The dust is settling, and so to the victor belong the spoils.
Every three years, like the Hunger Games come to life, we ‘the audience” get to vote for our various Federal political aspirants.
Invariably the incumbent is disadvantaged, wearing the folly of their political hubris like a hairshirt. Three years of constant media scrutiny is a virtual death sentence at the polls. The LNP had a hairshirt of some embarrassing complexity. With leadership changes, onion eating and philandering foist high on the flagpole of foibles.
It was indeed a particularly aberrant and exceptional opposition that could wrestle a loss from this storm of electoral perfection.
In the social media echo chambers the din was loud for a Labor win. The left clamouring to say their bit to each other, over and over, louder and louder. They yelled so loud that they drowned themselves out. Like noise cancelling headphones, Australia said “we don’t want to listen”.
History gives us a loss for Labor and the pundits gave us the reasons;
1. Bill – an awkward man. With cadence deprivation syndrome, that is the uncanny ability to make you feel uncomfortable while he spoke.
2. A campaign with an unabashed socialist and redistributive agenda that targeted the ‘middle’ (and like a kid goading another into a playground fight, called them ‘the top-end of town’). Or as I saw one commentator write, tapping his penchant for the classics, “the Left flew too close to the sun and the wax melted their wings”.
3. Overconfidence. Nothing is less Australian. Said Bowen, “if you don’t like our policies, then don’t vote for us!” And they didn’t.
4.ScoMo – as smooth as butterscotch ice cream, packing family values and bonhomie in equal measure, he was the Liberal campaign.
So here we are on the other side.
Certainty rules. A calmness emanates. There is a stillness. Like two Balinese village dogs, finished snarling and biting, one lies in the dust licking its bloody wounds and the other is busily pissing on tree trunks, claiming the spoils.
The risk of a rug being pulled from beneath the feet of various institutions and industries is gone.
For the months prior to the election I have answered the questions, “what will happen when Labor win?” And it was a question asked with trepidation, could people even look into the maw of future uncertainty? And it seems no-one could. What would the world of no negative gearing and compromised capital gains tax law look like? Who could say? In the wasteland of collapsed housing prices and sales activity, why would Labor even countenance such depraved acts of revisionism? It struck fear into the heart of the home buying public.
Well that fear is lifted. Like a dark cloak, heavy on the market’s shoulders. Gone. And with a posie of positivity tucked under its arm the market, like a liberated Red Riding Hood, feels ready to skip along. The good news of APRA’s position change on lending assessment and soon to be Reserve Bank rate cuts ringing in its ears.
The election result was a clarion call to get back to business.
In WA we’re just ramping up again in our specialty, Big Hole Digging. This frenetic mining activity is filtering down to the residential market. Rents are up. Vacancies are down. My last four Buyers have been directly associated with mining.
To steal a phrase from political circles, ‘It’s time”.
Derek Baston
