When Labor is asked by the opposition why Australians are struggling to pay their power bills despite its aim to cut them by $275 by 2025, there is an easy retort to hand.
“Well, I hope [the member asking the question] tells [constituent cited as source of complaint] that we passed a plan to reduce power bills and the Coalition voted against it” is the formulation Anthony Albanese and his ministers have used in question time for months now.
This week the government added 60-day dispensing, which gives patients with chronic conditions two months of medicine for the price of one, to the list of cost-of -living retorts.
On Wednesday the Coalition finally broke cover with a disallowance motion that would block 60-day dispensing, despite claiming it really supported the measure and only wanted a pause.
After months of intense lobbying, claiming the changes could cause everything from medicine shortages, to retirees being charged more for Webster-paks, to children at risk of overdose, the Pharmacy Guild finally had a champion in parliament.
Doctors’ groups called on the Senate to put patients before profit and – after a wild see-sawing ride – it did so on Thursday afternoon.
The oppposition’s health spokeswoman, Anne Ruston, and the Nationals Senate leader, Bridget McKenzie, doubled down, lodging another disallowance due for September – after the changes take effect.
When the prime minister was next asked about cost of living, on ABC radio on Friday, he duly noted the Coalition had voted against cheaper medicine.
This dynamic, of Coalition complaint and then opposition to Labor measures to help household budgets, is fascinating.
This week the Essential poll showed voters were giving the government terrible marks on the cost of living but so far not rewarding the Coalition with their votes.
Despite just 9% of voters saying the government was doing an “excellent or above average” job on cost of living, Labor leads the Coalition 33% to 30% on primary votes, and 52% to 42% on a two-party preferred basis, with 6% undecided.
Albanese’s approval is down, and only one-third of respondents think the country is going in the right direction, but Peter Dutton can’t take a trick.
While counterintuitive, it’s arguably rational in the circumstances.
Dutton made cost of living a centrepiece of his October budget reply, but did little more on the policy front than recommit to letting people access superannuation for a house deposit.
In his second budget reply in May, Dutton dabbled in some social policy (a partial ban on gambling ads) and had a counter-offer to Labor’s jobseeker increase (lifting the income-free area instead). The legislation passed the parliament unamended.
After losing the 2019 election, Labor may have started its term in opposition on the ropes, waving through the tax cut package after failing to excise stage three, but it soon put out more alternative policies. These included the cheaper childcare package and rewiring the nation policy in the October 2020 budget, then the $15bn reconstruction fund in March 2021.
After the Liberals’ disastrous loss in the Aston byelection, there was a brief moment when some in the party clamoured for more policy, but the Fadden win seems to have calmed the nerves and convinced the opposition a focus on poor housing affordability and high electricity prices will be enough.
This week their energy spokesman, Ted O’Brien, gave the strongest signal yet that the Coalition is likely to spruik a “coal-to-nuclear transition” as part of its policy for the 2025 election.
But this is not yet settled policy, just a bit of window-dressing in the Australian. It was not accompanied with detailed costings about how much federal support would be required or any modelling about projected savings for households.
Perhaps the answer on the cost to the federal budget is “we don’t know” or “more than we’d like to say”. Best for the moment to campaign on the possibility of a panacea technology, claiming big theoretical savings by reducing the need for more poles and wires.
While promising little, the small-target Dutton opposition has passed up some low-hanging fruit. The deputy Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, went on a listening tour, where she heard calls to pay superannuation on paid parental leave.
The idea was a huge hit at the September jobs and skills summit, but because Labor focused instead on giving parents more weeks of leave, it decided against paying super on top.
The government insists it still wants to do it. How hard would it have been for Dutton to promise this in a budget reply, campaign on it for a few months, then take credit when Labor inevitably pinched the policy? Not very. And yet the opportunity went begging.
The whole Coalition strategy is a re-run of Tony Abbott style negativity, huffing and puffing and waiting for the government’s house of cards to collapse.
But with government unity still very strong, Labor has instead patiently explained it didn’t cause high prices and it’s working to solve them.
Dutton is leaving it very late to flip the switch from resentment to solutions and in the meantime, by opposing too many measures, he is giving Labor an easy counterattack on cost of living.
