James Campbell: Why Peter Dutton’s SRL plan could prove a masterstroke
Peter Dutton’s job in Victoria these next few weeks is to tie Anthony Albanese to Jacinta Allan as closely as he can. For that reason, his move to torpedo the SRL could be a winner.
James Campbell
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Whatever the political arguments might be in the rest of Australia for the next weeks, in Victoria, the task facing the leaders are simple ones.
For Anthony Albanese the job is to convince Victorians that whatever they might feel about Jacinta Allan, despite the common Labor brand, we should see him, Albo, as running a different company, with a different quality of product.
For Peter Dutton the job is to tie Albo to Jacinta as closely as he can in the mind of the public.
For that reason his decision to offer Victorians a kill switch for the SRL could end up being a masterstroke.
As a former state Labor minister put it on Tuesday: “reminding people of the existence of state Labor is always a good idea for the Coalition at the moment.”
No doubt Allan Government ministers will be telling each other Dutton has made a dreadful mistake, because the last state election proved the SRL was popular.
In reality, while it might well have been at the time, the world has changed a lot since November.
The view of state Liberals – who lets be honest have had a lot of time to reflect on this – is that back then, while people said they were in favour of the SRL, it was only because it hadn’t been made clear to them that it’s monumental cost would mean they had to go without other things.
In other words, while they thought a railway between Cheltenham and Box Hill would be a nice thing to have, it wasn’t essential, and certainly not worth putting up with cuts to health funding for, nor holes in the roads and continued growth in state debt.
If that is right, then in saying he will torpedo it, Dutton is effectively offering Victorians an off-ramp, because without federal money there is no way the SRL can be built.
His message is “vote for me and not only will Victoria not be worse off but your life will be better because I’ll force your crap state government to spend your money on your priorities not mad monuments to Daniel Andrews’s vanity.”
It’s not a bad pitch.
Campbell: Tick a box, get $1K off your taxable income. Seriously, how good is Australia?
In earlier times no doubt there were pillars of journalistic rectitude who felt the need to point out that encouraging people to lie on their taxes is not something a government ought to do. But that’s a very 20th Century way of looking at things.
Dutton looked nervous but was saved by Albo’s waffle
Given he’d just received upsetting personal news, Dutton understandably had a tough start to the debate before Albanese channelled his inner game show host, writes James Campbell.