Federal election: A policy free zone?

FEDERAL ELECTION 2025

Its official – the Federal Election will be held on Saturday, May 3.

With the election campaign now formally underway, both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader are battling for the early lead with a slew of … well, shall we say ‘announcements’ (to call them policies would be something of an overstatement).

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came out of the gates hard with a $200M contribution to upgrade the St John of God Midland Public Hospital in the WA seat of Hasluck, while on Tuesday he visited the SA seat of Boothby to announce $150M in funding toward a new state of the art health centre.

In fact, his first stop was in Peter Dutton’s own seat of Dickson where the Opposition Leader holds just a 1.7 per cent majority, making it the most marginal seat in Queensland.

Albanese also sent a blunt message to the Trump administration on the eve of new tariff increases.

“Australia is not negotiating over the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme … we are not negotiating over the news bargaining code … (and) we will not undermine our biosecurity,” the Prime Minister was reported as saying.

And while the government promoted its credentials on health and trade, Dutton got busy selling his party’s credentials on energy and transport.

He promised details ‘soon’ on an intervention in the gas market to ensure up to 20 per cent of uncontracted domestic gas production is made available to Australian homes, businesses and electricity generators.

Dutton was also in Victoria this week to announce $6.5B in spending on new road and rail infrastructure.

He said a LNP government will redirect over $4B of funding currently earmarked for the Suburban Rail Loop and the new Sunshine Station to other Victorian road and rail projects including extensions of the existing Frankston and Upfield lines as well as $1.5B in new funding for the Melbourne Airport Rail Link.

The pledge was dependent on the LNP also winning the next Victorian state election.

Dutton also said the LNP would relax lending rules that require banks to stress test borrowers’ capacity to service loans under a scenario of a 3 per cent rise in interest rates.

While there may be less need for the stress test with mortgage rates 7-8 per cent or more (versus 3-4 per cent a few years ago), it may be argued that it is housing prices and not the denial of loans that is keeping young home buyers out of the market.

And Team Dutton is having to work hard in the background to shift attention away from his latest missive that, if elected, he would live at Kirribilli and not The Lodge, sparking calls of hypocrisy in light of his position on forcing work from homers in Canberra back to the office.

(Was it really necessary to say that before the election Peter?)

While it’s still early days, there is a growing sense among many Australians that the policy vacuum in Canberra is deepening in the wake of a populist spendathon in which every problem is somebody else’s fault.

At the risk of sounding alarmist, Australians are facing into a climate crisis, a housing crisis, an energy crisis, a broader cost of living crisis, a productivity crisis and now, arguably, a national security crisis (cue another Chinese warship sailing about in our waters).

Not a good time for both major parties to be bereft of well-developed plans for reform and the strong leadership required to execute them.

Observe, for instance, the ALP’s narrative that the cost-of-living crisis is, in fact, all the supermarkets’ fault.

Perhaps that’s why the government was confident to announce on Tuesday, courtesy of Senator Murray Watt, it would be seeking a further hike in minimum wages in excess of inflation – and that this would somehow not fuel inflation, declining productivity notwithstanding (and, dare I say, rapidly rising energy bills, insurance premiums and the latest round of tax cuts notwithstanding).

Damn those supermarkets.

And with the latest Newspoll continuing to point to a hung Parliament, it has never been a better time to be a cross-bencher … or a worse time to be in need of brave social, political and economic reform.

Incidentally, the Guardian’s assessment of the likely cross-bench suggests three or four may lean to the Liberals either because they are Liberal defectors or TEALs who won traditional Liberal seats – but most are adamant they are not aligned with either party.

This will make any minority government extremely fragile.

At least we saw some strong leadership this week by Assistant Governor of the Reserve Bank Dr Brad Jones, who gave the big banks a bollocking over their lackadaisical approach to transitioning from the Bulk Electronic Clearing System to a new national payments platform.

Jones told the banks they had failed to adequately consult with users and co-ordinate plans to implement the new system which will handle some $18 trillion of payments, accusing them of putting profits ahead of the national interest.

This is the system that facilitates online payments, bank transfers, wage and super payments, pension payments, and on so on and so on.

Important stuff.

Perhaps we could put Dr Jones in charge for the next three years?

Ross Barry