An election - yay
Here's Michelle Grattan, geeing up the excitement:
Finally it really is ‘‘game on’’, with two tyro leaders and an unpredictable history-making campaign that will confirm or sweep out of office the nation’s first woman prime minister.
Well, yes, the gender thing does make it historic, but beyond that?
I suspect this will be a failry dull election, one in which most people don't think there is much at stake. Australians tend to give new governments a second term and unless there is a compelling reason for change, there won't be any change. There won't even be much engagement. Fair enough too, I reckon.
The issues will come down to who is better trusted to look after the economy and whether people really believe Tony Abbott doesn't want to reintroduce WorkChoices.
The answers will be, Labor and no.
Everyone is mocking Labor's campaing slogan of "moving forward", and it is quite mockable. But what campaign slogan isn't?
Still, I suspect by August 21, the slogan will seem slightly less silly in that the real intent of it lies, not in its repetition, but in its corollary, which is that, electing Tony Abbott is like going backwards.
Labor beat the Coalition in 2007 and I don't see a real mood to go back to them. Especially in its current form. People aren't hankering for a Prime Minister Abbott or Treasurer Hockey or a Christiopher Pyne anything.
People certainly aren't hankering for WorkChoices, and Tony Abbott will never shake the impression that that is exactly what he wants. The idea that he promises not to do anything WorkChoicy on the IR front for three years is tantamount to an admission that he wants to do something WorkChoicy on the IR front.
He's all for owning the Howard legacy. Well, that's the legacy, Tone.
Yes, something couild go drastically wrong, but as it currently stands, Labor should be returned comfortably. I suspect even the Oz pre-election editorial will say they deserve a second term.
None of this, incidentally, is meant to sound cynically dismissive. It's meant to sound more like business as usual.
But we'll see I guess. Obviously, I could be completely wrong, but on day one, that's how it feels.
PS: One interesting point will be see how the Greens do, especially amongst that whole "disaffected Labor" vote. So I'll come back to that.
