From the National Press Club: Peter Dutton made a mistake by refusing to address the National Press Club this week. In recent memory, the two other (electoral) losers who decided to campaign in the final week rather than address the Press Club were Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison. I rest my case.
Albo is a smooth performer, and today he didn’t miss a beat. But make no mistake, if you are not on welfare, or you are not a member of a union, then Albo’s campaign slogan could rightly be summed up as:
Working Australians get nothing!
You may have heard that Albo grew up in public housing and lived on welfare when he was young. In Australia, we call this a safety net. It provides for people who can’t help themselves. It’s grand that someone who grew up under such conditions can be our Prime Minister. But it is far from an ideal upbringing.
For those who didn’t receive government handouts and turned themselves inside-out to own their own home and raise their family, then Albo has a slap in the face for you.
Vote for Labor and you won’t have to pay your student debt because everyone before you who paid their debts already will pay it on your behalf. You will then go on to be a member of the elite who thinks government hand-outs are a right.
Childcare will now be a universal right, too. Never mind if 30 years ago you had to turn yourself inside out to get to work and drop the kids off to school. Now everybody who had to do so in the past will pay you to start work at 10am and finish at 2.30pm so you now have the right to pick up your kids during work hours. Your now childless colleagues who did this at their own expense in the past can pick up the shortfall for you.
Today, when Albo waxed lyrical about all the free things he will provide, I couldn’t help but wonder who was going to pay for all this ‘free stuff’. The truth is, Albo intends to shackle the previous generation to pay for the freebies for the next generation.
Even his old union mates who are now on pensions with super get to pay for the comforts of the next generation. The tragedy is that this same ‘take your money’ generation won’t stick around if you need to be protected.
According to a recent survey, 48 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 would leave Australia if we were attacked.
Nevertheless, it’s hard to fault Albo during this campaign. He’s really on his game.
But as an Inner West rock star it is obvious he has never had to deal with an Outer West rocker. More’s the pity, because in the Outer West, his bluff would be called and it would all come down to competence, a quality that appears to be absent in contemporary Australian politics.
It’s a mistake that Peter Dutton didn’t address the National Press Club. He could have put on his Pine Rivers flannie and counter-punched Albo’s inner-west vegan vacuum.
Instead, Albo made a point of mirroring Dutton’s words. Albo mentioned how Dutton referred to the ‘national broadcaster’ as ‘the hate media’. Even though everyone knows it is true, why didn’t Mr Dutton turn up at the Press Club tomorrow to rebut the worst Prime Minister in our history?
It’s such a mistake.
Albo even made a point of referring to how Dutton’s refusal to address the Press Club was a reflection of ‘his temperament’.
I’s hard to disagree if you don’t show up.
The most annoying part is that Mr Albanese has offered nothing for working Australian families. All of his benefits accrue to union members and welfare recipients.
If you are not on welfare or in a union, Albo is not interested. And therefore, you get nothing in Labor’s freebie budget.
Regrettably, and on reflection, I don’t think the Liberals have done the work. Indeed, Chris Uhlmann said recently on Sky News Australia that he had heard from Labor people that:
‘Peter Dutton had not done the work, that the Coalition had not done the work…’
When Australians are hurting so badly, it doesn’t make any sense.
The Coalition have let down non-union workers who do not receive welfare. Menzies referred to these as the ‘forgotten people’. Albo didn’t care, but this time the Liberals seem to have simply forgotten about them altogether.
It’s nonsense to suggest that all National Press Club journalists are biased. Indeed, most questions from journalists (paraphrased below) were far from biased:
How will you address the softening of the revenue base?
Will you clarify the vagueness about your critical minerals strategy?
You’ve talked about spending money. What about making money?
Are Aussies better off now since you came to power? Is your non-response a ‘no’ but it could be worse?
[Calling out BS…] Why do you have to exaggerate in this election? Why can’t you just tell the truth?
Your EV tax breaks went from $55 million per year to $500 million per year – how did you get it so wrong?
The reality is that Albo survived the questions without losing a beat. At one point, he even rehashed Peter Dutton’s recent from 2GB:
‘I saw him look down the barrel of a camera and he blatantly lied.’
In his address today, the Prime Minister responded in kind:
‘If Peter Dutton wants you to take a risk on him then he should look you in the eye he should tell you what he will cut and what you will pay in Australia.’
Given Dutton won’t be at the Press Club anytime soon, we can only hope that the many Australians who were at work while today’s shenanigans played out in Canberra will see through the PM’s charade. But I must admit the future feels pretty lonely for those of us who are not on welfare or members of unions.
Indeed, one of my retired academic colleagues, a former Labor supporter, said they thought the Albanese government was a union government that failed to implement any of their big ideas, only to announce these, ‘as the sunset faded on the charade’.
They continued:
‘Dutton is more realistic and honest – I wouldn’t trust Albo to put money in a parking meter!’
In such circumstances, Mr Dutton might have drawn some inspiration from a famous Woody Allen quote:
‘90 per cent of success in life is just showing up.’
In Dutton’s absence, Albo is as convincing as a Newtown real estate agent. And that’s pretty convincing.
Albanese’s greatest nonsense today was in response to his economic credentials. He stated:
‘Well, this economist here uh has noticed that many economists say you can’t get inflation down without a huge spike in unemployment and leaving people behind you can’t get inflation down without smashing real wages that’s what a whole lot of economists uh would say they’ve been proven wrong our government will not leave people behind.’
Unless, of course, you are one of the non-union workers who do not receive welfare who actually pay for Mr Albanese’s economics.
In the absence of a credible opposition, this is what Australian voters are left to consider. These are not the best or the worst of times, but it is certainly a tale of two banalities.
Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is The Spectator Australia’s Canberra Press Gallery Correspondent. All opinions in this article are the author’s own.
