VOTE IN AUSTRALIA WILL DECIDE THE FATE OF THE SCOTT MORRISON GOVERNMENT

Sat 01 May 2022:

Anthony Albanese, Australia’s election frontrunner, urged people to give his center-left party a “crack” at ruling the country after a decade of conservative government.

Albanese, the 57-year-old Labor Party leader, urged Australians to reject Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is failing in surveys ahead of the election.

Albanese has promised to put an end to Australia’s inaction on climate change, assist individuals affected by rising prices, and call a referendum on giving indigenous people a formal role in national policymaking.

“I feel a sense of momentum,” Albanese said on Saturday as he visited a polling station in Melbourne, posing for selfies with locals and their dogs.

“Give Labor a crack. We have plans for this country,” Albanese said as election day began, describing the prime minister as “the most divisive I’ve ever seen”.

“We have plans to embrace the opportunities that are there from acting on climate change,” he said.

‘Hubris’

In a land scarred by ever more ferocious bushfires, floods, and droughts, climate change was on many voters’ minds.

“I grew up in a community that’s been really heavily affected by the fires and the floods over the past five years,” first time voter Jordan Neville said in Melbourne.

“To see something be done about that and stop that happening again would be amazing.”

As long queues formed in many stations, incumbent Morrison accused Albanese of “hubris” in predicting a centre-left Labor win.

“You can’t get ahead of yourself,” the 54-year-old leader said in a last pre-election pitch as he hammered home his message that Labor cannot be trusted to manage the economy.

Voting is compulsory, enforced with a Aus$20 (US$14) fine but also rewarded at many booths that fired up barbecues to offer people a free “democracy sausage”.

The House of Representatives will be elected by more than 17.2 million eligible voters.

The election will determine who controls the House of Representatives, Senate, and Prime Minister’s “Lodge.”

According to the Australian Electoral Commission, more than seven million individuals cast early or postal ballots, accounting for nearly half of the electorate.

Labor leads Morrison’s Liberal-led coalition by six points in two final polls, but the race is tightening and neither party is certain to win outright.

Tough campaigner

Speaking in Adelaide during a four-state election-eve blitz, Albanese welled up as he reflected on his personal journey — from the son of a single mum living in Sydney public housing to the threshold of the highest office in the land.

“It says a lot about this country,” he said Friday, voice cracking with emotion. “That someone from those beginnings… can stand before you today, hoping to be elected prime minister of this country tomorrow.”

If elected, Albanese notes he would be the first Australian with a non-Anglo or Celtic surname to be prime minister.

But he is up against a tough campaigner in incumbent Morrison, who defied the polls three years ago in what he termed a “miracle” election.

Speaking in Western Australia, Morrison admitted his compatriots go into election day “fatigued and tired” having endured three years of bushfires, droughts, floods and the coronavirus pandemic.

“I understand that frustration,” he said, having pledged to change if re-elected.

‘Not up to the job’

Morrison has characterised Albanese as a “loose unit” because of his high-profile gaffes, notably forgetting the national jobless rate.

“This is the sort of stuff that prime ministers need to know,” Morrison said in an interview Friday as he campaigned in Western Australia.

“We have seen that he is not up to the job and it’s bigger than him.”

Morrison boasted of new data showing Australia’s unemployment rate fell to a 48-year low of 3.9 percent in April as an “extraordinary achievement” that showed his plan was working.

Both sides are trying to woo voters fretting about the rising cost of living, with annual inflation shooting up to 5.1 percent and wages failing to keep up in real terms.

Many voters in wealthy suburban regions are being wooed by a group of more than 20 independent candidates, most of whom are women, who promise conservative principles and aggressive action on climate change.

Morrison has resisted requests to reduce carbon emissions more quickly by 2030, instead favoring coal extraction and burning in the long run to improve the economy.

Albanese has also committed to take action against corruption, following Morrison’s failure to deliver on a promised federal anti-corruption watchdog.

Morrison’s government has been dubbed the “least open, least fair dinkum government in Australian political history” by him.

On a two-party preferred basis, an Ipsos survey issued late Thursday and a YouGov/Newspoll poll released Friday showed Labor a 53-47 percent advantage over the coalition.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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