Right-wing rivals locked in ‘race to the bottom’: PM
The Prime Minister, a Labor loyalist, said the leading right-wing parties were stuck in a race to the bottom, playing on people’s grievances while failing to offer workable solutions.
The Liberals’ rebranding is unlikely to win back voters because the problem is their political product, Anthony Albanese said on Sunday.
“It’s not their sales pitch, it’s their policy,” Mr Albanese said, speaking at the NSW Labor Party conference at Sydney Town Hall, where he cut his teeth as a young political warrior.
“It’s not what they call themselves, it’s who they are,” he said.
“This is a race to the bottom, with all three right-wing parties involved.
“They are the axis of grievance. Each one is trying to be more anti-justice, more anti-worker, more anti-desire.”
The comments come just days after Liberal Party frontbencher Melissa McIntosh said her party needed to rebrand if it wanted to stay relevant.
The party and its junior partner, the National Party, are struggling as voters shift to their right-wing rivals One Nation, which has trailed the coalition in a series of polls.
Senior Liberal figure Dan Tehan said the opposition was not considering the possibility of forming a coalition with the party led by Pauline Hanson in a bid to unseat Labor.
“That’s a no,” he told ABC’s Insider program after sustained questioning.
“We are a coalition, the Liberal Party-National party. This issue is not even talked about.”
National Leader Matt Canavan also dismissed concerns about the rise of One Nation.
He said voters had “legitimate complaints” about Labour’s actions and that this would help the coalition improve its position over time.
“The Prime Minister is essentially the captain of the status quo,” he told Sky News.
“He’s saying taxes are going up, government spending is going up, the same path we’ve been on, increasing intermittent solar and wind energy, but it’s not working.”
One Nation senator Sean Bell echoed the same sentiments and accused the government of overseeing the failed multiculturalism “doctrine”.
“What One Nation is saying is: ‘No, we believe multiculturalism doesn’t work,'” he said.
“We believe this should be eliminated.”
But Mr Albanese defended his government’s record, including its decision to introduce controversial tax changes that it had previously rejected.
“We’re not defending a status quo that doesn’t work for people,” he said at the conference.
“We are not claiming that the answer is to tear everything down and walk away.
“We choose progress over protest. We choose action over anger. We choose consequences over anger.”
