Scott Morrison has been highly successful during this campaign at keeping the focus on Bill Shorten and Labor policies. He has presented the Coalition as the “nothing to see here” status quo option. In contrast, his opponents have been cast as the purveyors of radical change Australia doesn’t need.

The Liberal leader has been running dead on his own agenda, and deliberately so, to ensure that all voter eyes are trained on the (risky) alternative. But despite the Seinfeld campaign, the Coalition isn’t actually seeking a mandate to do nothing. As the contest moves into the final week, it’s time to kick the tyres of Morrison’s deft “move on calmly, nothing to see here” campaign impressionism.

There are a few ways we could do this, but one obvious way in is through tax policy. The Coalition’s long-term tax cuts haven’t commanded a massive amount of deep focus for a few reasons. At budget time, all the attention was on the Coalition offering tax cuts for low and middle-income earners to try to neutralise a similar election offering by Labor.

There wasn’t much attention paid to the tax relief for high-income earners slated for down the track, because it was unclear whether Morrison would win the current election, let alone be in a position to legislate a program taking effect between 2022 and 2025. The medium-term agenda attracted a significant discount rate.

As well as the whole idea seeming reasonably hypothetical, there was a second, conceptual, discount factor. The generosity of the tax relief proposed for up the income scales doesn’t sit comfortably with the uncertain state of the economy. It seemed likely that the Senate, if presented with the whole package post-election, and told to take it or leave it, could elect to leave it on the basis it’s not prudent to bake in tax cuts at a time of pervasive economic uncertainty.

So the sum of all the discount factors is the Coalition’s tax package has largely washed through the election conversation without troubling anyone much, apart from appearing as an abbreviated talking point – we’ll give you a nice tax cut and Labor will increase taxes.

But the fact of the matter is the Coalition’s policy is not status quo, nor “nothing to see here”, but instead, a significant change to how the system works now. A couple of experts quoted in a recent ABC Fact Check noted that the package outlined in the April budget would reduce the progressivity of Australia’s tax system.

Morrison and the treasurer Josh Frydenberg have been deeply reluctant throughout the campaign to quantify in dollar terms the tax relief that will flow to high income earners – to people earning $180,000 a year.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/11/morrison-says-hes...

Prime Minister Scott ‘I’m not Bill Shorten’ Morrison is the only man in the government seen running for election.

A Liberal campaign spokeswoman floating past on a deckchair said, “Having only one candidate is simpler and cheaper – Peter Dutton is on the nose, Tony Abbott is on the run and Eric Abetz reminds voters of Eric Abetz.”

The government’s female candidates have either taken a vow of silence or are doing their campaigns in mime.

Liberal rising/falling/shouting star, Michaelia Cash has announced she is miming an invisible wall.

The PM has announced a new policy: “I am not Bill Shorten!”

Bill Shorten disagreed: “If Scomo’s not Bill shorten, why is he so unpopular?”

The Prime Minister has refused to release the costings of not being Bill Shorten.

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/election-2019/2019/05/10/the-ferguson-report-pm-pops/

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See also:

Now that Morrison cannot stop gloating like a bastard that has been accepted in the royal family, he can't stop himself taking about that "he always believed in miracle" either... BULLSHIT. This victory was taken away from Labor, in the same fashion than Trump took the presidency in the USA, with a few variation on theme:

A) Bill Shorten was never a popular person

B) Scummo was a great salesman selling shit wrapped in tinsel foil 

C) Bill Shorten couldn't sell Labor's policies for the future

D) Clive Palmer was a foil like a Hardy to the Scummo Laurel, employed to scare voters about Labor

E) There was no miracle. Actually the miracle is that Labor did not loose by much more.

F) The damage that Scummo is going to do to Australia is going to be massive

G) We hope that Australia WON'T join the USA in its loony aggression against Iran.

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The return of the Liberals to Government is being hailed as a miracle by all and sundry.

A "miracle” is:

'an unusual and mysterious event that is thought to have been caused by a god because it does not follow the usual laws of nature.'

~ Cambridge English Dictionary

Can we call a political party, winning an election, based on people voting, with a preference system which included an unprecedented number of minor parties of the right-wing flavour all with preferences flowing towards the Liberals a "miracle"? 

Or is it deemed a miracle because all the polling companies said the ALP were all winning the polls for months now? The same polling companies that got the U.S. Election wrong, the Brexit vote wrong and the most recent Victorian State Election wrong? 

Maybe it is a miracle because the bookies got it wrong? Actually, it might be — those blokes rarely take a bath on a bet, so maybe God was punishing them?

But in all seriousness, calling this win a "miracle" is both really over-blown in the terminology itself – used by PM Scott Morrison and then of course used by all the mainstream media – and overstates the win, as they are pretty much in the same place they were before the election — in government. Also, it is just too "churchy" for me.

Fun fact: Australia is actually a secular country.

In fact, it was only six days ago that The Australian, many in media and, of course, Scott Morrison himself was saying that questioning of his religion and whether or not he, like Israel Folau, thought gays should go to hell was a "desperate, cheap shot". 

Morrison went on to say:

"I'm not running for pope, I'm running for prime minister ... So ... theological questions, you can leave at the door."

All the commentators agreed, of course. The consensus was, leave religion out of politics.

I totally agree. But when the Prime Minister brings it up, well, that is a different story. Not only did Morrison call his "win" a “miracle”, he then said, “God bless Australia”. He had also previously invited a cameraman into his Church during the campaign — when the agreement had been not to campaign at Easter.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-pentecost...

Read also: les murray was no voltaire... in quartering the quadrant...

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