A federal government that deserves to go down in flames

Many political analysts and commentators were burnt by opinion polls in the lead up to the 2019 federal election, all of which predicted a comfortable Labor victory, only for the exact opposite to occur. It’s hard to say whether they're still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or just from simple embarrassment but, because of this inaccurate reading from three years ago, too many have been reticent to make their predictions, in case of reliving these past humiliations.

But pushing all of that aside, it’s time to make the brave prediction of who will win the 2022 federal election. And why.

Before getting onto this difficult terrain, just a point to make about the machismo of political reporting: everything is a bruising encounter; everything is a tough tussle; and, in case you missed it, each side of politics is looking for a knockout blow.

In the final week of the campaign, James Massola from The Age (Independent. Always.™) kept up with this machismo, suggesting the current position of Scott Morrison is akin to being four goals down, five minutes into the final quarter of the grand final, kicking into the wind. Because, for fuck’s sake, politics is just like a game of football! Or to be more pertinent, what came first: life or the game of football?

Politics, of course, is a tough business, but it should present itself with a human face: it shouldn’t be this ridiculous comparison with a game of sports where grown men boot around a tanned pigskin enclosing inflated air. Life is a little more complicated than that, but it’s apparent many journalists aren’t interested in quality reporting, but happy to land on someone’s lobotomised shitheads list somewhere on the internet. That’s the true sign of achievement.

But since we’re onto the football analogies, no team in an AFL grand final has ever been four goals down, five minutes into the final quarter, kicking against the wind, and gone on to win the game (for the record, the closest was Essendon in the 1984 grand final – two goals down at this point of the game before going to win in the final minutes of the game).

So, it’s just never happened, and that’s after 125 seasons of the game, four years before federation. And – back to real life – no government has ever come from the poor position currently held by the Coalition, so late in the political cycle, and then gone on to win the election. But aside from all the opinion polls, or the general election vibe that could be out there, it’s best to have to look at the evidence of the past performances of this Liberal–National government.

This is a corrupt government. This is an inept government. This is a prime minister who lies even when he doesn't need to. Scott Morrison is divisive – possibly racist – he looks to create problems that he can then go on to claim that he's fixed, even if he hasn't.

This term of government and the prime ministership of Scott Morrison has been bad for Australia; it’s been one continuous load of negativity, an accumulation of power without a purpose and a primary purpose of just keeping the Labor Party out of office. And that's not a good enough reason to hold on to government.

Anthony Albanese hasn't been the best leader of the opposition that Labor has ever presented to the public, but this election really is a fork in the road; it’s a crossroad; a line in the sand – whatever it needs to be called.

This is one of the most important federal elections in Australia's history.

Labor does offer a positive outlook for this country and a chance for a much better direction, especially when compared with Morrison’s division, corruption and incompetence. It’s not so much a question of whether Labor deserves to win, but the critical question of whether the Liberal–National Coalition deserves to remain in office. And, quite clearly, the answer is a resounding no.

There are just too many moving parts for the Liberal–National Coalition that need to fall into place, if they will be able to win the election on Saturday night – there are also many parts that need to fall into place for Labor to claim victory as well, but not as many as there are for the Coalition. One other consideration is that because of the way the votes landed in the 2019 election, Labor could win 52.5% of the two-party preferred vote – or more – and not win the election. This is unlikely, but it's not implausible and it’s something that may influence the final result.

Unless it's another status quo election – just like the 2019 federal election – or everything that has been analysed over the past three is plain wrong, this is an election that Labor should win.

The prediction is Labor will achieve a narrow outright victory – perhaps between two-to-five seats – or achieve a minority government with the support of key independents. It’s just too difficult to see how the Liberal–National Coalition could achieve an outright election victory, but if that does come to fruition – without being overly alarmist – the keys to democracy may as well be handed over to the Liberal Party and left to fester in their continuing corruption, ineptitude and mismanagement: democracy is just too fucking hard, and Australia just doesn’t seem to care.

Let’s just forget about it, because if after all of the corruption, all of the incompetence, all of the maladministration – certainly over the past three years and more than likely, over the past nine years – if the Labor Party still can’t defeat government – and a compliant conservative mainstream media – well, democracy in Australia is doomed. There’s just no point anymore and it’s just not worth pursuing.

That’s how important this election is. When the government changes, the country changes. And this really is a time when the government does need to change.