I have no words… Anthony Albanese has promised to take $150 off our power bills if we give him another chance.
This is a masterclass in how to insult voters.
You would have to be a world-class mug to get taken for a ride a second time on the same campaign line but I guarantee at least half the people screaming in the Daily Mail comment section will turn around and vote Labor, Green, or Teal and then keep moaning.
‘Another $150 is coming off your power bill. That’s every household. No strings attached. Just real money straight off your bill. And that’s on top of the $300 we’ve already taken off. Peter Dutton would cut power bill relief so you’d pay more. But Labor is focused on helping with the cost of living and we’re building on it in this Tuesday night’s Budget.’
I nearly snapped the keys off my laptop transcribing that pitiful election pitch and choked-down two cups of black coffee to stop myself inserting expletives as editor’s notes between the text.
Screenshot Albanese X account
As Editor-in-Chief, Rowan Dean, wrote on X yesterday, ‘Are Australians really so cheap that we can be bought off by Albanese and Chalmers with a $150 bribe? Have we no dignity? Or are we just so desperate? What is clear is that this government has admitted it is a total failure.’
I want to defend the public at large, but far too many were happy to sit home, take the Jobkeeper handout, and allow the government to rip apart the economic structure and social order of the country during Covid because they were satisfied to Netflix and Chill on a diet of UberEats and fear-mongering press conferences. Yes, Rowan, we can be bought cheaply.
Although that does not excuse Labor for going ahead with the campaign.
Imagine meeting the focus group that signed off on this. Are they trying to pull a swifty on the public, or undermining Albanese on purpose? Honestly, it is getting difficult to tell. A small part of me wonders if Labor is sick of Albanese and using these adverts as a ruthless character assassination.
The Medicare/Mediscare video supports this suspicion, in which the Prime Minister held up his Medicare card and then had cash raining down on his head like some sort of infomercial.
Politicians are becoming cheap in a world of increasing danger. This gulf between ability and the nation’s desperate need for sanity is creating an environment of disillusionment. People are not only giving up on the concept of democracy, they are letting go of nationhood in general. Australia has become a three-star backpacker lodge full of people who punch through the walls and break the heritage fixtures.
Think about this situation for a minute.
How can you win the battle of ideas through policy when most people no longer believe politicians will keep their promise?
Every time the public say ‘no’, they are ignored.
Mass migration? Native Title? Carbon taxes? The public have no control over the future of the country because Labor and Liberal are locked in a ‘Me Too’ competition to out-virtue each other for their audience of international bureaucracies and foreign companies who offer them lucrative careers when the pile of mess they create while in government gets too difficult to hide.
My point is not to rant mindlessly but to say the Age of Reason has been replaced with bribery. Democracy has become a product that stinks as soon as you rip open its plastic packaging.
Even knowing all of this, Labor’s pivot toward energy bills is still outrageous.
Albanese and his Labor Party are famous for one thing and one thing only – a failed 2022 election promise to reduce power bills by $275.
Why not repeat the same mistakes, eh? No one has ever accused Albanese of creativity.
Stick with me though, because there is method in the insult.
Perhaps it is just coincidence, but when you Google Labor’s energy bill reduction this morning, as opposed to last week, you get the new offer and not the prior failure.
Making a fresh promise is like laying tarmac over a pothole. It’s a great way to hide mistakes from search algorithms in the lead-up to an election.
The problem with energy bill relief is the same as it was last time.
Rebates are bribes.
They do not reflect a true reduction in the cost of energy, which is what matters if your aim is to repair the economy.
This would bother a responsible Treasurer.
Does this one-off payment have a meaningful impact on manufacturing cost? No. Does it provide long-term security for businesses? No. Does it reduce the price of goods and services that have energy written into their total value? No. No one wins in this scenario except Albanese.
Spending tax money to make energy bills ‘cheaper’ means the public is paying for energy twice. Three times, even, if you include the eye-watering subsidies that these new green technologies burn through every year on their way to landfill.
It should be illegal for Albanese to call this ‘relief’ for the cost-of-living crisis when throwing money around worsens the overall economic situation.
With economic decisions this bad, it is no surprise the gross Commonwealth debt is staring down a trillion dollars.
Albanese and Chalmers are the swindlers who hold up cash and pretend to be rich after maxing out a dozen credit cards.
The Australian Energy Regular only last week warned the nation that energy costs would likely soar by up to 9 per cent.
There’s your real apocalypse.
‘This is more hip pocket help for households. It recognises that even as we’ve made all of this progress on inflation together, people are still under pressure, so there’s more help being rolled out on Tuesday night. Extending these energy bill rebates for another six months recognises the pressures people are under and, in the most responsible way that we can, helps people with those pressures,’ said Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
And after those six months have passed, then what?
Oh, but it’s not a bribe, according to Mr Chalmers, ‘I would describe it as hip-pocket relief.’
The Liberals aren’t much better. Angus Taylor, the Shadow Treasurer, said of the situation, ‘We’re not going to stand in the way of Labor cleaning up their own mess. This is putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.’
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called it a ‘Ponzi scheme’ but he will have no choice but to match it to side-step MSM headlines.
And around we go again, getting nowhere.
Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.
