Apart from the election of the next US president and leader of the West, the most important issue facing Australia now is replacing the Albanese government before even more damage is done and we end up as Argentina did; moving from being one of the world’s most advanced countries to joining the third world.

While Dunkley was an improvement for the Liberals on last year’s Aston by-election, a swing from a minus 6.4 per cent to a plus 3.6 per cent, the result was significantly better for the Prime Minister than it should have been, especially after the Voice referendum.

Indeed, Labor is now understandably tempted to go to an early election.

The big issue at Dunkley was surely the cost of living, the reason why Labor manipulated the tax cuts to pretend something was being done. As noted here last week, the Coalition had an extraordinary stroke of good luck in the news before the vote, but failed to use it.

According to OECD statistics, from being a world leader, Australia suffered the developed world’s biggest drop in living standards in two decades, underperforming all comparable countries by almost 8 per cent.

And all this occurred under the Albanese government. Curiously, this news was restricted to this journal along with the Australian Financial Review, microbusiness.com.au, ADH TV, and 2GB, 4BC and 2CC.

Speaking from experience, what the Liberals should obviously have done was what Australians for Constitutional Monarchy did in the republic referendum – deliver what republican opponents admitted was a ‘killer slogan’, one ensuring victory. In Dunkley, such a slogan could have been: IT’S OFFICIAL! UNDER AIRBUS-ALBO, AUSSIES SUFFER WORLD’S BIGGEST DROP IN LIVING STANDARDS!

In addition, the news was in that Indonesia had outpriced our nickel industry by using Australian coal instead of expensive and unreliable so-called renewables.

Now, as they prepare for a general election, the Liberals must be better prepared and return to principles. While the Prime Minister says the election won’t be this year, his mantra ,‘My word is my bond’, is demonstrably valueless.

A standard house and half-senate election could be held as early as 3 August this year and as late as 17 May next year.

If the proposed royal visit goes ahead, don’t be surprised if the Prime Minister wrings every advantage out of it, even an early election. Ignore his frequent claim, ‘I’m a republican’. Like most of those who chant this, he’s a fake republican. His preferred republican model will not improve, but will rather significantly decrease, the checks and balances on the politicians, and especially, on a shady prime minister.

ACM’s tongue-in-cheek longstanding advice to monarchists captures this fake republican  hypocrisy.

‘Never stand between republicans and visiting royalty, else you’ll be knocked over in the rush.’(I have actually experienced something just like this.) Much depends on the hoped-for return to health for the King.

As to the timing, it is likely to be before  Chogm in Samoa on 21 October. No doubt the very able NSW Racing’s Peter V’landys has already invited the King,  Queen and Prime Minister to the glittering King Charles III Stakes at Royal Randwick  on 12 October.

If, sadly, the King cannot come, perhaps Prince William and Kate can.

So don’t be surprised by an election this year on any Saturday, especially on or after 26 October.

Returning to the 1999 referendum campaign, what republicans have admitted is that the campaign proposed by ACM’s Victorian Director, Rick Brown, ‘VOTE NO TO THE POLITICIANS REPUBLIC’ was indeed a ‘killer slogan’, lifting the No vote, even in Victoria. This exposed the crucial point that, unlike the governor-general, the president in the Keating-Turnbull model would be powerless to act, even where a prime minister was acting unconstitutionally.

In the coming election campaign, the Liberal party must be sharper than they were at Dunkley. In a campaign, much depends on luck and manipulation, as well as planning and hard work.

When they tire of governments, people vote them out and the opposition, however worthy or unworthy, still wins.

And as for manipulation, the Liberals should expect not only manipulation by the incumbent government but also by the propagandising, left-leaning media. Not all such manipulation works, or works for long. It didn’t in the republic referendum.

But for five or six decades now, media manipulation and influence usually favour Labor. Part of the reason for this is the disappearance of the older families who once owned significant parts of the media.

Those who remain, especially the Murdochs, are more versatile as to whom they favour. These days the editors and journalists have filled much of the void left by owners.

When ‘the’ republic became an issue, most of the media supported it even though the model was seriously defective.

As the Australian’s Paul Kelly said, ‘The media has a vested interest in change – change equates to news and news is the life blood of the media’.

Finally, the Liberal party now looks as if it could walk into a trap over nuclear power.

They are right to do away with the ban. The danger is the spokesman, Ted O’Brien, sees it as the silver-bullet to achieve the unachievable, pointless net zero emissions. O’Brien has a record of seeking silver-bullet solutions. Chairman in 2005 to 2007 of the Australian Republican Movement, formed when Labor added ‘the’ republic to its platform, the ARM has for almost three decades constantly searched for some, if any, silver bullet to deliver the politicians’ republic.

The latest was Charles’ accession. ACM warned this would never take off. And it didn’t.

The federal Liberal policy on nuclear energy should be to remove the ban as every other  comparable country does. The choice of energy should be left to the local authorities and the people.