Prestigious defence journal Jane’s reveals Russia is asking Indonesia for military access to launch planes in the country’s east, just north of Australia.
Not an issue for the election campaign here, according to most journalists.
Three Chinese naval ships conduct live-fire exercises off the coast between Australia and New Zealand, forcing commercial airlines to change course. One ship then circumnavigates the country, probably mapping the seabed.
Journalists hardly raise the issue when questioning party leaders: this election is about cost of living.
Donald Trump effectively dismantles the Western alliance that has kept us safe since World War II. He imposes tariffs on every nation, kicking off a global trade war. Not an issue for the election campaign. Treasury modelling shows the tariff effects will be small here, so no threat to cost of living.
The Labor government blows out federal spending to the highest levels since the Whitlam administration 50 years ago. It forecasts budget deficits for a decade. No side of politics promises budget repair.
Why would they in a cost-of-living campaign?
Australia languishes in a per capita recession for seven quarters before the latest anaemic quarterly growth number. Productivity growth sits at its lowest in a decade.
Journalists ignore both issues. It’s all about cost of living, after all.
Affordable housing eludes a generation of young Australians.
Journalists interview the Minister for Housing and her opposition counterpart but aren’t bright enough to make the connection between all-time record immigration and demand for housing. They swallow government spin that high immigration is because of a Covid backlog, as if governments haven’t been setting migration caps since Federation. Surely that’s a cost-of-living issue?
Nor do defence or economic reform rate much of a mention in the cringeworthy leaders debates the nation endures.
Paul Kelly here on Wednesday blamed the influence of focus group research. Indeed, pollsters and the political journalists fed by them have been too keen to emphasise for two years that this election will be about cost of living.
But what if a politician had decided to break free of such thinking with bold ideas for a more prosperous and safe future? Could a leader with the advocacy skills of Paul Keating, Bob Hawke or John Howard have broken free of this retail-focused campaign?
It would have been in Peter Dutton’s interest to try, given the electorate already associates Labor governments with giving money away. Dutton has been playing on Labor’s turf by surrendering to the free-money mentality. This raises another question. Had Dutton tried serious policy, would there be enough journalists and media organisations around to report and analyse it?
Pollster Kos Samaras, from RedBridge, in the Australian Financial Review on April 22 wrote about Gen Z and millennial voters whose media diets are dominated by social media.
But even traditional media – broadcast and digital – without hard paywalls have been happy to ignore the serious issues. Most know Albo has been lying about Medicare, Coalition health cuts that were flagged in 2014 but did not happen, and bulk-billing target rates neither party’s policies will achieve.
It’s only readers of hard paywall products such as this paper and the AFR that receive serious policy focus and an attempt to expose false claims.
Look at ABC Radio’s prime slot – RN Breakfast – last Wednesday. Interviewing Coalition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie, host Sally Sara could not get past questions about what the Coalition would cut to pay for its proposed increase in defence spending from 2 to 2.5 per cent of GDP in five years and 3 per cent in 10.
God forbid any recipient of government largesse lose a cent of free money to help pay for the defence of our nation. Imagine the ABC with today’s staff reporting the 1998 GST election when Howard promised to increase the prices of most goods and services by 10 per cent.
Greg Sheridan here the following morning asked the right question: What defence kit does Hastie actually want?
Look at Nine’s leaders debate last Tuesday night, when Dutton was asked to describe his vision for Australia: his version of Tony Abbott’s 2013 mantra “stop the boats”, “axe the (carbon) tax” and fix Labor’s “debt and deficit”.
Dutton could only mention his plan to halve the petrol excise for a year, his other plan for a one-off giveaway of $1200 in a tax rebate to about half of all taxpayers and a few other rats and mice.
Discussing housing on ABC Insiders on April 13, host David Speers did not ask the obvious question about a million migrants over two years, but he at least had the wit to keep asking Housing Minister Clare O’Neil why a federal government would want to be a home builder. Housing was once the responsibility of state housing commissions.
On ABC 7.30 on April 17, host Sarah Ferguson did her best to referee what was no better than a pub rabble between O’Neil and opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar but refused to accept the point on immigration, a policy blunder presided over by O’Neil in her previous job as – yes – home affairs minister overseeing the immigration portfolio.
Worse was Speers on Insiders on April 20. He tried a gotcha on negative gearing during his interview with Sukkar and seemed disappointed when told Sukkar was positively geared.
The interview left viewers wondering why Speers had pushed the negative gearing issue so hard with the opposition but so seldom raised it with the government.
At least Speers, hosting the second leaders debate for the ABC on April 16 and on Insiders, was smart enough to expose both parties on housing affordability measures that will do little to make first homes more affordable but are likely to boost house prices.
One debate that did touch on issues of substance was ABC 7.30’s interview with Treasurer Jim Chalmers and opposition spokesman Angus Taylor on April 14. Taylor was judged to have won the Sky News economic debate on April 10 and held his own in the Business Council of Australia debate last Wednesday.
Sara on RN seems to have unlimited access to Chalmers but never asks about budget repair or productivity. She asked him about US tariffs in a lengthy interview on March 18 that was dominated by a follow-up of ABC TV’s Four Corners revelations the night before about sexual abuse in childcare centres. She got on to criminal behaviour by the CFMEU and Dutton’s thoughts about a referendum on deporting dual citizens charged with serious crimes. Zip on economic reform, productivity or budget repair.
To be fair to the ABC, there are few journalists at the Nine city papers, Guardian Australia or the commercial TV networks that don’t see politics entirely through the prism of government giveaways or who take defence and foreign policy seriously.
Last word to AFR columnist Michael Stutchbury on April 22: “Australia’s resources wealth has underwritten an entitlement culture that Labor feeds and the Coalition is too timid or powerless to resist.” Budget repair would be needed, defending Australia against China and Russia would prevent more social services spending, and decarbonising our energy system would push up power prices however it was done, Stutch concluded correctly.
