Coalition MPs want Trump-style ‘Australia first’ economics pitch

“Trump’s economic populism can’t be translated to Australia – we won’t win a tariff war. But Dutton can learn from Trump that working-class voters will listen to an economic argument.”
Dutton has made the question “are you better off after three years of a Labor government” central to the Coalition’s campaign pitch. It’s a line that echoes Trump’s campaign and other attacks on incumbent governments during a global inflation outbreak.
Labor has delivered two surpluses, largely due to a commodity price boom, but the opposition and some economists have accused Labor of putting too much money in the economy when the Reserve Bank has called for restraint.
The Coalition has suggested it will not offer income tax cuts at the next election, and has not yet released plans for industrial relations and productivity.
The opposition’s economic pitch has included few costed policies and instead prioritised more general pledges, such as lowering spending via a fiscal cap and a rejection of about $100 billion worth of Labor spending on energy, national reconstruction and housing funds.
Taylor said the Coalition had been brave to oppose such spending and take on political heat for doing so, adding that the plan to shift to nuclear energy was evidence that the party was prepared to back ambitious, big-picture policies.
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“In modern politics, these weren’t easy decisions to make, but they were the right ones for our country. It is the only way we can sustainably bring down inflation,” Taylor said.
The opposition’s first economic policy of the year – a tax deduction for business lunches – was welcomed by small business groups but panned on Wednesday by Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who claimed his opponents had no ideas other than one to “get taxpayers to fund long lunches for bosses”.
George Washington University assistant professor Steven Hamilton, a prominent Chalmers critic, also dismissed the lunch deduction as “straightforwardly bad tax policy as it uses taxpayers’ money to incentivise overconsumption inside small businesses”.
One MP, who declined to be named so they could speak frankly, said the opposition’s focus on national and domestic security issues such as antisemitism was important and effective but the lack of focus on cost-of-living gave the impression the Coalition was a “one-trick pony”.
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“People want a bold policy proposal every now and then. That was one of the appeals of Trump: he throws up big ideas and they cut through. We need some Australia-first economic proposals that people understand and make us relevant to aspirational voters,” the MPs said, nominating a new crackdown on corporate tax avoidance to set the opposition against the big end of town.
Another senior MP said Taylor had done well to focus on Labor’s spending, but added: “If the RBA cuts rates in February or April, or both, what’s our selling point?”
Frontbencher and former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, who opposes the Morrison-era commitment to net zero, said it was clear that cost of living was the only issue in town.