The second week of the election campaign has seen the opposition leader’s campaign disintegrate and a Prime Minister unwilling to talk about climate change.
Dutton appears not to have done the hard work required to produce well-planned policies. Instead he relies on expensive, half-baked thought bubbles like nuclear power and recycling bad ideas from the past like temporarily cutting the fuel excise, which undermines the budget and increases government debt.
The Morrison Government inherited about $260b in government debt and more than doubled it in 9 years, undermining the Liberals' claims of competence.
The Albanese government has restrained government debt while managing two budget surpluses, proving it is financially more responsible than the Liberals.
Even Dutton's one fresh idea to temporarily make home loan interest tax deductible for first home buyers won't increase the number of houses built, since the houses will have already been built before the tax deduction can be claimed.
Albanese's 5% deposit scheme will help more people get into their first home, since it will help them to raise the deposit to sign the home contract.
Only Albanese is proposing to build more social housing for renters, which will reduce homelessness.
Dutton wants to reduce Albanese's plan for 1.2 million new homes to only 600,000, a really bad idea.
Albanese has allowed more coal and gas mines, but that is more than offset by his major push to lift renewable power to 90% by the 2030s.
Dutton would undermine renewable power for a hugely expensive, wasteful, nuclear fantasy.
This election is a contrast between a competent, successful, moderate Albanese Government and an incompetent Dutton Opposition which wants our progress to stagnate.
Trump has made the world a more dangerous place, so we need the current government's competence to avoid disaster.
Technically - at least within the terms of conventional economics - Albanese has lead a reasonably effective government, against wall-to-wall idiocy from the Coalition. It would be almost impossible to lose such a comparison.
And that's probably how history will judge Albanese and this government: disappointing, but less bad than the alternative rubbish.
Given what Australian politics has devolved into over the last decade or so, the real political contest should be (and may yet come to be) between Labor and the Greens - which would be much more like the old and more meaningful contest between Labor and Liberal, back when the name was a less inaccurate description of the actual content.
What gets me about the federal antipathy towards the greens is that it ignores the reality of the ACT’s Labor-Greens coalition which has, in part, kept the Liberal Party out of government for nearly a quarter of a century, and looks like it will continue to do so for some time to come. But then, the ACT is the most progressive jurisdiction in the nation.
Good point, John, but the brute truth is that Labor in the ACT always has to be forced to take positive action and they've been a bit recidivistic since the Greens vote was down slightly at the recent election (only a bit over 1 percent compared with Labor's reduction of 3.3 percent but, because many Greens seats were on very tight margins, representation reduced from 6 to 4 - ending the quite successful shared government model as Labor decided to play hard ball).
And Labor only wins a surprisingly high number of federal seats because of pretty reliable Greens preference flows. An undeniable dilemma for Greens voters who couldn't preference the Liberals above Labor - though I increasingly like the idea of voting 1 Green, 2, 3, etc. other small progressive parties and good independents, THEN Labor.
I recently realised that both major political parties, given their dependence on money from the wealthy to pay for their election campaigns, are currently about subverting democracy, not promoting it. Like you, I will be voting independent, and have done for a while.
Indeed , we are being asked to vote for either the barely acceptable , more of the same timidity , or the outright insufferable alternative . As leaders , BOTH fall short of the mark at this time of world instability and Climate emergency .
Dutton appears not to have done the hard work required to produce well-planned policies. Instead he relies on expensive, half-baked thought bubbles like nuclear power and recycling bad ideas from the past like temporarily cutting the fuel excise, which undermines the budget and increases government debt.
The Morrison Government inherited about $260b in government debt and more than doubled it in 9 years, undermining the Liberals' claims of competence.
The Albanese government has restrained government debt while managing two budget surpluses, proving it is financially more responsible than the Liberals.
Even Dutton's one fresh idea to temporarily make home loan interest tax deductible for first home buyers won't increase the number of houses built, since the houses will have already been built before the tax deduction can be claimed.
Albanese's 5% deposit scheme will help more people get into their first home, since it will help them to raise the deposit to sign the home contract.
Only Albanese is proposing to build more social housing for renters, which will reduce homelessness.
Dutton wants to reduce Albanese's plan for 1.2 million new homes to only 600,000, a really bad idea.
Albanese has allowed more coal and gas mines, but that is more than offset by his major push to lift renewable power to 90% by the 2030s.
Dutton would undermine renewable power for a hugely expensive, wasteful, nuclear fantasy.
This election is a contrast between a competent, successful, moderate Albanese Government and an incompetent Dutton Opposition which wants our progress to stagnate.
Trump has made the world a more dangerous place, so we need the current government's competence to avoid disaster.
Technically - at least within the terms of conventional economics - Albanese has lead a reasonably effective government, against wall-to-wall idiocy from the Coalition. It would be almost impossible to lose such a comparison.
And that's probably how history will judge Albanese and this government: disappointing, but less bad than the alternative rubbish.
Given what Australian politics has devolved into over the last decade or so, the real political contest should be (and may yet come to be) between Labor and the Greens - which would be much more like the old and more meaningful contest between Labor and Liberal, back when the name was a less inaccurate description of the actual content.
What gets me about the federal antipathy towards the greens is that it ignores the reality of the ACT’s Labor-Greens coalition which has, in part, kept the Liberal Party out of government for nearly a quarter of a century, and looks like it will continue to do so for some time to come. But then, the ACT is the most progressive jurisdiction in the nation.
Good point, John, but the brute truth is that Labor in the ACT always has to be forced to take positive action and they've been a bit recidivistic since the Greens vote was down slightly at the recent election (only a bit over 1 percent compared with Labor's reduction of 3.3 percent but, because many Greens seats were on very tight margins, representation reduced from 6 to 4 - ending the quite successful shared government model as Labor decided to play hard ball).
And Labor only wins a surprisingly high number of federal seats because of pretty reliable Greens preference flows. An undeniable dilemma for Greens voters who couldn't preference the Liberals above Labor - though I increasingly like the idea of voting 1 Green, 2, 3, etc. other small progressive parties and good independents, THEN Labor.
I recently realised that both major political parties, given their dependence on money from the wealthy to pay for their election campaigns, are currently about subverting democracy, not promoting it. Like you, I will be voting independent, and have done for a while.
Indeed , we are being asked to vote for either the barely acceptable , more of the same timidity , or the outright insufferable alternative . As leaders , BOTH fall short of the mark at this time of world instability and Climate emergency .