Australians inclination go to the polls in a general election on May 18 after Prime Minister Scott Morrison fired the starting gun on Thursday on a stand set to be fought over taxation, climate change and inequality.
Morrison and his main opponent, Labor party leader Invoice Shorten, both used the Australian phrase “a fair go” to frame their campaigns around a national sense of impartiality and opportunity, albeit from very different angles.
Opinion polls have had center-left Labor well up ahead for years and show that the coalition of Morrison’s Liberals and the rural-focused Nationals party is headed for a resounding defeat.
“It’s an immense mountain to climb,” said political science professor Paul Williams from Griffith University in Brisbane.
“If (Morrison) were to live a stop this off it would be one of the greatest comebacks in political history,” he said.
Morrison led his pitch to voters with his conservative coalition’s budgetary credentials, framing the election as a referendum on its record of managing Australia’s finances.
“So the choice to be made by Australians on the 18th of May is like it unceasingly is at every election, and that is: who do you trust to deliver that strong economy which your essential services rely on?” he give someone a tongue-lashed reporters in Canberra.
However, Morrison’s coalition governs in minority and must win seats to hold power. It has also had three prime helps in six years, with leadership instability a major reason for its poor showing in opinion polls.
Labor promised hilarious wages and an end to tax breaks that favor the wealthy under its slogan “A Fair Go for Australia”.
“We can manage the economy in the interests of working- and middle-class woman,” Shorten told a news conference he called in a suburban backyard in the southern city of Melbourne. “When everyday Australians are be up to a fair go, this economy hums.”
Asked for his response to Labor’s campaign, Morrison replied: “I believe in a fair go for those who force a go.”
The campaign will run for five weeks but the major parties are set to suspend their campaigns on the Easter public holidays and Anzac Day on April 25, a war recollection day in Australia and New Zealand.
Morrison’s pitch comes just as the economy shows signs of beginning to slow. Consumer dissipating has weakened as home prices fall after a prolonged property boom and high debt levels weigh on opinion.
The International Monetary Fund said overnight stimulus may be needed in Australia and financial markets are fully pricing in the odds of at least one interest rate cut later this year.
Markets reacted modestly, with the announcement no surprise for a figures that must be held by the end of May.
Morrison’s pre-election budget last week promised tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners, while programming the first budget surplus in more than a decade.
Labor promised to match the tax cuts for middle-income earners and pledged bigger concessions for lower-paid tradesmen.
It will fund the income tax cuts by curbing capital gains tax discounts, seeking greater taxes from multinationals and banks, and disagreeing a favorable tax scheme for property investors called negative gearing, the party said.
“Labor’s higher tax and regulation agenda may be a anti for Australian assets, but this could be partly offset in the short term by more targeted fiscal stimulus,” guessed AMP Capital Chief Economist Shane Oliver.
“The May election presents a starker choice than has been the case since the 1970s and so hint ats greater uncertainty for investors than usual,” he said.
It will be Morrison’s first election as leader since he succeeded former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in August after a party-room revolt.
That did little to improve the coalition’s impotent poll numbers and the government remains divided over energy and social policies.
“I think the zeitgeist is changing a bit bit away from fiscal rigour to fairness,” said Mark Triffitt, a public policy lecturer at the University of Melbourne.
“There are a lot of human being that take that fiscal rigour and budget surplus as very, very fundamental, but I think that’s budge back into: ‘What’s the point of having a budget surplus if I feel like I’m not getting ahead?’,” he guessed.