MT,
Putting aside your hatred for the LNP (who I'm not even a supporter of, just a slightly less evil imo)... can you say its been a good year for the ALP? Do you genuinely believe they're doing a decent job?
The ALP inherited a trainwreck of an economy. Rapidly rising inflation at 6% and growing, debt approaching $1T with nothing to show for it, stagnant wages over the previous decade, a 20% increase in power prices that was deliberately hidden until after the May 22 election, and interest rates only beginning to increase thanks to the RBA being too slow to react when they should've increased the rate multiple times prior to the 2022 election. Anybody with a basic understanding of economics knew things were going to continue to get worse during the first 18 months of Labor's first term before they got better. Curbing inflation takes time even following standard centrist if not neo-liberal economic policy. This plus the failure of the Voice referendum hurt Labor in the polls during 2023 but they have now stabilised (latest Newspoll has ALP 52 LNP 48 - same as last election - and 62% support the stage 3 tax changes). The economic task to fix the mess Labor inherited is not done yet but recent CPI figures (4.1% for the Dec 23 qtr) show the tide is turning for the better. If the March 24 qtr figure follows the downward trend, then inflation will be in the low-mid 3s and hence the talk of interest rate cuts by the middle of this year. It's why I stated 2024, not 2023.
n.b. the red line is the May 22 election (June 22 qtr crosses over it).https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/latest-release#data-downloadsAm I saying the govt doesn't need to do more, say in terms major reform? No. However, the useless MSM (almost all of them these days) wanting to turn every major issue into a clickbait pantomime with their pathetic simplistic yes/no gotcha questions stifles any serious grown up discussion. People forget Hawke & Keating's economic reforms in the 80s and Howard's GST (after saying "never ever" to a GST) were introduced once in government; while Hewson and Shorten both got burnt by being upfront from opposition. The media are as much to blame for the political gamemanship as the pollies are.
ps. Nice to get a sensible well-articulated question in this thread by the way. Credit to you, AT.
