Nothing sacred as fear of power bill has spooked Coalition

If anything tells you how much fear there is in the Perrottet government over the cost-of-living, it’s the concession by Treasurer Matt Kean that a coal-burning power station may stay open.

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins

If anything tells you how much fear there is in the Perrottet government over the cost-of-living crisis that now dominates the NSW election campaign, it’s the concession by Treasurer Matt Kean that the coal-burning Eraring power station may have to stay open past its use-by date.

No one in the Coalition government – possibly no one in the Labor Party – has more strongly pushed for a transition from coal-fired power than Mr Kean, sometimes known as “Mr Green Energy”, but the spectre of household power bills rising 30 per cent over the next year has spooked the government.

Whatever it takes to keep the lights on and the bills down is now the mantra.

Nothing is sacred.

Last week, unnerved by Labor’s attacks over the crippling cost of road tolls, Premier Dominic Perrottet ruled out more privatisation of public assets, effectively burying the Coalition’s signature “asset recycling” tool that has funded billions of dollars in infrastructure projects.

Until recently, this decaf election campaign lacked a real sense of urgency in the electorate.

Well it’s here, now: a deep, almost visceral alarm about the spiralling cost of living.

The Eraring power station. Picture: Supplied

And much of it is coming from young people – who also happen to be the most uncommitted voters of all age groups.

As The Weekend Australian reported this week, younger Australians are bearing the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis, with four in 10 in financial distress. Many tenants are suddenly being hit with rent hikes of more than 40 per cent. Vacancy rates have reached record lows.

The election campaign started with a duel between Labor’s pledge to eliminate some stamp duty for first-home buyers versus the Coalition’s option of an annual land tax or a larger, one-off stamp duty.

Nice to have the choice if you can afford to buy a house but staggeringly useless if you can’t even afford to rent a flat.

But don’t write Perrottet off.

In recent polls, he’s been faring better than expected with most age groups.

He hasn’t turned out to be the religious zealot or economic hardliner many had feared when he took the reins from the widely respectedGladys Berejiklian.

He confronted two potentially lethal hit-jobs that sought to tar him with those brushes – the revelation he’d worn a Nazi costume to his 21st birthday party and a Four Corners program attempting to link him to Opus Dei – and walked away unscathed.

Labor is still ahead in the latest Newspoll survey – by 52-48 on a two-party-preferred basis - but the Coalition is catching up, at least in older voters.

It’s younger voters – and we’re talking people up to their mid-30s – who still aren’t buying what Perrottet has to offer.

Asked if the Coalition “deserve to be re-elected”, only 28 per cent of 18-34-year-olds would give it another chance, down from 29 per cent in September.

Boomers and Gen X may be coming back to the Coalition, but Millennials and Gen Z haven’t blinked.

The government needs to convince these voters it deserves to be re-elected if wants to claw back Labor’s lead.

So it was no surprise to see the Premier on Friday heading to East Hills, the government’s most marginal electorate, to unveil a hastily cobbled-together rental policy that included a commitment to introduce “reasonable-grounds” requirements for landlords to evict tenants.

That was already Labor policy, but Perrottet didn’t even blush.

Whatever it takes.