The latest PollBludger aggregated poll says it more eloquently than I can:
Scott Morrison’s grab bag of rapists, carpetbaggers, corporate insurgents and nutbags are going to lose power. There are only three levers to pull to change this now.
First, a successful transition from pandemic COVID to endemic COVID will lift some political pressure.
However. this is exceedingly unlikely.
More likely, we are going to see public lockdowns turn into private lockdowns as households turn to voluntary isolation amid the Delta spread during the immunised reopening. This will exacerbate the COVID apartheid playing out at the state level.
Morrison’s personality disorder is going to play very badly throughout this process.
Second, Morrison can get out with the pork and doubtless, he will. I suggest he do so immediately with a multi-million dollar commitment to paying parents for doing homeschooling. That’s an easy win for Morrison’s women problem.
Yet this prospect is increasingly being inhibited by the terms of trade crash which will drain the rivers of gold flowing into treasury.
Third, and most importantly, Morrison was likely planning for an anti-China khaki election. This is where he is strongest and Labor weakest. Pushing one significant issue of doubt to the forefront of an election narrative is a tried and true winner. Think GST and negative gearing.
However, this option is increasingly off the table as well.
It’s all well and good to puff out your chest and play tough on China at the peak of the commodity cycle. By contrast, if every time that you punch China on the nose your national income collapses a little bit more then it’s not so easy.
And it is pretty easy to paint you as the cause of it.
Ironically, this applies doubly to any incoming Albo government and its capacity to resist Chinese coercion once in power.
