Bolt: Smearing Jacinta Price as a mini-Trump monster just the latest example of Labor’s lies

This is such a bizarre election that Jacinta Nampijinpa Price declaring she wants to make Australia great again is somehow worse than Labor actually making the nation weaker.

It seems Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said a shocking thing on the weekend that destroys the Coalition’s last chance of winning this election.

Never mind the mega-handouts on mega-Sunday, when both parties each promised $10bn of your money for your vote.

What Price said apparently dwarfs all that.

The Coalition’s biggest political star said she wanted to “ensure that we can make Australia great again, that we can bring Australia back to its former glory”.

It’s baffling that Jacinta Nampijinpa Price saying she wants to ‘make Australia great again’ is somehow worse than Labor making the country weaker. Picture: Thomas Lisson

You know, like the great days when the young could afford a home. When living standards went up, not down. When electricity prices were among the lowest in the world. When Australians were united, not divided into tribes in a three-flags nation choking in shame.

But Price used the words “make Australia great again”, and Labor and journalists pounced.

Journalists demanded to know why she said something sounding like the Make America Great Again slogan of evil Donald Trump, and the Daily Mail claimed her “gaffe rocks the election campaign”.

Labor rushed out a clip mocking what she’d said.

Yes, this is such a bizarre election that Price saying she wants to make Australia great again is seemingly worse than Labor actually making Australian weaker.

The Coalition should have weeks ago seen how Trump could sink its campaign, and said bluntly it would fight him when he made us weaker. Picture: AFP

Because, look, under Labor, Australia is poorer and less productive, deeper in debt and more divided, yet Labor is ahead in the polls.

What an election campaign, which Labor is winning against a flat-footed Coalition with a ferocious campaign of lies, abuse and distractions, backed with the most expensive band-aids you’ve ever had to pay for.

Labor claims it will save Medicare from Coalition cuts that don’t exist, grocery bills from supermarket price gouging that doesn’t exist, and the world from a climate catastrophe that doesn’t exist.

And on Sunday it promised to spend another $10bn to “fix” a housing crisis it helped cause by importing a million immigrants in just two years.

That’s so Labor. Making you pay for handouts to compensate for its disasters, like the energy rebates for the huge power prices caused in part by its disastrous green energy schemes.

Nowhere does it have a credible plan to make Australia great again so it can fund this spending, which is why gross debt next year will top $1 trillion.

For the Coalition, this risks being a heartbreak campaign where it fought an incompetent Labor government and presented better policies – yet lost for failing to explain them well enough and soon enough. Picture: Thomas Lisson

Smearing Price as a mini-Trump monster is just the latest example of Labor’s lying and the Coalition’s lack of boldness.

Trump promised to make America great again. Price wants to make Australia great again. Spot the difference?

Indeed, right now Trump’s idea of making America greater means making Australia weaker. He’s punished us with unfair tariffs. His officials say they might not hand over the nuclear submarines we’re paying for.

The Coalition should have weeks ago seen how Trump could sink its campaign, and said bluntly it would back Trump when he made Australia stronger, but fight him when he made us weaker. Australia first; not Trump first.

But this slowness to react has been a puzzling weakness of the Coalition unfocused campaigning.

Take Dutton’s campaign launch on Sunday. He spoke well, and his speech was preceded by loving tributes from his children which did much, belatedly, to humanise a man Labor is pretending is a Voldemort.

Sunday’s promises from Mr Dutton are all well and good, but why didn’t he promise them two and half weeks ago? Picture: Mark Baker

He also unveiled a surprise tax credit worth $1200 to workers under $144,000 in 2026-27.

Great, but – assuming it’s not a last minute panic move – why didn’t Dutton promise this two and half weeks ago and instantly outbid the Albanese Government’s promise in its Budget of a tax cut of just $750 in two or three years’ time?

That would have stopped Labor boasting ever since it offered lower taxes than the Coalition.

Instead, Dutton in his Budget in reply speech stuck to his plan to announce a 25 cent cut in fuel excise, which could have been left to Sunday’s launch.

I could go on.

Why didn’t the Coalition use Price more? Why didn’t it designate a bomb-thrower to attack Labor? Why did it hide energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, as if embarrassed by his plan for nuclear reactors, until O’Brien last week destroyed Energy Minister Chris Bowen in a debate that showed him in total command of his brief?

For the Coalition, this risks being a heartbreak campaign where it fought an incompetent Labor government and presented better policies – yet lost for failing to explain them well enough, soon enough and confidently enough.

It could be the election when Australians literally voted against a party for saying it wanted to make Australia great again.