Peta Credlin: Morrison or Albanese? Decision time has arrived for middle Australia

This election is going to be a choice between a government that’s run out of ideas against an opposition that wants to keep its real ideas under wraps, writes Peta Credlin.

Finally the faux campaign is done, and the real one begins. Finally, too, Anthony Albanese will be forced into the glare of proper media and public scrutiny as he tries to make history and become just the fourth Labor leader in the past 50 years to win government from opposition.

Is he as good as Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd? Ultimately, voters will be the judge, but I doubt it.

Trying to stave him off is a Prime Minister with a good economic story to tell and plenty of national security credentials but weighed down by the accumulated baggage of his party’s bid for a fourth term, plus “character” issues.

Fair or not, Labor’s assessments of Scott Morrison have cut through so this time he has to overcome himself, as much as the other bloke. But, as a campaign expert used to remind me, elections are not contests between good and great, or even between good and bad. It’s a choice between the two leaders on offer and their particular policy platforms; in other words, an underwhelming choice between bad and worse.

Labor’s assessment of Scott Morrison have cut through, says Peta Credlin. Picture: Damian Shaw

That’s where we are this time with Labor’s true believers unhappy with Albanese’s small target strategy and the Coalition’s true believers unhappy with the government’s Labor-lite policies.

Still, like every election, this one matters. Indeed, it matters more than most because whichever side loses will need to have a long, hard look at itself and reconsider who it represents, what it believes and how it can reconstruct an electoral majority.

The problem for Labor is the ever-deepening divide between the inner-city greens that dominate its branches and the more traditional working class that just want more jobs, higher pay and better services.

The problem for the Libs is not so different: the party is still largely run out of Kooyong in Victoria and Mosman in Sydney, yet the party’s voters are increasingly in the outer-suburbs and regional seats. Neither party has really yet adjusted to the shift from economics to culture as a key driver of people’s votes.

Many wealthy voters are more than happy to put virtue signalling on climate and identity ahead of cost of living issues given they’re financially insulated; but this remains poison for most of middle Australia whose votes are increasingly up for grabs.

On both sides, it’s harder and harder to keep within the same “broad church” the people whose concerns are mostly hip-pocket and those who think climate armageddon, gender identity, and an Aboriginal treaty matter most.

At this election, the opposition has the easier job because all it has to do is harvest the discontents that are inevitable with a government seeking a fourth term; especially one with all the bitterness that comes from forcing out two prime ministers and a leader who was a key figure in both oustings.

Peta Credlin says the election is a decision between bad and worse. Picture: Sky News

Even if the Liberal candidates just parachuted into crucial NSW seats were all world-beaters – which they’re not – the government has enraged many of its own supporters by ignoring the internal party democracy members were promised in 2017. But Labor has its own internal problems too, exemplified by national executive control of the rorted Victorian branch and the ruthless exercise of factional power that contributed to the premature death of Senator Kimberley Kitching.

Then there’s the general disgruntlement that so many feel as the pandemic grinds on into its third year.

Plus a national cabinet that reduced the PM from national leader to mere committee chairman and didn’t stop pointless border closures. Despite being told how well our economy has weathered this storm, in the seats that make or break government, cost of living is biting and voting decisions will inevitably turn on “what’s in it for me?”

The basic problem as this campaign kicks off is that neither major party is proposing anything – as yet – that would deal with any of our big issues. The government says it will just keep doing what it’s already done – with a few dams in Queensland thrown in. The opposition says “me-too” on borders, national security and climate – and throws in a few un-costed, detail-free commitments like 24/7 nurses in aged care homes, while unable to tell voters who will be defence minister or minister in charge of our borders if they win.

Essentially, it’s a government that’s run out of ideas versus an opposition that wants to keep its real ideas under wraps and a Labor leader that isn’t really in control. Ask anyone in business what’s their biggest problem and apart from suffocating bureaucracy it’s the massive difficultly in getting staff after a two-year pause in immigration.

Anthony Albanese will be forced into the glare of proper media scrutiny. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

The government’s only answer is to resume immigration as quickly as possible back up to Rudd record levels, yet with over a million Australians still on unemployment, either employers have dropped the ball on training and wages or too many Australians have become work-shy. Why won’t the government insist that everyone under 50 who’s been on benefits for six months be in continuous, compulsory work for the dole? Or tell school leavers that they have to earn or learn, not bludge, as the 2014 budget proposed?

Or even let our pensioners who want to work, earn a little more, without impacting their benefits?

Then there’s net zero emissions by 2050 which the government says will be achieved through technology not taxes, while continuing to rule out the only form of emissions-free base load power. There’s no logic whatsoever to having nuclear power at sea (in our submarines) but not on land yet both sides persist in this folly.

There’s the politically correct indoctrination of our children through teaching all topics from an Indigenous, Asian and sustainability perspective – in other words, our country is illegitimate, our culture is inadequate, and our environment is being destroyed – yet neither side is prepared to stand up for Australia if that means a fight with the progressive educational establishment.

My problem with the Morrison government is not that it’s been bad but that it should have been so much better. But I’m also alive to the reality that the Opposition would be worse. Not a great place to start with a long campaign ahead of us.

I just hope the Liberals drop the unity ticket with Labor and really start to fight because you can’t win an election sitting on the fence, or being a paler version of your opponent.

WE CAN BE MASTERS OF UKRAINE’S DESTINY

It’s great that the first of 20 Australian Bushmaster armoured troop carriers are on the way to Ukraine. But I can’t be alone in willing leaders around the world to do more.

Vladimir Putin is not the only dictator on the march and, if victorious there, he’ll target other parts of what was once greater Russia; so the Ukrainians aren’t just fighting for their own freedom but for everyone’s.

Australia has about 1000 Bendigo-built Bushmasters, mostly sitting in a big yard near Brisbane airport.

A Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle bound for Ukraine is reversed onto a C-17A Globemaster III aircraft, at RAAF Base Amberley, Queensland.

Why couldn’t we have sent 50 or even 100? The more we send the bigger the morale boost to the Ukrainians, and it’s not as if Putin could suddenly target us; as he might, conceivably, have targeted the Poles for the MIG jets they wanted to send but that the Americans vetoed.

As things stand, despite their heroism, the Ukrainians are slowly being pulverised.

If Australia could intervene to stop massacres in East Timor; and if Britain and France could intervene in Libya; and if NATO could intervene in the Balkans, what is it other than fear that prevents a similar humanitarian intervention here?

With the UN not much more than a rolling talkfest on climate and gender, but demonstrably weak on the very values it was founded to protect – human rights, sovereignty, global order – the leaders of the West must step up. But, will they? Have you noticed how, under Joe Biden, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence has been redefined. Once, you couldn’t attack a nuclear weapons state, lest that start World War III.

Now, you can’t resist a nuclear armed state without risking World War III. Given the attitude of the current regimes in Moscow and Beijing, that’s not exactly a recipe for a more peaceful world.

WATCH PETA ON CREDLIN ON SKY NEWS, WEEKNIGHTS AT 6PM

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Morrison or Albanese? Decision time has arrived for middle Australia