Resumption of hostilities after the Easter break and all morning the bulletins had the major parties throwing old mud at each other.
It would have been nice to see some exciting fresh policies instead of enduring the desperate attempts by the major parties to trap their opponents in the flypaper of old, inoperative policies, like bald men fighting over a comb.
Labor dredged up comments by Social Services Minister Anne Ruston that Medicare is unsustainable. Ruston, who would become health minister if the Coalition is returned (yes, BIG IF), denies any plans to restrict Medicare benefits, and Labor is hampered by memories of its 2016 ”Mediscare”.
Morrison is pledging to oppose a mining tax that Labor no longer advocates. And Albanese copped flak over Labor’s border protection policy and the issue of temporary protection visas. The real divergence there is not between Labor and Coalition, but Labor and its green-left wing.
As reported in MWM, a Coalition dirty tricks campaign has Labor the preferred party of Xi Jinping, when the parties are not in anything but lockstep on China.
Of course all these denials might be inoperative once the election is over. What would be really fun would be a repeat of Peter Garrett’s immortal pledge during the 2007 campaign: ‘‘We’ll just change it all’’.
Mark Sawyer is a journalist with extensive experience in print and digital media in Sydney, Melbourne and rural Australia.