Cost-of-living election campaign looms as long-term issues press in

Federal elections have come to have a certain predictability. Incumbents stand on records, and challengers attack achievements, and both promise a few dollars to blunt the rising pain of the cost of living.

With polls suggesting a tight race, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have opted for safe tactics targeting the hip-pocket rather than new and bold ideas that could energise voters. Decades of leadership challenges have tainted political innovation, and leaders now fear big ideas and avoid consensus on reform while espousing policies that hardly differ.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese listening as Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivers the budget speech.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

But the May 3 election is among the most important in recent times. It comes at a crucial moment for our country.

Australia must plot a path to economic prosperity and social harmony, deal with climate change and the continuing threats to democracy exposed by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. These same challenges confronted Albanese and Scott Morrison in 2022, but the unknown task ahead of whoever wins government will be negotiating Donald Trump’s unfamiliar, chaotic new world.

While it is impossible to predict the outcome, Australians can sense the most likely prospect at this point: 41 per cent expect a hung parliament. Even so, nobody should assume this is a certainty. There is the chance of a swing so powerful that Dutton takes office. There is also the possibility of a Labor majority.

Our chief political correspondent David Crowe noted that a prime minister who finishes his first term will usually be given another. If Albanese wins, he will be the first prime minister since John Howard in 2004 to be re-elected after serving a full term.

Albanese has been spending heavily on health and education, two of Labor’s perceived advantages, and has made a populist play for votes with a $17.1 billion personal tax cut. Dutton has appealed to families with a $6 billion cut to fuel excise in a budget reply speech that doubled as an election campaign speech. It also offered his startling Trumpian take of an Australia in crisis – a nation in urgent need of a new direction with a new leader.

Dutton’s distant future plan for seven nuclear power stations has the appearance of the election’s only big vision policy. But so distant and problematic, his proposal risks polarising rather than uniting voters.

This is clearly an election about the cost of living. We have said previously that neither side has provided adequate answers to address the damage caused by the housing crisis and escalating supermarket prices. Australia needs more ideas that will lift growth, add to household wealth and build a stronger nation. But so far, only platitudes have been forthcoming. We hope the situation will change over the election campaign.

The Herald will eventually take a position on which party or candidates it backs. However, for now, we make a commitment to readers that we will cover the next five weeks without fear or favour, and focus on issues such as these that really matter to Australia’s future.

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