Labor And The Eternal Blame Game

How much can a new government be held responsible for the mistakes of the previous government? And how much time should this new government be given to resolve all of these problems? Easy answer: if it’s an incoming Labor government, they are cause of all these problems from the moment they are elected, and must resolve these problems within, say, three weeks of assuming office.

The rules for the Coalition are different – they can endlessly remain in office, cause as many problems as they like, eschew responsibilities and then shout from the sidelines once they get turfed into Opposition, and demand the Labor Party fix all the problems they caused over an ineffective and inefficient nine year period in government.

And their task is a great deal easier with a mainstream media that is defiantly loyal to the Coalition, and will support any ridiculous statements put out under the new leadership of Peter Dutton. And, true to form, the Liberal and National parties will behave like an opposition, whether they are in government or actually in opposition, and now is their time to shine as an opposition, and long may they stay in this position.

The latest round of inanity is the idea that, somehow, the Labor government is illegitimate because 68 per cent of the electorate didn’t vote for them. This is refering to the 32 per cent primary vote the Labor Party received at the 2022 federal election but – history lesson – elections are not won by the parties with the most primary votes, or even the most preferential votes: it’s the party which wins the most seats out of the 151 seats on offer. It has always been like this and in every democratic system in the world. And, this time around, Labor won 77 seats, which means they can form government.

It’s a pity the Liberal Party doesn’t understand this basic electoral arithmetic.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is doing what good governments should do: get on with the tasks at hand, including cleaning up the mess from over the past nine years. Already within three weeks, the new Labor government has resolved many of the diplomatic issues in the Pacific island region; created a stronger link with Indonesia; signposted its intentions on Indigenous affairs; released the Murugappan family back into the community.

Of course, this is only a small part of the work of government, but it signals an intention of a new government wanting to get on with the work of government and not waste a moment in office.