SYDNEY: Australia will elect a new parliament at the weekend. Who will win – Premier Scott Morrison or his challenger Anthony Albanese? One thing is clear: there are a lot of problems waiting for the next government. Impressions from a divided country.
It’s an autumn day in Manly, north Sydney. Surfers ride the blue Pacific, seagulls screech, men in outback hats drink beer in the pedestrian zone. In the middle of it all, campaign workers are distributing leaflets. Posters featuring smiling politicians promise to address the nation’s most pressing issues. On Saturday, Australia will elect a new parliament – and with it the direction in which the climate-hit country will steer over the next three years.
The atmosphere in Manly is, in typical “Aussie” fashion, relaxed. The volunteers chat and laugh, no matter what t-shirt they wear and what political faction they belong to. A stark contrast to the sometimes heated TV debates between the incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison (54) and his challenger Anthony Albanese (59) in recent weeks.
“For an hour, hardly anything happened other than a lot of mud being thrown,” commented the Australian ABC on the particularly quarrelsome second duel on May 8th. “It’s unclear who got more dirt – but it was probably the viewers who sacrificed their time late in the evening just to see two men arguing.” Shouting is rare on the Down Under political stage. That shows how much is at stake in voting.
The opponents will hardly convince the electorate with their charisma: Both the conservative ScoMo and the social democrat Albo, as the top candidates are called for short, are not exactly considered charismatic. Morrison himself admitted to governing “a bit like a bulldozer”. Albanese, on the other hand, described himself as a “builder”, someone who wants to build something. Anyone who watched the two of them during the election campaign quickly noticed that neither of them really wanted to spark. Intoxicating politics looks different.
The tense relationship with China, the resulting new security pact “Aukus” with Great Britain and the USA and an inhumane migration policy – these are the issues that have drawn the attention of the world community to the fifth continent. None of these are relevant to the outcome of the election. Australians have very different concerns. Above all, climate change.
Catastrophic bush fires, coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, dying trees in the rainforests and most recently massive flooding on the east coast – for the past few years, Australians have been hit hard. The continued denial of the climate crisis by members of Morrison’s Liberal Party has angered many.
“I’ve spoken to a number of liberals who believe it’s all fabrication,” confirms Sam Pigram, who helps out with the Labor campaign in Manly. “I, on the other hand, am very environmentally conscious – and for me the climate crisis is the most important issue in this election.” This is also one of the main reasons why he joined the party.
Ultimately, the Morrison government is primarily concerned with profit and not angering its patrons, says Jeff Scicluna, an IT consultant from Melbourne. The 55-year-old is convinced that if the Conservatives remain in power, “Australia’s longer-term future will face major challenges.”
“There have always been floods in Australia, that’s nothing new,” says Mark Westfield. The 69-year-old has been a member of the Liberal Party for nine years. Like many other countries, Australia wants to become climate-neutral by 2050 and is doing its part. In fact, as a declared fan of the coal industry, Morrison had long hesitated to name a specific date for more ambitious climate targets. After all, he did it last year, shortly before the UN climate conference.
The climate crisis is already having an impact on the cost of living. Floods in New South Wales and Queensland, triggered by weeks of rain, have destroyed crops and pushed up fruit and vegetable prices. A look at the fruit shelves at the Coles supermarket chain shows that a kilo of tomatoes now costs 9.90 Australian dollars (6.60 euros), and customers even have to shell out 10.90 dollars (7.30 euros) for three peppers. That is more than twice as much as a few weeks ago, observers say.
But even without constant rain and floods, life Down Under is expensive. House prices in metropolises such as Sydney, Melbourne or Perth have become unaffordable for most. If you listen to the citizens, it quickly becomes clear: everyday problems will be decisive in this election. Most of the 17 million eligible voters are concerned with things like affordable rents, daycare centers, retirement homes and hospitals – not with world politics.
Meanwhile, Morrison’s coalition government has a low unemployment rate of just four percent. The prospects for economic growth are also positive. On this point, many trust the Liberals more than Labor. And so it looks like a close race. Although the Liberal Party was behind in almost all polls, according to experts, they could still manage a surprise victory – like in 2019, when ScoMo, despite all prophecies of doom, narrowly prevailed against its Labor challenger Bill Shorten.
Despite all the uncertainty about the outcome, the candidates do not have to worry about at least one point: voter turnout. Voting is compulsory in Australia.
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