Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull enters this crucial Senate sitting week on an election footing. He has stepped up attacks on Labor's union links, knowing they are the Achilles' heel of Labor leader Bill Shorten.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mr Turnbull is selling the Coalition as the side for small business, too, in the debate over road safety and minimum rates for independent truckies.
The Liberal Party has helped the Turnbull cause by removing an albatross in former speaker Bronwyn Bishop as well, thereby helping to present the government as fresh and further distanced from the Abbott era. So the smell of an early election is in the air.
Senate crossbenchers are indicating they will block the registered organisations and building watch dog bills that would create a double dissolution election trigger.
The Australian Building and Construction Commission would help restore order and legality to the construction sector.
While it is regrettable that those bills are unlikely to pass, Australia can benefit through a double dissolution election. The outcome would be a more democratic upper house thanks to the new voting rules that limit rorting of preferences by micro-parties.
The nation would be best served by a new government of either persuasion, with a new mandate on economics, tax and social issues instead of the vestiges of the 2013 election agenda of Tony Abbott.
But Mr Turnbull's decision whether to pull any such double dissolution trigger depends almost solely on one big gamble: will he back his strong personal appeal with voters to overcome the increasing disillusionment with his government?
Labor has done well to release policies and highlight the government's flawed rejection of a banking royal commission. The latest Fairfax-Ipsos polling shows 65 per cent of people – and a even majority of Coalition voters – support a royal commission.
Labor has improved three points to level pegging on two-party preferred basis in the poll. Mr Turnbull's personal ratings have slipped too. Yet he is still preferred as prime minister by twice as many people as Mr Shorten, 54 per cent to 27 per cent.
The debates about union corruption and truck safety are important. But the key to Mr Turnbull's thinking on a double dissolution election will come after the May 3 budget. That’s when voters get to deliver their verdict on whether this government has a tax and economic policy worth supporting.
SMH
