Election Post Mortem.

Why did the Australian Labor Party lose the “unlosable” 2019 federal elections is the question keeping all and sundry busy lately.

That I’ve seen, the best take on that question by far came from Annabel Crabb, the ABC’s chief political writer. Those who know me may say that’s predictable -- it’s no secret to them I’m her fan.

In this case, however, Crabb didn’t have to exercise too much effort, beyond demonstrating that most uncommon thing: common sense. Instead of making wild guesses, her focus was on the personal reactions of high profile politicians. It makes for a fascinating read and if you think about its implications (What is democracy? Principles or pragmatism? Do parties exist to win elections or to exercise power? What must parties tell the public?), a troubling one:

“Triumph Holds an Epic Warning for Morrison” (May 25)

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Something subtracting from Crabb’s achievement is that, although lots have been written on the subject, she had no real competition. Other pieces were that bad.

Enter Prof. Haydon Manning (the political scientist cum nuclear power campaigner in the land of sunshine and wind). Labor lost, Manning says, because it engaged in “class-envy rhetoric, the redistributionist tax policies and the mantra that this was the ‘climate change election’.”

His brilliant solution?

To set Labor free from its shackles, its new leader Anthony Albanese would need to dispel the perception that Labor is a paler shade of the Australian Greens.

Labor, that is, will gain elections by showing itself a paler shade of the COALition. Coke and Pepsi. Same policies, same proposals, same rhetoric. But nicer!

Just one question: if people want what the COALition gives them, why should they vote for Manning’s Labor? Why should they be happy with a knock-off if they can have the real McCoy unadulterated?

To all purposes, distinguishable only by its label, people shall vote for Labor because it is the lesser evil.

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Mind you, Manning’s piece wasn’t the worse. Tom Iggulden, ABC’s Federal Parliament reporter, managed to beat him … with an even crappier version of Manning’s thesis.

Honestly, I’m not sure Iggulde really meant what he said. Was that a joke?

Assuming he was at least partially serious: if Labor had lost the Longman byelection last July, he says, Anthony Albanese could have displaced Bill Shorten as Labor leader. Voters wouldn’t have minded that and Albo would have abandoned the class envy rhetoric. Labor, like Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors, would have found her Mr. Right, sorry, would have won the election (I’m not making that shit up: it’s there).

In Iggulden’s rom-com, climate change and Adani had nothing to do with the Queensland swing votes. No Clive the Hutt, no Murdoch propaganda machine, no fear mongering.

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So, following Manning and Iggulden, Labor shouldn’t even mention climate change, let alone do something about it. It’s a turn off.

Instead of engaging in class-envy rhetoric, Labor should engage in greed rhetoric. Just make up something like Scott Morrison’s "A fair go for those who have a go" (with the unsaid bit " … at the teats of the Commonwealth").

In a country where VS experts like those two pretend to believe taxes fund government spending, let’s keep bleeding the sacrosanct federal budget with unaffordable and unjustified franking credits for wealthy retirees. Ditto when it comes to huge tax cuts to the rich and symbolic ones to the poor or subsidising rent-seekers in the housing market with negative gearing.

Don’t even mention any of that, or the label "politics of envy" will be branded on your forehead. Instead, justify it: those guys are "aspirational".

When Adani starts losing money, as that piece of shit will likely do, let’s subsidise it too, so that it can keep destroying life on Earth.

And when the budget goes red, we can further cut education and health and raise the GST. Above all, not a cent extra for the dole.

Under those circumstances, maybe, with luck, Labor can win an election and its candidates a new job. Only one question then to our geniuses: what’s the point for the voters?

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But, in a surprise upset mimicking the COALition’s own victory, Iggulden --  whom the experts perceived as the hands down winner in the madness category -- didn’t take the cake. The ABC’s Allyson Horn and James Norman did. For irrelevance. Her for her article and him for his response.

Horn reckons Bob Brown’s evidently childish, smug, gratuitously provocative, ill-advised, attention-seeking visit to Queensland had a hugely disproportionate outcome: it handed the COALition Queensland. Aren’t we giving that … whatever … too much credit?

Norman, author of Brown’s adoring biography B_o_b__B_r_o_w_n: Gentle Revolutionary, full of cold outrage, indignantly replied.

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We were already running out of time, folks, and, whatever the cause or causes of Labor’s defeat, action on climate change and inequality just got a whole lot harder. Two examples: one and two.

Hopefully I’m mistaken, but I believe we won’t be seeing another Labor turn to the Left any time soon. In the meantime, Australia is heading towards murder suicide, aided and abetted by VS deranged experts.