Peta Credlin: PM betting on tax cuts, energy bill handouts and a surplus to win over voters again

The Albanese Government thinks tax cuts, energy bill handouts and a surplus maximises its chances of winning a second term and we’ll be going to the polls sooner rather than later, writes Peta Credlin.

With the Government’s budget and the opposition’s reply to it now done, it’s game on for an early election. Preening itself for its budget cleverness, the Albanese Government thinks that tax cuts, energy bill handouts and a surplus maximise its chances of winning a second term.

But after four quarters of shrinking GDP per person, a recession for households if not for the economy, the opposition thinks that the Albanese Government is an experiment that’s failed and that voters are ready to reject more cost-of-living pain.

On display last week were two quite different approaches to government, meaning for the first time since 2013, we’re going to have an election where there is a real choice between the two major parties.

On the Labor side, they want to close down our resource industries and rapidly shift Australia to a net zero economy with big government to force us there if necessary and use taxpayer handouts to mask any pain.

The Coalition, by contrast, wants to pull Australia back from the cliff that Labor is taking us over, reduce the pace of change and push back against its politically correct excesses.

Despite promising to be “safe change” before the election, the Albanese Government is turning out to be our most green-left ever.

An early election is on the cards. . Picture: NewsWire/David Crosling

The Voice was an attempt to entrench race and identity politics in the constitution.

It’s using high immigration to push its Big Australia agenda. It wants unions to drive business decisions and courts to shut down new coal and gas projects. It lacks the will to enforce tough border protection and is torn over the anti-Semitic protests breaking out across the country because it’s worried about the high Muslim vote in many Labor seats.

Last week, Labor claimed the surplus as a badge of economic honour, even though it was largely on the back of extra tax from the coal and gas exports that it wants to end.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers MP arrive for post budget media interviews at Parliament House. Picture: Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

And it boasted about its $300 energy bill handout and its extra support for renters, even though household electricity bills are up $1000 in many cases since the election, thanks to renewables; and rents are skyrocketing due to record high immigration.

And even though our country needs more builders, plumbers, sparkies, chippies, and welders – indeed anyone who can make things – Labor instead wants eight out of 10 workers to have university degrees, probably because graduates have a propensity to vote for the green-left.

For all the Government’s plans to invest in new (and largely unproven) industries like green hydrogen, the reality is that we are losing the industries we actually have because of the high cost of gas and electricity.

Last month, our last big plastics manufacturer, Qenos, announced it would close; meaning we are now dependent on Chinese imports.

Last week, the Orica boss wondered out aloud why anyone would manufacture in Australia.

And, on budget day, the Cadbury boss threatened to move his manufacturing operation offshore.

By steadily closing down the industries that have sustained our prosperity, without any clear alternative in place, the government is putting our economic future at risk.

Peter Dutton knows this, hence his budget reply pitch for zero-emissions nuclear power, on the sites of old coal-fired plants, to lower bills, keep the lights on and heavy industry jobs in Australia, as well as more gas.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton used his budget reply to pitch for zero-emissions nuclear power and promise to cut the permanent migration intake by 25 per cent. Picture: Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

Dutton also promised to cut the permanent migration intake by 25 per cent, at least for the short term, and to better manage the foreign student intake that’s driven net-overseas migration to almost a million in the past two years.

Dutton knows that much lower migration is the key to taking the heat off rents and house prices and he’s also renewed the Morrison era commitment to allow first home buyers access to up to $50,000 from their super.

Just as Anthony Albanese used growing up in government housing with a mother on a sole parent pension to define his political personality, Dutton is using his past as a policeman, small business operator, and minister for defence and border security to let voters know that he’ll keep them safe and free.

Elected with a primary vote of just 32 per cent, this is not a government that’s ever had deep support, and the longer it lasts, the worse it has done.

By contrast, Peter Dutton’s performance keeps improving as his budget reply shows.

As well, the more time he has, the less he’ll be tainted by bad voter memories of Scott Morrison.

Hard heads in Labor will be thinking that this is as good as it gets, politically and economically, especially as the government’s big spending budget puts pressure on the Reserve Bank to lift rates.

So off to an early election they will go while voters might still be prepared to give the Albanese Government the benefit of the doubt.

EASY TO KICK OUT A TENANT WHEN TAXPAYERS PAY FOR YOUR FOOD AND RENT

Sometimes in politics it’s the little things that cut through and they go on to define the character of a leader.

And so it is with Anthony Albanese’s decision to evict the tenant in his Sydney investment property.

For a PM who says he understands the concerns of those doing it tough, this is an incredible own goal. For the life of me, I can’t understand how, in the middle of a housing crisis fuelled by his decision to lift immigration to record levels, he could make the politically stupid move to evict anyone. But here we are. And it speaks volumes about the PM’s judgment and that of his office.

Let’s not forget that the PM has the choice of four homes to live in – the two Sydney properties he owns, and then the two mansions – The Lodge and Kirribilli House – that we pay for as taxpayers.

When we talk about the high cost of electricity, do you know that the Prime Minister doesn’t pay a power bill? You pay for it. When we talk about pain at the supermarket, do you know that the Prime Minister doesn’t pay for groceries, that his two housekeepers (yes, two) pay for them with your credit card? The beer in his fridge, his toothpaste, even the toilet paper – all of that is paid for by you.

As is his car, his petrol, his mobile phone, his computer, even the pen on his desk. You pay for the lot. Which leaves a lot of his $587,000 salary in his pocket doesn’t it?

I bet you didn’t know all that detail – few people do. But I know it because I worked for a PM.

But where Tony Abbott was different is that when he lived in Kirribilli House, he didn’t rent out his Sydney family home. Unlike Albanese, Abbott didn’t think it was right that he profited on his empty home while living in a house paid for by taxpayers.

This current PM is different. Not only does he make big money renting out his homes but he’s kicking out one of his tenants to try and make even more.

He says: “my circumstances have changed” but does anyone really think, once he’s married, he and Jodie are going to leave their harbourside mansion to live in Marrickville?

Of course not.

Yet again with Labor. Do as I say, not as I do.

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Originally published as Peta Credlin: PM betting on tax cuts, energy bill handouts and a surplus to win over voters again