PM, you need to force Albanese into the ring

Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison. Picture: NCA Newswire

The coming election will see both sides in furious agreement with each other. And while this might work to some degree in opposition it’s no way for a government to hold office. Scott Morrison may see himself as a supreme campaigner but he’s confusing tactics with strategy if he thinks he can win by essentially copying Labor on policy while hoping to win on personality.

Even though the issues facing our country have rarely been greater, what’s likely is a contest that could hardly be more trivial.

The Prime Minister’s dig at his opponent this week – “I’m not pretending to be anyone else … I’m still wearing the same sunglasses … the same suits … the same size” – is a taste of what’s to come, and expect it to be nastier and more puerile from Labor. If neither side wants to argue over policy, what’s left other than claims and counterclaims about character and competence?

This week’s signalling that the budget will not bring forward the third tranche of tax cuts but will feature “targeted assistance to ease cost-of-living pressures” is another sign of a government that won’t fight over policy even where its brand demands it.

What’s obvious is that a government elected nine years ago railing against a “budget emergency” and promising to rein in “debt and deficit stretching as far as the eye can see” has decided to give voters what it thinks they want: more spending because, as Ronald Reagan once joked, the deficit is big enough and ugly enough to look after itself.

The brutal reality is neither side has a credible plan to reduce government spending and to make the economy more productive. And because that would involve asking something of voters, there’s not the slightest pressure on them to do so.

Both sides say they will achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 – notwithstanding British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s call for a “climate change pass” in light of the world’s renewables-driven dependency on Russian gas – but neither will touch the civil nuclear power needed to make their commitments credible. Imagine if Morrison had not junked the Coalition’s sensible climate policy that balanced environmental imperatives with economic ones. Given baseload power plant closures and concern about energy security, he would be vindicated now. Instead, his Glasgow kumbaya has made his conservative base even crankier and many Coalition MPs are struggling to find the usual volunteer workforce for the campaign.

On national security, both sides say they support a stronger Australian Defence Force, including nuclear-powered submarines, but neither has a plan to get them soon even though they’re needed now, not in two decades.

And since Alan Tudge’s departure as education minister, neither side wants to do anything about the left-wing indoctrination that substitutes Invasion Day and climate catastrophism for academic rigour in our schools even though, after two years of home schooling, parents are across what their children are (or are not) learning as never before.

Morrison or Anthony Albanese will be our leader for the next three years but, absent these Clark Kents transforming into policy supermen, neither will have a mandate to do anything other than keep up the policy tinkering and ineffective spending.

The only hint of what’s likely to change is provided by the basic orientation of the main parties, suggesting the Coalition should spend somewhat less, regulate a bit more reluctantly, be marginally less politically correct and a little stronger on national security than the alternative.

Robert Menzies, Malcolm Fraser, John Howard and Tony Abbott didn’t win government from opposition by being paler versions of Labor and Morrison won’t hold it if he doesn’t wise up to the reality that he has to sharpen the differences with his opponent if he hopes to win, not water down what the Liberal Party stands for or be spooked to shift even further to the left by the Voices of movement – Labor’s not-so-secret weapon. It’s these backroom machinations and what’s at stake for our country that I’ll expose in my Sky News documentary The Campaign Uncovered, which will air on April 5.

If you look back at the 2010 election, it was a clear contest on climate change policy where the Coalition won more seats than Labor (only losing the ensuing negotiation with crossbenchers hellbent on minority Labor government). The 2013 election was another clear contest on climate, plus border security and Labor’s wasteful spending, which delivered Abbott his landslide win. In 2019, it was a contest on climate plus Labor’s aggressive new taxes on retirees and investors.

Elections where the Coalition has done worst were those that were more coronation than contest: in 2007 when, bizarrely, it was Kevin Rudd who declared “reckless spending must stop”; and 2016, which Malcolm Turnbull tried to turn into a political beauty contest with Bill Shorten and ended up losing 14 seats. That’s why Morrison’s reluctance to engage on policy is so surprising, especially as his biggest achievement, the AUKUS security deal, was such a bold gamble.

What we’re likely to see is more of the “leadership” that has been on display so far: schmaltzy photo ops demonstrating empathy (such as Morrison’s cringe-worthy effort washing a woman’s hair); and spending announcements designed to reinforce public perceptions about each side’s strengths (such as defence spending from Morrison and education spending from his opponent).

To the extent that there’s any policy debate, it will be mostly the opposition highlighting the government’s supposed failures on the vaccine rollout and disaster management, and the government targeting the Opposition Leader’s past as a left-wing factional warrior. It won’t be edifying and it certainly won’t challenge voters to come to grips with the probability of harder times ahead as the world polarises into competing armed camps.

It was telling that both leaders used recent 60 Minutes profiles to tell us about themselves rather than to explain their record or give us their plans for our country’s future. Without a clear distinction on specific policies, whatever the underlying differences might be, the contest looks like vanilla v vanilla.

I know there are some in the Liberal camp who think keeping their head down will get them over the line. They forget you don’t win elections without getting your base on side and you don’t do that without standing for something. To have any chance of turning things around, the Coalition needs to pick a fight with Labor and throw everything at it; it has to drag Albanese into the ring, forcing him to choose between meeting the concerns of the hard left of his caucus and those of the marginal-seat voters who will determine the election. Unless it does this, the Coalition is merely managing its defeat.

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