COMMENT Scott Morrison has settled on his best chance to arrest the havoc
Scott Morrison has a favourite way to urge Australians to scoff at everything they hear from Labor, but his warning about his enemies now applies just as much to his friends.
While Barnaby Joyce and some of his colleagues see the proposal as a killer idea for Nationals seats in central Queensland, it is also an easy way to wipe out votes in northern NSW, where Labor has made inroads into Nationals territory. Anything that damages Morrison will only help the conservative side of the Liberal Party in the event the government loses and the party searches for a new direction. Andrew Bolt wrote on Monday that Abbott could be the party’s next leader because a heavy defeat would make Morrison “seem a loser who failed to inspire”.
None of this is Morrison’s fault. The Prime Minister tried to end the Coalition’s civil war over the National Energy Guarantee by declaring “the NEG is dead” but now finds himself in Malcolm Turnbull’s predicament, unable to pacify the fossil fuel lobby within his own government. They seem unlikely to stop unless they gain unconditional surrender from the moderate wing of their party.
Morrison and the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, now have an opportunity to match or exceed Labor on the size of the income tax offset each side promises for about 10 million workers.The scale of the benefit depends on a worker’s salary. Someone earning between $50,000 and $80,000 a year receives $530 from the government and $928 from Labor. A worker on $100,000 a year receives $380 from the government and $665 from Labor, while someone on $120,000 sees the benefit fall to $80 and $140.
Labor can match any tax cut the government offers but Morrison can use the budget to appeal to aspirational voters and, with luck, shift the conversation away from coal.
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