Andrew Bolt: Liberals could hang on, but nation set for chaos and confusion
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has become an instant Liberal hero tonight. But Labor and the Greens said this was a global warming election, and they’ve been humiliated, writes Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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The Liberals may have pulled off a miracle election win and Labor lost the unlosable election.
But while Prime Minister Scott Morrison has become an instant Liberal hero, Australians have just voted for three years of chaos and confusion.
Morrison will almost certainly need the support of one or two independents – one of them Bob Katter - to form government, and the Coalition will fall way short of a majority in the Senate as well.
If Labor wins, it will need even more independents, including a Green, to rule.
Firm leadership will become almost impossible. Everything will be compromise, just as it was under Julia Gillard and Malcolm Turnbull.
Australia deserves better. It needs better, with the economy slowing fast.
But Australia has gained one huge thing from this election: Labor’s global warming crusade has been shattered.
Think how Labor lost a massive poll lead as more voters realised what Labor had in mind – not just its plan to raise taxes but its plan to effectively destroy our electricity system to “stop” global warming.
Both Labor and the Greens said this was a global warming election. Both have now been humiliated – because it was, and they lost.
Note well: the Liberals didn’t become competitive by announcing brilliant policies, other than a plan to cut taxes, not raise them.
In fact, Morrison campaigned harder against Labor’s policies than he fought for his own, and suddenly more voters looked at Labor – and worried.
True, Morrison did not dare seem a global warming sceptic, knowing journalists would be outraged.
He especially couldn’t risk provoking open warfare with Turnbull, who, with son Alex, helped warming extremists campaign against Liberal MPs such as Tony Abbott, Josh Frydenberg and Greg Hunt. (Only Abbott lost.)
So Morrison couldn’t say Labor was grossly exaggerating the warming scare and Labor’s emissions cuts – four times bigger than the Liberals’ – won’t change the world’s temperature anyway.
But Shorten stupidly let Morrison attack Labor’s plan by proxy when he promised Labor would make Australians buy just as many electric cars as petrol cars by 2030, even though we buy just 2000 electric cars a year today.
This was clearly nuts, and Morrison pounced.
Then Shorten refused to tell us the cost of his vague global warming scheme – estimated by economist Brian Fisher at $250 billion by 2030. Suspicions grew.
Morrison, who campaigned with huge energy, piled on by attacking Labor’s massive tax grab, calling Shorten “the Bill you can’t afford”.
Only two months ago, Labor seemed headed for a landslide, thanks mainly to voter disgust with the Liberals. But the more that voters considered Labor’s policies, especially on global warming and taxes, the less they trusted them.
Look where Labor’s polling lead reversed most: in Queensland seats where voters hated Labor’s refusal to back the Adani coal mine, and in outer suburban seats where voters can’t afford higher power prices.
Please let the Liberals now know they can stare down the global warming scare – and win against all the odds.
Please let Labor now know that global warming is an obsession of the pampered rich, but a curse to the working poor.
But think now how Morrison has written himself into the history books.
When he took over as Prime Minister from Malcolm Turnbull, who’d lost nearly every poll in two years, he was undermined by a vengeful Turnbull. And when Victoria’s Liberals were smashed in November’s state election we read reports like this: “A shell-shocked, outgoing Opposition Leader Matthew Guy warned … Shorten could win a majority as large as 60 to 70 seats nationally.”
Instead, Labor lost. What a change in our intellectual climate.
Andrew Bolt is a Sunday Herald Sun columnist
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