So the 2023 NSW State Election has been run and won by the Labor Party.
The Liberal Party got the result that they deserved. They have continued to take their grassroots membership and followers for granted. They have continued to ignore their own stated beliefs despite several successive election losses.
Back in August 2022 I wrote of my despair and concerns about the direction (or lack thereof) of the Liberal party.
Then, it became blatantly obvious to me last year when I attended the 2022 CPAC conference that the Liberal party leadership were incapable if looking inward, unwilling to listen to their constituents, and unwilling to see past their own noses. Certainly, nothing has changed within the Liberal Party of Australia.
So on election day, I found myself out the front of our small-town's polling place handing out how-to-vote cards for One Nation.
This is a job I enjoy doing. I get to talk to a lot of people, share my ideas and thoughts, and find it to be an easy way to participate in our democracy. There are other people there, of course, doing the same job for different parties and individuals. The atmosphere between those representing different parties is always pleasant with good conversation and banter taking place during the quiet times.
I have done this job a few times now. Interestingly, it has been in support of a different party each time that I have.
The polling place that I attend is in a small country town where the number of expected voters is around 500 or so. It’s also in a very. very safe Nationals seat and while the Nationals lost my support several years ago, I felt it my duty to try to inform as many people as possible just why that is and provide some assistance to those who might also be seeking an alternative to the status quo. I’m under no illusion that my presence has any chance of swinging the seat away from the incumbent. But I do hope that (naively maybe) a swing away from the Nationals and Liberals might help convince them that they are careening down the wrong path. It seems to me that their support is only coming from those that “always have, always will” vote that way and have very little knowledge or interest in politics.
Which brings me to my point of this rant. The two big myths of Australian politics that seem unbreakable despite being demonstrably false.
The first one (which I will not elaborate upon today) is the myth that the Labor Party is the “Party for the Working Man”. This may have been the case at its inception but is far from the truth today.
The second one dawned on me following an interaction I had with one particular voter. Offering my “How to Vote” card for One Nation in the Upper House, his reply to me was “What? That mob will send us broke!”
That’s when the second big myth occurred to me: People still believe that the Liberal and National parties are financially responsible. This is patently and demonstrably untrue and has been since 2015 when Malcolm Turnbull abandoned fiscal responsibility at the altar of focus groups, opinion polls, and an adoring cheering media.
The Liberal/National coalition were roundly flogged at the election. And no wonder. Their economic management and the state of the NSW economy rendered them unworthy to return to power. Conservative voters were also enraged by their incompetent handling of infrastructure projects, pandering to the woke left, destructive energy policy, and botched handling of the Covid pandemic.
The spending of the Coalition Government was nothing sort of staggering and showed no signs of slowing as the election approached, with big-spending promises made with borrowed money that our children and grandchildren will be left to deal with.
At the 2022 budget, the Government forecast the 2025 net debt to be $115Billion. (And that was well before the election spending spree, somewhere around the $40Billion mark!) The budget reflected an increase in spending of more than 26%, with little-to-no increase in revenue.
Since the budget was brought down, the budget update announced an increase in government deficit from $2.8 billion to $6.5billion. In less than one year. Roughly calculated that figure equates to $800 per man, woman, and child in the state.
One of the states’ biggest revenue raisers is royalties from coal mining. The Coalition under the willfully destructive ideology of Treasurer and Liberal power-broker Matt Kean have resolved to destroy coal mining, and therefore the associated revenue stream. How are mining and fossil fuel royalties ever to be replaced? There aren’t any more assets to sell and privatise, surely.
They also decided that we should all drive an electric car. Current government policy means that the income generated by traditional petrol and diesel vehicles is being reduced, while making generous subsidies and financial concessions for electric vehicles. These vehicles, of course, require charging stations, 30,000 of which will be paid for by the government. So electric vehicles do not only cut the revenue but also increase the expenditure.
With every government in Australia acting in a comparable manner, including the federal government, is it any wonder that the average worker is staring down the double-barrel of increasing interest rates and spiraling inflation?
Forget Dominic Perrottet’s declaration of the NSW economy being the best in the country. Based on Gross State Product per Capita, we are second to last.
So, no. The Coalition is NOT fiscally responsible anymore. Labor/Greens never have been and, except for a brief moment under Kevin Rudd, nor have they pretended to be.
It’s not One Nation that will "send us broke”. As the lines of separation become increasingly blurred, it’s the established parties of Liberal, National, Labor and Greens that present the greatest danger of our state, and our nation, of financial ruin.
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