Election wash-up

The landslide win for Federal Labor was surprising as pundits predicted a close result, possibly not decided for days. 

The Liberal-National Party Coalition headed into the election campaign well in front of Labor – 52 to 48 per cent.

Opposition leader Dutton had been brutally successful with: “Are you better off after three years of Labor?” But the more astute question is ‘Who can make you better off in the next three years?’

The LNP was unsuccessful in converting discontent with Labor into support for the LNP.

Unfortunately, they ran a poor campaign, reversing some policies like work-from-home and EV tax breaks, backtracking on others like sacking public servants and also providing many confusing messages. 

Dutton strayed from the main game of cost-of-living into culture wars, while Prime Minister Albanese was disciplined and stayed on topic. 

The four election debates between the PM and Opposition leader sparked huge interest and Dutton didn’t win any of them and got towelled up by Albanese in the last one.

To win next time, the LNP needs to develop a suite of policies early and then sell them repeatedly like Labor. 

Specifically, they need a strong small business policy. Their policy of tax breaks for small and medium sized businesses for entertainment expenses would seem to be a rort that leads to longer lunches and not more productivity. 

Also, they need to do much more for inner city and suburban voters as they have very few seats in these areas across Australia. 

They are not connecting with first home buyers and renters. 

The LNP policy of super-for-a-home-deposit doesn’t work as most young people don’t have enough super to make a meaningful dent in a deposit and losing super now erodes the magic of compound growth of super over time. 

Their policy of tax deductability of mortgage repayments greatly favours wealthier borrowers.

The Libs urgently need quotas to get more women into the parliamentary party as it is too male, too old and too white. It doesn’t represent what modern Australia looks like. They need a female leader not just a deputy leader to soften their image with female voters.

They need to listen to Hilma’s Network of potential Liberal women to develop new policies and candidates and not ignore them like Dutton did. 

They need to vet their candidates better.

To win next time, Labor says it is going to concentrate on a range of productivity policies which will boost our standard of living. 

However, there is lots of unfinished business. 

They need to ban gambling ads on television as no one wants them.  They also need stronger policies for renters and first home buyers lest they lose them the next time around. They could limit negative gearing to one or two investment properties and cancel the capital gains tax discount. This would look after Mum and Dad investors and provide huge revenue savings to reduce the budget deficit and debt.

The Nats need to drop their nuclear policy folly which will help the Libs in the cities where it was poison.

The LNP should agree with Labor about the renewable transition but have a healthy argument over how it is to be rolled out as per the former NSW Liberal government. 

Unfortunately, at this stage, many LNP supporters don’t believe climate change is real. 

For instance, they want to get rid of the 2030 emissions reduction target. 

But most Australians have moved on from this, can see the extreme weather we have is fossil fuel caused, and accept that climate action is imperative. 

The LNP leadership must give a strong signal to their supporters on this or they will be completely isolated.

Finally, both major parties agree Australia should have fixed four-year terms. Good. 

They should therefore co-produce a referendum to take to the people which has bipartisan support and therefore success. 

Governments need to stay in power longer to get stuff done and not be constantly thinking about elections in three year’s time. 

This is good structural reform.

Robert Blakeley, Horsham

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