Around Oz A

Peter Flynn writes to us from down under

Afederal election is not due to be held in Australia until May 2022, at the end of the normal three-year term. But there’s plenty of talk around that Prime Minister Scott Morrison could call an election as early as October this year. Unlike most of the state governments, which have fixed four-year terms and elections, Australian PMS can call a national poll at almost any time they wish.

Back in 2019, Morrison led the conservatives to a narrow one-seat majority, in what he described as a “miracle” victory. Ever since, he has claimed he would go the full three years. Like many, I remain sceptical of the words that come from the mouths of politicians. I prefer to think they are driven by self-interest, first to win an election and then to hang on to power.

Maybe that’s why the “cash-splash” budget with a A$ 160 billion (€100 billion) deficit in 2021–22 was sold as a strategy to recover from the Covid19 pandemic and recession. The government’s attempt to drive growth in the jobs market will cause the deficit to reach almost A$ 1 trillion by 2025. That’s old-school Keynesian economics and the opposite to usual conservative thinking.

Similarly, the budget assumes that most of us will get vaccinated by the end of this year and that Australia’s international borders will remain closed until at least the middle of 2022. Getting tourists and foreign students (big income earners) back into the country, as well as fixing our trade relations with China, don’t seem so important.

Neither does the vaccine rollout. It’s still so slow that the federal government is not giving out figures, time frames or targets. What we do know from medical experts is that, by the end of this year, about 70 per cent of Australians might have had a vaccine shot.

Other research is showing that three out of ten Australians are hesitant about getting a vaccine at any time. That should be a big worry for a federal government, especially one that claims it wants to get rid of the virus completely instead of just keeping it under control. I certainly won’t be the last commentator to wonder aloud: where is the rollout plan, the communications strategy and, above all, the urgency?

But then PM Morrison (sometimes called, rather critically, “Scotty from Marketing”) might think he can learn something from the three state governments that have been easily re-elected this year. They all had very hard border controls and were rewarded by voters. Is it cynical of me to think that a government that is behind in the opinion polls wants to sell itself as the national protector?

Maybe. But the question for most people in Australia (where federal law says that everyone must vote) is much simpler: “Has my life improved since the last election?” And I suggest that the answer is: probably not.