SCOMO BACK TO WOO LOCAL VOTERS
JUST days out from the election, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has made his fifth visit to Geelong in six months to try to win over voters in Corangamite.
New polling shows local Liberal candidate Stephanie Asher’s favourability rating has dropped significantly.
“I love Geelong. Look, before the last election, I remember what everyone was saying before it, but you know, Australians are making this choice. Pollsters aren’t making this choice. Commentators aren’t making this choice,” Mr Morrison said.
PRIME Minister Scott Morrison has made his fifth visit to the Geelong region in six months as Corangamite, held by Labor, sits on a knife edge heading into Saturday’s election.
Mr Morrison visited a housing estate in Armstrong Creek on Wednesday to spruik his election pledge that would allow home buyers to purchase a property using part of their superannuation.
Asked if Geelong was front of mind, and if he could realistically retain government if the Coalition didn’t win Corangamite, Mr Morrison said Geelong was “great”.
“I love Geelong. Look, before the last election, I remember what everyone was saying before it, but you know, Australians are making this choice,” he said. “Pollsters aren’t making this choice. Commentators aren’t making this choice.
“I think there’s a fundamental difference and that is in the Liberals and the Nationals, and Stephanie Asher here in Corangamite, we believe the answer to securing Australia’s future opportunity is you.
“That’s why our policies, particularly like what we’re talking about here, enabling you to buy your own home, with your own money demonstrates our belief in you, just like JobKeeper did, just like the cashflow boost, just like enabling you to get through with tax reductions for small business.
“Labor believes the government is the answer. That’s why they want the government to own your own home.
“We have a very different view. We believe in Australians.”
Asked about cost of living pressure, including the fuel excise due to rise by about 22c in September, Mr Morrison said, “That is the position of both major parties.
“What we will watch closely over this period of time is what continues to happen with petrol prices.
“We put in the budget a six-month period of halving the fuel excise. Now we did that on the basis of Treasury’s advice about what they believed would happen with fuel prices over that period of time.
“Now they actually fell a lot faster than we anticipated, and those savings were passed through a lot more quickly by the big petrol companies. And we appreciate that.
“And we’ve seen prices go up. We may well see them go down again, because they’re all being driven by a lot of these forces that are going on in the global economy.”