Ross Peitsch
Do the Liberals actually want to win? This is a question I have been asking myself for some months now, and ever since the election was announced and the campaign began, the Libs have presented zero evidence to convince me that they actually are serious about a victory. Their weakness of advertising material and lack of any big policy announcements has left many on both sides of the political divide scratching their heads.
And while Albanese has certainly embraced the ‘small target’ strategy, he has also presented a very ‘easy’ target, one which the Liberals have either failed to, or chosen not to exploit.
So why would any party want to throw an election? Well they wouldn’t, unless of course, it made perfect sense to do so.
Unavoidably, the next three years are going to be absolutely disastrous regardless of which party wins government. Whoever is in power will have to deal with skyrocketing debt, out of control inflation, rising interest rates, rising fuel prices, empty supermarket shelves and supply shortages, over which they will have no control as these will be tied to global events and economics, but that they will be held fully accountable for regardless.
Add to that angst, an Australian public already fed up to the back teeth after the recent three years of covid, lockdowns, shrinking personal freedoms and forced vaccinations (and a growing suspicion that the rising rates of death and disease may be linked to the latter), and whoever is unlucky enough to be left in charge is going to feel the full savagery of voters at the ballot box in 2025…… assuming the Governor General doesn’t step in and dissolve the parliament prior to that, which may become necessary to maintain public order if things devolve badly enough.
Should the Liberals win on Saturday, they virtually guarantee themselves being in opposition from 2025 for at least two terms.
However, should they lose, while still retaining enough seats to sabotage every Labor initiative along the way, and muster a ‘vote of no confidence’ if required, they will be looking at at least another six, if not up to twelve years in office, given the pain inflicted from 2022 to 2025 will take such a long time for voters to forget.
Also consider that after three years of having every word scrutinised and twisted by our left wing biased media and daily personal attacks from the opposition and their army of hate-filled sympathisers, I highly doubt Scott Morrison has any desire to remain in the top job, and can’t wait to hand the reins over to Dutton, just as I highly suspect he already has some well paying international position lined up, possibly arranged when he orchestrated the AUKUS deal.
And let’s also not overlook taking into account that the Libs have been in power three terms already. Eventually people will vote for change, for the sake of change, regardless of how well you are performing, as the Howard government experienced in 2007. So even if the Libs did miraculously manage to somehow create the illusion that things weren’t completely broken at the conclusion of the next term, it’s only a matter of time until they lose, and opportunities to lose an election as valuable as this one will prove to be, come very rarely.
Political parties generally have blinkers on, and are incapable of looking any further into the future than the next election, and doing whatever is necessary to win power. But if the Libs are fully aware already of what the next three years really holds, then I doubt they have any choice but to look to a bigger picture.