a Shorten government might do to Australia, and the likely results aren’t pretty. Not so sure? Here are the facts.

If Bill Shorten becomes prime minister, the carbon tax comes back and your power bills increase even faster. Labor has already committed to a new emissions trading scheme (or floating rate tax) designed to cut emissions by 45 per cent by 2030.

Then there’s Labor’s 50 per cent renewable energy target that will give the whole country South Australian-style power bills and blackouts — plus the $50 billion it will cost to build all the extra wind turbines subsidised by you. Labor has already committed to abolishing the tough-cop-on-the-beat in the construction industry and will return union governance to the Fair Work Commission which is beset with internal strife and resignations.

Labor is gaining ground on the Turnbull government, so it’s time to take a hard look at what a Labor government might mean for Australians. (Pic: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

Worse still, nearly 50 Labor members and candidates at last year’s election called for an end to the Coalition’s border protection policies. With the extreme Left continually gaining ground inside the Labor caucus, there’s no doubt the people-smugglers will be back in business.

But it’s Labor’s economic policy that will do the most damage. At the last election, Labor committed to $100 billion worth of new taxes over the decade on super, on capital gains and on investment housing.

Under Bill Shorten, budget repair isn’t about cutting waste, it’s only about raising taxes. These new taxes will make retirees and investors worse off, meaning your house will be worth less and rents will cost more. Because Labor promised to make record increases in spending, it will make debt and deficit even worse, putting ­upward pressure on interest rates and creating pressure to raise taxes even further. There will be more environmental regulation, more workplace regulation and more bureaucracy so your business will be less profitable and jobs less secure. Our company tax rates will no longer be competitive, which will shift jobs offshore, reduce tax revenue and hit our economy hard. As debt and deficit blows out, confidence will fall, investment will dry up, and employers will close down. At a time when there will soon be more net recipients of government support than net taxpayers, Australia cannot afford Labor and its policies.

But that’s precisely what we’ll get if the Coalition doesn’t get its act ­together; there’s a lack of discipline, too many own goals and not enough decisions actually being made. They need a clear strategy to capitalise on the risks of Labor and the genuine concerns people have about Bill Shorten. They might be knee deep in budget preparations but it’s politics, stupid, and the Coalition is being outplayed by Labor.

And in the end if Labor wins, we’re the real losers.

Catch Peta Credlin on SKY NEWS: The Bolt Report, Paul Murray LIVE and David Speers’ PM Agenda.