The Coalition has the yips, from The Australian:
Malcolm Turnbull’s authority on delivering promised economic leadership and Scott Morrison’s ability to introduce tax reforms are under extreme pressure from Coalition backbenchers emboldened by the retreat from raising the GST.
Fuelled by polling figures MPs say show the opposition’s negative gearing policy is hurting Labor, Coalition backbenchers are arguing that even modest changes to negative gearing “excesses”, which the Treasurer wants, should be dumped.
They want a straight political fight: Labor’s changes to negative gearing against none from the Coalition. They are pushing for no changes at all to tax breaks for losses on investments for residential property so there is no confusion in voters’ minds about the choice on negative gearing at the election.
What polling is that? It’s not Newspoll! Anyways, let me say that if the Coalition goes this way I reckon it is electoral suicide. Its polling was only saved by the legitimacy of Malcolm Turnbull as the intelligent voice of reason. If it completely vacates that territory to Labor it’s game over.
Its best chance of winning is to stop being Abbott-lite immediately and to steal Labor’s reform policies. It’s either that or go back to the real thing, as Abbott himself writes at The Australian:
It’s good that ministers have been told to “stop spending” (The Australian, February 17) because the national government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
In the final Swan budget, revenue was $65 billion higher than in the final Costello budget but spending was $135bn higher — hence the shift from a $20bn surplus in 2007-08 to a $50bn deficit in 2013-14.
Almost the only area of spending that the Rudd-Gillard government failed massively to boost was defence.
In the final Costello budget the defence spend was $20bn (or 1.9 per cent of gross domestic product). After six years of Labor, it was just $25bn (or 1.6 per cent of GDP — the lowest level since before World War II).
In last year’s budget, defence spending was back up to $32bn (or 1.9 per cent of GDP) and it will need to increase further if Australia is to stay safe in an increasingly dangerous world.
The Abbott worldview is at least understandable in its rendering of everything in black and white. Tony Turnbull is a void, the very thing the electorate is desperate to rid itself of.
