Come on PM, give us a reason to vote for you

While the Morrison government may not deserve to be re-elected, Australia deserves so much better than a Labor-Greens government. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

It’s smart politics of Scott Morrison to stress that the coming election is not a referendum but a choice; it’s not a chance to pass judgment on his government, he insists, but a contest between two sides.

Political strategists are quick to remind candidates in a campaign that you don’t have to be the best to win, just to be better than your opponent. When both are middling to ordinary, that’s a sorry choice for voters, especially with the left busily pretending it’s not as left as it really is, and the right having forgotten who put it into power.

The government that’s going into this election is almost unrecognisable from the one elected in 2013. It’s not just that 2013 is three prime ministers and three treasurers ago. It’s more that the government originally elected to be the antithesis of Rudd-Gillard-Rudd has become Labor-lite, only marginally less spendthrift, a little less authoritarian and somewhat less politically correct than the alternative. At least that’s how it seems to all the people who supported the 2014 budget, who wanted affordable and reliable electricity more than emissions reduction and who nodded approval when the then prime minister told business rent-seekers he would not run down the street waving a cheque book at them.

I wonder how many people now feel politically homeless: alienated from a Labor Party addicted to taxing and spending and captured by identity politics; yet abandoned by a Liberal Party that boasts about good economic statistics that don’t wholly capture what’s happening in the real world and owe much less to government than to the hard work of individuals making the most of a bad situation? A Liberal Party that wants to be rewarded for its management of a pandemic that has been the most miserable time most of us can remember, not from the disease but from the policy to deal with it?

Former Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd, and Julia Gillard. Picture: Liam Kidston

Of course, there are still some sound MPs in the Coalition ranks; it’s just a shame the left-wing Liberal moderates have influence in the party room that’s far in excess of their support in the electorate.

Indeed, history shows the Liberal Party gets elected only running on a conservative platform and loses office once it drifts.

That’s why there is such disillusionment among many Liberal supporters, dismayed that there’s no big political party that’s rock-solid for lower taxes, smaller government and greater freedom, plus support for the family, small business and the institutions that have made this country what it is.

On the issue dominating the first parliamentary week of the year, good on the Prime Minister for wanting to protect religious freedom (which his predecessor promised but never delivered), but by leaving it until 11 minutes to midnight he has thrown a grenade into his own ranks when he desperately needs unity.

Then there’s the sheer madness of trying to hold the base, who were told at the 2019 election that Labor’s 45 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 was “economy wrecking” but that the Libs’ net-zero emissions by 2050 would somehow create jobs.

To Morrison’s credit, the government consistently has stood up to China, and the AUKUS nuclear sub deal is a decision of generational significance even though it won’t be consummated for many years.

But what else is there for long-suffering Liberals to cheer? What sort of a national leader makes excuses for a Labor premier locking out the rest of the country? Then there’s the draft national curriculum: toned down a bit, sure; but now that home-schooling parents know what their children are being taught (or not) and can better understand why we are rapidly sliding down the world rankings, picking a fight with Labor on education standards is a no-brainer. Yet the silence is deafening.

And while nuclear power is finally OK at sea, why on earth is it still prohibited on land?

To win an election, you neutralise where you can and bring on a fight where you must. A good campaigner knows there must be a clear choice, and the only way to get that clarity is to define your opponents and tackle them head-on. Now the opposition is on the field and the government is still half-dressed in the changerooms.

I suspect many lifelong Liberals will cast a protest vote for fringe parties of the right, especially in NSW where Machiavellian manoeuvres by the Prime Minister’s representative on the state executive mean the Liberals still have no endorsed candidates in eight key federal seats because Alex Hawke didn’t like the potential outcome of democratic preselections. A few even may vote Labor to punish their own party in the hope that a stint in opposition may force the Libs to wake up to themselves.

Yet, despite everything, it’s still better to vote for the Coalition. Rather than join protest parties, it’s preferable that disgruntled conservatives stay on the inside to fight for their convictions, where they may make a difference in government. As Paul Keating once said in another context, you may want to punish the government but please don’t punish the country. While the Morrison government may not deserve to be re-elected, Australia deserves so much better than a Labor-Greens government.

Anthony Albanese has played a very careful game to date. The Opposition Leader improved his presentation and managed to frame the narrative around the Prime Minister’s character. It’s textbook small-target stuff: dropping the taxes on retirees and investors; promising there would be no move to a republic in Labor’s first term; “me too-ing” the government on AUKUS; and promising no deals with the Greens (as Julia Gillard did until she reneged). Yet this is the same lifelong left-winger who said “I like fighting Tories, that’s what I do”; who voted against asylum-seeker boat turn-backs; who has long supported wealth taxes; and who will recognise Palestine as an “important priority”.

To win seats, Labor needs Greens preferences and may well need that party’s support to form a government. Does anyone really think Albanese would deny a moratorium on all new fossil fuel projects if that was the price of the Lodge? And what about the rest of the Greens’ agenda: coal exports stopped by 2030 and all other fossil fuel exports by 2040; a wealth tax; death duties; higher capital gains taxes; no offshore processing of boatpeople; and cuts to military spending?

Albanese will furiously deny this pre-election but would he be any different from Joe Biden, who campaigned as a centrist but has governed as the most left-wing US president; or Kevin Rudd, who promised to turn back boats but started them up again, and whose claimed fiscal conservatism produced a quarter trillion dollars in cumulative deficits?

I keep trying to tell myself that conservative disappointment with Morrison is no reason to inflict on the country a green-left government. Maybe if Morrison can frame Albanese as effectively as he himself has been fitted up, he still could pull off a second miracle. Or he could just go back to conservative fundamentals.

I know what I would prefer.

Peta Credlin is the host of Credlin on Sky News, 6pm weeknights.