The election is set for May, 2022:
The federal election is most likely to be held in May next year, with the Morrison government preparing to fight the poll on an expected economic bounce-back from COVID-19.
The public service in Canberra is undertaking preparatory work for an April budget, with bureaucrats being told to be prepared to cut short their summer holiday plans in January.
Government sources said no final decision had been made on an election date, but the odds were firming for an April budget, followed by a May election.
Why would it be any earlier? Morrison is going to lose badly as things stand.
According to The Saturday Paper his election strategy is typical gaslighting:
As Scott Morrison moves to an election footing, he is basing his strategy around trust – hoping to relate it to economics rather than honesty.
Only a disordered personality could be so brazen as to think that he could campaign on trust when he has none. But that’s Toxic Morrison for you. And here comes his number one minion:
Australia has avoided a feared “tidal wave” of small business collapses and insolvencies under state government-imposed lockdowns, with the rate of forced company closures almost half that of pre-pandemic levels.
More new businesses have also opened during the pandemic than in the previous years, with businesses cashed up at record levels – reflected in a $150bn increase in business cash holdings over the past two years.
Josh Frydenberg declared the government’s record on handling the economic recovery would be at the centre of the Coalition’s re-election campaign.
Will that include the double-dip recession resulting directly from the vaccine calamity? Or the $40bn rorted from JobKeeper?
In my view, barring a miracle or some children overboard, Morrison is going to lose badly whatever happens. Let me tell you why.
The year is 1996. A battered ‘has been’ that nobody gives a chance in the forthcoming election is running the federal Coalition. He is doing so on the basis of a ‘small target’ campaign because he knows that he is up against the greatest attack dog politician of the age in Paul Keating. This was made abundantly clear by John Howard’s predecessor when he launched comprehensive policies from opposition and lost the unlosable election in 1993 over his GST.
Despite his lead in the polls, John Howard is given little chance of unseating Paul Keating.
But Howard is playing it smart. He knows two things. He can’t compete head-to-head with Keating and doing so only feeds the beast he is facing. He also understands that there are a lot of accumulated grievances against Keating and if can deprive him of oxygen then they will become the issue.
Fast forward to today and the analogy is uncannily accurate.
A nobody opposition leader with no policies is given little or no chance of winning the forthcoming election despite a big lead in the polls. The ruling PM is the pre-eminent attack dog politician of his era, a master of deflection, blame and spin. He has stolen one election already owing to the opposition putting forward a large policy platform for Morrison to bloody.
Once again, there are very serious public grievances with the sitting PM. He has abandoned the nation during bushfire crises, covered up serial rapes in parliament, botched a pandemic and ruined a vaccine rollout, overseen a double-dip recession we didn’t have to have, debauched climate policy, and ushered in an unprecedented era of pork and corruption.
The one thing offsetting this record is lies, press releases and Murdoch/Costello propaganda. As formidable as that is, it’s not enough with such terrible material to work with.
Toxic Morrison is Toxic Keating 1996 and the baseballs bats are out.
