Labor draws first blood, but the election fight has just started
John Howard was able to permanently damage Labor’s Kim Beazley as opposition leader with a once-only line that his then opponent ‘didn’t have the ticker’ to be PM. Peter Dutton has his own equivalent.
Anthony Albanese is a great tennis fan, sometimes to his own detriment, and he understands even delivering a couple of service aces halfway through a close game is not game, set and match.
There is no doubt the Albanese government has the wind in its sails after the dramatic decision to redesign the stage three tax cuts, and that political momentum has shifted back to Labor with a complete inversion of the atmosphere between the last sitting of parliament in 2023 and the first in 2024.
But a reversal of fortune, even on the back of a substantial policy change and political victory, does not justify the sense of confidence of some Labor MPs – no doubt hugely relieved they have not gone backwards – that the game is over and they have Peter Dutton’s measure.
Certainly, the Prime Minister does not think this is a winning stroke and has plans for a year of campaigning of relieving cost-of-living pressures and destroying the Opposition Leader’s credibility.
For his part, Dutton has essentially the same 12-month retail campaign in mind pointing to the continuing rise in prices and pressures for mortgages, rent, energy, petrol and groceries while hammering Albanese’s self-induced character catastrophe over the broken promise and having a “liar in the Lodge”.
Neither leader thinks the game is already won or lost; both intend to go all out through to 6pm on election day, due in May next year, and both will strive to strike the first real electoral blow at the March 2 Dunkley by-election.
Albanese is driven by the credo of having been underestimated all his life; and Dutton’s determination is being driven by Labor’s assumption of him being unfit and unable to take office.
For now, and for the next few months, the political debate will be about the tax cuts, pressure on households, expectations of more relief in the May budget, demands for the Coalition’s new tax policy, and the fate of inflation and interest rates. But the real contest through to next year will be about the integrity of Albanese and the leadership competence of Dutton.
Like it or not, the past few months have only intensified the electoral focus on leaders, heightened the role of short-term policy fixes, and ensured that both sides see character assassination as an essential part of the next 12 months’ strategy.
Over the summer break, Albanese deliberately and desperately fought to ensure he staunched a loss of support and did not fall into the slump of support before the resumption of parliament that so many governments have suffered and which directly led to the destruction of the leadership of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.
What’s more, Albanese decided to “do something big” to regain political momentum, capture public attention and put Dutton on the defensive after the Opposition Leader had dominated parliament and politics before Christmas.
That “something big” was to redesign the legislated stage three tax cuts to redistribute the bounty of bracket creep to lower income earners, leave the Coalition with no political choice but to support the tax cuts, and take the risk of damage to his personal standing because he had broken a promise and told a lie.
This week in parliament, Albanese moved to reject the notion that the tax cuts were a reworking of Scott Morrison’s six-year Coalition tax plan, declaring these were “Labor’s tax cuts” aimed at relieving cost-of-living pressures, accused the Coalition of wanting to “roll back” the tax cuts if elected, and tried to deflect integrity questions onto Dutton.
“These tax cuts are aimed squarely at Middle Australia, providing support for those hardworking Australians who need this support. But we’re also making sure that people aren’t left behind, like under the previous system – making sure that every single Australian gets a tax cut,” he said.
“We have a tax package that provides taxpayer relief for every single Australian taxpayer, all 13.6 million of them – not just some, every one of them, including those who earn up to $45,000 a year. But we know as well that, overwhelmingly, Middle Australia are the big beneficiaries of our tax package,” he told parliament.
Albanese taunted the Coalition over not standing by the stage three tax cuts – which provided the last stage of tax relief, for higher income earners – and opposing the new plan.
“They (the Coalition) say that the decision that this government has made is wrong and, therefore, the original position should have remained in place. If you do that, you will vote against this legislation,” he said.
“Unless you do that, you’re not fair dinkum; it’s all about politics, it’s all just wind,” he said.
Albanese was reinvigorated after his six-week election-style campaign across the nation since the middle of December and energised by the white-knuckle ride he has embarked upon.
On the last day of parliament last year, Albanese gave a sad and disconnected end-of-year parliamentary message and left the chamber on his own as his colleagues were subdued and silently looking at mobile phones and their fingernails.
On the last day of the first week of parliament this year, Albanese was cheered and applauded by Labor colleagues pounding their desks as he set out “Labor’s tax cuts for all” and derided an indecisive and contradictory opposition jammed by his “broken promise” to rewrite the legislated stage three tax cuts.
“I’m asked about tax policy and what people think about tax policy as well. Well, those opposite have described it – our policy to give tax cuts to every Australian – in the following terms: ‘an egregious error’, ‘a betrayal’, ‘treachery’, ‘trickery’, ‘absolutely shameful’, ‘class warfare’, ‘war on aspiration’, ‘lifetime tax on aspiration’, ‘divisive’, ‘regressive’, ‘morally bankrupt’, ‘handful of dollars’, ‘inflationary’, ‘a big tax grab’ and ‘Marxist economics’,” he said.
“It was going to ‘obliterate opportunity’, ‘crush confidence’ and ‘undermine the strength of the economy’. They said all that before they declared they were going to vote for it. You can’t be taken seriously,” Albanese sneered.
Of course, Albanese concentrated on the upside of the tax backflip with the tax breaks for 13.6 million people, the benefits for female workers and those aged between 18 and 34 years old, the strong public endorsement of the 62 per cent approval for the decision in Newspoll, and conversion of a Coalition phased cut for higher income earners into a Labor tax cut for Middle Australia.
Dutton, having taken the pragmatic political decision of not standing in the way of additional tax cuts for people on lower incomes, concentrated on the downside – essentially that Albanese can no longer be trusted, the PM is a liar who broke his word, every avenue for higher tax on superannuation, housing, investment, capital gains and trusts is now open to a scare campaign, and the tax cuts will not deliver enough relief to households still suffering from financial stress.
John Howard was able to permanently damage Labor’s Kim Beazley as opposition leader with a once-only line that his then opponent “didn’t have the ticker” to be prime minister.
The Dutton equivalent is that there is a “liar in the Lodge” and Albanese’s claim that his word was his bond is false.
Albanese is obviously aware of the damage this campaign can do but argues that people will remember the tax cuts and give him credit for changing his position when the facts changed.
It’s Dutton’s intent to continue zeroing in on Albanese as a liar and he skated around the rules on unparliamentary language – which outlaws the use of lie or liar – and said on almost 20 occasions on Thursday afternoon that he could imagine Albanese “lying in bed at the Lodge”. The day before, Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan had asked Albanese about treaty and “truth telling” as well as being ejected after turning an Albanese joke about Jack Nicholson’s Few Good Men by declaring “you can’t handle the truth”.
Apart from the theatrics. Dutton is prosecuting the line that the tax cuts, and unfulfilled promise of a $275 cut in household power bills, will not be enough to temper the ongoing rise in retail costs.
“You’ve got pensioners and people on fixed incomes, self-funded retirees who are sweltering through summer because they can’t afford to turn the airconditioning on, or going to bed much earlier at night to turn the lights off and not have the TV running,” he said on Thursday.
“You’ve got a system – I think the energy system in this country is a complete disaster. It’s one of the biggest factors in inflation because, as we’ve discussed before, every farmer’s facing the same increase in their power costs that you are in your household, cold rooms are more expensive to run, the glasses are more expensive to manufacture that you buy your goods in at the supermarket – and again, the farmers can’t absorb that, it’s passed on through higher prices when you go to Coles and Woolies,” he said.
Albanese and Dutton are going to be arguing opposite sides of the same coin for the next year.
More Coverage
Wake up, Australia! We’re a coin toss away from a mass casualty attack
People are planning it. They are itching to do it. It will finish off Albanese’s leadership as sure as it will harm the innocents among us.
The very real danger of the ‘cashed-up boomer’ stereotype
I’m a widowed, sometimes lonely 80-year-old in the early stages of dementia — and also, apparently, a repository of untapped wealth. Many of my elderly friends are being badly mistreated by their children.