Federal election: Who Australia’s media outlets are backing for PM

The country’s major media outlets have laid out their case for who they believe Australians should vote for tomorrow. Here’s what they say.

The country’s major media outlets have laid out their case for who they believe Australians should vote for tomorrow.

Here’s what today’s editorials say.

Should ScoMo get another three years? Picture: Rohan Thomson, Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

TEAM SCOMO

The Australian

Choosing a leader for the challenges of tomorrow

“The government has struggled to complete serious reform, troubled by silly distractions and absurd personal scandals. But Mr Morrison should be credited for ending the climate wars, despite Mr Albanese’s atttemps to revive them throughout this campaign, and for taking on the tech giants and standing up to China’s brackish behaviour.

“Alternatively, can Mr Albanese be trusted to preserve the nation’s strong position and deliver the better, more caring future he demands? In our judgment, the answer is clear. Mr Morrison has endured the worst a world can throw at a national leader and Australia has emerged stronger. Mr Albanese has not proven himself ready to assume the high office he seeks.”

The Daily Telegraph

Bungler versus bulldozer: Vote for the ‘dozer in this election

“[Anthony Albanese’s] first errors, made under very little pressure, occurred in the very first hours of the 2022 campaign.

“Scott Morrison’s campaign performance, by contrast, was big on detail and contained a breakthrough housing policy allowing people to access their super.

“There have been notable fumbles, yet in most key areas the government – throughout the triple challenges of deadly bushfires, a historic pandemic and then raging floods – has been altogether laudable.”

The Daily Telegraph makes its case for Scott Morrison.

Herald Sun

Too much at stake

“This is an audition for the toughest job in the nation and Mr Albanese has failed spectacularly to inspire voter confidence.

“The Coalition and Mr Morrison have been far from perfect, particularly the early failure to secure adequate volume of vaccines.

“But the current PM is a known quantity, a tough leader with runs on the board who has guided Australia through the most testing period since World War II, with a record the envy of most of the world.

“Neither party has outlined a bold vision for Australia’s future. But in a context of competency and trust, the Coalition is a clear winner. With so much at stake, now is not the time to take a chance on Labor.”

The Courier-Mail

If your vote is about the leader, look at evidence

“Being the assumed ‘better bloke’ should never be the justification for who should lead our nation. And yet that is exactly the justification it seems many voters will use when casting their ballot on Saturday.

“This is a sad indictment on the quality of our national political discourse. What used to be a contest of ideas has degenerated into cheap tribalism.

“You might not like Mr Morrison as a bloke, but on most measures the government he leads has steered Australia safely through perhaps the most challenging of times since World War II.

“Mr Albanese has meanwhile repeatedly failed to pass the most basic of challenges over the six weeks of this campaign.”

Adelaide Advertiser

In tough times bulldozer tops a journeyman

“It’s hard to recall a worse election campaign than Mr Albanese’s gaffe-prone one.

“It is also a big call to elect a prime minister who, in more than a quarter of a century in parliament, has never held an economic portfolio at a time when the economy is hitting a rough patch despite record jobs results yesterday.

“While voters are likely to anoint Mr Albanese tomorrow, it is hard to recommend him.

“For all his faults, Mr Morrison’s economic credentials are stronger and the world is in such a state with conflict in Europe and China encroaching in the South Pacific, a bulldozer would be better than a journeyman.”

Or does Albo deserve a shot? Picture: Christian Gilles, Sam Ruttyn/NCA NewsWire

TEAM ALBO

The Sydney Morning Herald

Morrison does not deserve another term

“At a time of extraordinary domestic and international challenges, Australians have been subjected to a six-week election campaign lacking substance, inspiration and honesty. For both sides, cash handouts and funding pledges for an array of small local infrastructure projects have taken the place of serious economic reform. Voters enter polling booths tomorrow understandably underwhelmed and torn.

“The Herald shares Australia’s despondency – particularly at the lack of policy ambition. Labor is still badly burnt from the rejection of its expansive 2019 election reform agenda and has run a small-target strategy in 2022 built around a core proposition that Albanese is not Scott Morrison. Voters deserve better.

“The Coalition, though, has even fewer excuses for its wafer-thin offering. A government with the advantages of incumbency should be overflowing with ideas, but the government offers a limited vision for the next three years. It is a sign of a tired government weighed down by a lacklustre frontbench.”

The Age

For integrity’s sake, our nation needs a change of government

“The unusual intervention by 31 retired judges this week calling for a strong national integrity commission was one of the most significant events of the election campaign. The government may believe this is a niche issue of scant interest in the suburbs, and perhaps it is right. But integrity is, in The Age’s view, the overarching theme of this campaign.

“It is not about an integrity commission in isolation. It is about trust in our political system to act in the public interest, about an insistence that public money be used for public, not political, purposes.

“While we despair at the lack of truth-telling in this campaign, The Age believes a change of government is needed to begin restoring integrity to federal politics and to, finally, face up to the challenge of climate change. The Coalition warns that electing Labor would be a risk, but at this election, more of the same would be the greater risk for the country.”

The Sydney Morning Herald backs Anthony Albanese.

The Guardian

Say no to spin and inaction

“Australians have watched Mr Morrison’s leadership for years. Fearful of defeat, he now concedes he may have come across as a ‘bulldozer’ at times, but only because he was intent on ‘getting things done’.

“But getting things done to what end? The record shows he has too often elevated political expediency over decent outcomes – the reckoning over the toxic workplace culture for women in Parliament House and the political weaponisation of transgender children being just two cases in point.

“Mr Albanese’s leadership qualities are untested in office but he has united Labor. The electorate may not be wildly inspired by him but a personable consensus style of leadership based on policy commitment may be exactly what it needs.”

FENCE SITTER

The West Australian

For West Aussies it’s a cost-of-living poll

“It seems like the last few days of this seemingly never-ending campaign have almost buried voters in a blizzard of numbers.

“But while debates continue about policy settings and promises and economic theories, much of it will seem removed from the realities of life for many average West Aussies who have their heads down and are working hard to make ends meet and to get ahead in life.

“For them the numbers that matter most are those on the receipt they are handed at the supermarket checkout, or what they read at the petrol bowser when they fill up so they can drive the kids to school and sport and get to work on time.

“There is a well-known mantra that elections are about “the economy, stupid”. At one level, that may well be the case.

“But at another level, this election is about the cost of living. Simple. Whoever wins government on Saturday will have a mandate to get cracking on policies which help ease that pressure.”

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