Coalition formulating an election winning strategy

Less than six months ago, the Morrison government had two glaring weaknesses. It didn’t have an economic and political strategy beyond delivering a budget surplus and faced an Opposition Leader determined to undermine the Prime Minister’s strong personal standing.

Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg were criticised for not having a comprehensive, long-term strategy and relying on being “back in the black” in the then scheduled May budget.

Anthony Albanese was making inroads into Morrison’s personal support, significantly helped by an own goal by Morrison travelling overseas during the bushfires.

There was a possibility that while the budget was “in balance”, it could just fail to make a real surplus and that would have eroded Morrison’s support.

Ironically, the wiping out of any budget surplus and the creation of a decade of deficits by the COVID-19 pandemic has now given the Coalition a solid basis for a credible long-term strategic plan for economic recovery with widespread reforms.

Coincidentally, in the short term, Albanese’s ability to damage Morrison’s personal standing has dramatically diminished because of the coronavirus crisis and the sudden distraction of the Victorian Labor branch-stacking scandal.

Morrison was able to start this sitting of parliament with a wide-ranging economic outlook, a “five-year plan”, massive infrastructure spending and the promise of reforms to industrial relations, regulations, planning and energy all made possible by the disruption of COVID-19 and the need to create jobs.

Morrison talked about short-term support and long-term recovery, the terrible pain of Australia’s first recession in 29 years and the huge spending required regardless of budget deficits.

There was the confidence of someone who now has a clear job ahead and a long-term strategy. Australia’s relative success globally, “top tier” as Morrison said, has given an authority and direction to the Coalition that was missing from a government and leader that had to rely on a “miracle” to be re-elected and seemed too tentative to look beyond the budget.

Confronted with a question about how many people would lose their jobs when the JobKeeper payment ended, Morrison didn’t fall for the trap of recent decades of declaring there “would be no losers”.

He refused to make “fake promises” and said no one could guarantee there would be no job losses or businesses closures when the $1500 a fortnight payment stopped. Now that Morrison has a long-term plan and vision, he is wisely refusing to have his actions curtailed or bound by unrealistic promises designed to pander to a sense of grievance.

Morrison was even able to turn Labor’s attack back on Albanese, off balance by the sacking of a Victorian state minister over branch-stacking and power plays, highlighting a negative Labor approach to all economic responses to the crisis, even the ones they supported.

That the drums are beating on the Labor side about the factional power consequences of the Victorian scandal and on the Coalition side about an election late next year demonstrates how much things have changed and what a difference a real strategy can make.