For good reason, Federal Labor MPs are keeping their distance from their toxic Victorian Labor counterparts as the November 28 state election approaches.
Prime Minister Albanese was out and about over the weekend – but not in Melbourne. He was in Sydney, where he lives. No election there!
Albanese probably wants clear blue sky between himself and Labor Premier Ben Carroll when voters, as expected, dump the discredited and shambolic Victorian government.
For a window on the collapse of integrity in Australian politics, look no further than the 12-year-old Andrews-Allan-Carroll Labor administrations.
Rarely has a political entity paraded the case for its own removal as comprehensively as Labor under the washed-up leadership Ben Carroll, MP. Labor is utterly without credibility – on political and policy fronts – as the election approaches. Carroll, and his woeful collection of Ministers, are friendless as previously reliable advocates seem to have evaporated.
How these people front up to work each day is a source of wonderment to voters, given how discredited Labor has become. It is a government that promises what it can’t deliver and fails to deliver what taxpayers have been told they’re already paying for.
Carroll, a key figure in the Cabinets of both Andrews and Allan, has spent months desperately distancing his government from those of the two previous Labor governments under the reviled Jacinta Allan and Daniel Andrews.
Carroll has failed and failed badly in this task. Voters know the truth and the truth is that Carroll was a party to most major decisions of his predecessors. Big Ben was even Minister for our now hopelessly degraded and dangerous roads.
Well-practised at treating voters with contempt – Labor is behaving ‘true to form’ in promising the undeliverable, heralding the expenditure of funds the state does not have and hoodwinking voters on the government’s record under his leadership.
Between elections, it’s true that voters pay scant attention to the slithering and dithering of government – but at election time, voters demonstrate a distinct preference for the fine print – and it’s being forensically studied right now in Victoria.
Labor promises include; capping road tolls at $30 per week per vehicle, capping public transport fares at $30 per week, expanding 12 public hospital emergency departments, setting up free public dental clinics – and perhaps most cynical of all – building 25,600 new homes for first home buyers. There are other election commitments too puerile to record covering roads, education, policing, taxation, and business.
These ‘promises’ are just plain embarrassing and voters know it. The Labor mantra ought to be ‘too little, too late’. Twelve years is long enough to test the bona fides of any government. Victorian Labor has run out of ‘bona fides.’
Victoria remains Australia’s highest taxing, highest indebted state by a considerable margin, a fact demonstrated by a flight of investment and commercial activity over the borders. Astoundingly, Melbourne remains the only capital city in Australia not to have a rail link to its airport. This may benefit car parking and driving industries, but not so much the people trying to catch a plane. Labor preferment often means the interests of taxpayers in the state take a back seat to other interested parties.
Those comfortably employed on the state’s ‘big build’ gravy train are a very good example. Extremely concerning claims will be tested in the current Royal Commission and doubtless other Inquiries to follow.
If such politically appealing polices are worth initiating now – why were they not delivered in the years since Labor took custody of the Treasury? Noteworthy, is that many of Labor’s policies are ‘rebate’ in nature. In other words – they do nothing to alleviate the underlying crippling cost of living in Victoria – under the punitive state and federal Labor policies – especially taxation policies. Some might call the policies election sweeteners – and that is precisely what they are.
At a political level, the absurdity of Labor’s amateur campaign is all too obvious. An announcement per day, a hard hat, high-viz photo opportunity (to convey activity), and whistle-stop tours through the regions, all accompanied by moronic nodding Ministers buttressing their clueless leader. They call this a campaign. Carroll looks and sounds like a rabbit-in-the-headlights and makes as much sense hesitantly reading, as he does, from his prepared talking points.
Labor appears to have lost control not only of its election policy agenda – but of the politics as well. Conventionally tough adversaries and strong fighters, Labor has performed abysmally in the election campaign to date.
The Liberals, under the admittedly inexperienced Jess Wilson, have at least made a valiant attempt to connect with voters and to offer some hope that government might have the capacity to act in their interests.
Wilson has produced policy blueprints highlighting the Coalition’s priorities which cover critical initiatives designed to reduce crime and strengthen enforcement along with restoring financial discipline via tax cuts, reducing public sector expenditure and providing urgent cost of living relief where this proves possible.
As Labor’s wrecking-ball has been smashing the investment and commercial structures of the Victorian economy over the last four-plus years, the Coalition has been listening to voters – in Melbourne, in regional towns and cities and especially in the rural areas of the State. Coalition policies have their foundations built firmly on what voters have told them.
Based on the feedback, it’s little wonder that many senior, handsomely remunerated public sector employees are actively looking for positions in any sector other than government. The race to the exit door is on.
Longevity in government tends to breed arrogance and self-entitlement. The coincidence of a Labor federal government overlapping Victoria’s run of Labor governments has served to entrench the view that Labor has governed for those who demonstrate their fealty to Labor’s leftist agenda.
Incumbent governments are usually said to lay the groundwork for their own destruction. This is certainly true for the Carroll Labor government in Victoria.
Victorian voters are very aware there’s an election and they know precisely what they need to do for the sake of the future of the state.
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