Peter Dutton is asked about what the Coalition would do to fix the structural problems in the budget (governments spending more than they collect) and pivots to the old tired line that the Coalition “cleans up Labor messes”.

Well, so I think if you look at history, a Coalition government has always come in to clean up a Labor mess. John Howard did it post the Hawke/Keating period, and got our economy and our country back on track. And Tony Abbott did after Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, and we will do the same for our country, because Australian families know that the debt and the deficit and the reckless spending that has now become the hallmark of the Albanese government has led to higher inflation. And the Reserve Bank Governor points this out independently, says that there is a homegrown inflation problem, and interest rates already started to come down in the US and the UK, New Zealand and Canada, before that came down here, and it gives an insight into the reality of what domestic impact the Albanese government has had, and it’s been all negative. Families are really struggling. 29,000 small businesses have closed over the last three years, and a lot of people despite working harder and going backwards under Anthony Albanese.

Ugh. Where to begin.

OK, first of all, John Howard and Peter Costello inherited the mining boom, which they spent like catnipped cats and increased inequality. Then Tony Abbott came to power after a little thing called the GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS which hit economies across the developed world (and Australia didn’t enter recession unlike other nations).

The inflation crisis we have just lived through was a result of the shock to the global economy from the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Australia experienced the inflation hit later than the US and the UK and didn’t start raising interest rates and until after the US and the UK, so it is no surprise that inflation, which arrived earlier, in the US and the UK, also started going down earlier in those countries. (same with Canada). And I don’t know if you have seen the impact the austerity measures have had in New Zealand but that is an economy which has absolutely tanked. So if Dutton is really worried about people going backwards and small business then he should take a look at what the conservative government has done in NZ.