More than 20 years ago, at the start of 2001, the polls suggested John Howard faced a landslide defeat, with even loyal Liberal voters alienated from the government. But Howard sparked a political comeback that would deliver victory later that year by targeting handouts at the Liberal voting base to get them back on board. In particular, he targeted seniors with one-off payments and expanded access to the Commonwealth seniors health card.
The health card began as a Labor measure in the 1990s as means for the government to subsidise medicines and health services for low-income retirees. But like any good welfare measure, it has since been dramatically skewed in the interests of middle-class retirees, and anyone who can manipulate their superannuation income to fall under the thresholds to access it.
Today, somewhat belatedly — there are only three weeks to go until polling day and he trails by six to eight points — Scott Morrison adopted the Howard tactic and announced he was radically expanding access to the seniors health card. Radically. The singles income threshold is currently $57,761 a year. That will rise to $90,000. The couples threshold will go up from from $92,416 to $144,000.
That is, blatant middle-class welfare for self-funded retirees will be dramatically widened to even wealthier seniors. And there’s no asset test for the card so wealthy seniors living in multimillion-dollar houses will get to enjoy subsidised medicines as well.
Thank you, taxpayers. Thank you, Coalition.
Labor immediately said it would match the increase. Gone is the bravado of 2019, when Labor told greedy self-funded retirees that they could vote against its sensible reform measures if they wanted. It doesn’t want the distraction of a class war even if it’s to prevent the extension of an already outrageous rort. It’s happy to keep talking about its Help To Buy housing policy.
Morrison, too, was happy to talk about it, though the prime minister appeared to be confused about whether the government owning an equity stake in your home was some outrageous, Orwellian burden on home owners, or some unfair advantage that successful applicants might take into the housing market, but one way or another it was a bad thing. Sydney Liberal MP Jason Falinski, struggling to hang on to his teal-leaning seat of Mackellar, disagreed, saying he thought it was a good thing.
Albanese fielded a number of questions about Help To Buy at his press conference in Brisbane this morning before joining the Queensland premier at the May Day (or, in this case, May Day +1) Parade, but they were mostly anodyne.
To that end, there seems to have been something of a shift in the much-maligned media packs travelling with the leaders, with Morrison recently facing more hostile questioning and Albanese facing fewer attempts at gotcha questions. Today, Morrison was repeatedly asked about a possible interest rate rise tomorrow and his insistence it would be nothing to do with him if it occurred. Under unaccustomed pressure from the media pack, Morrison resorted to this:
It is not about politics. It is not about politics. What happens tomorrow deals with what people pay on their mortgages. That is what I am concerned about. It is not about what it means for politics. I mean, sometimes you guys always see things through a totally political lens. I don’t. And Australians don’t.
For a man whose entire political career has been devoted to treating literally the most serious possible issues as being all about political management, it was a remarkable statement. “Tomorrow, it is not about me. It is not about Mr Albanese. It is not about the treasurer or the shadow treasurer.”
Seems Morrison fears the worst from the RBA board tomorrow. But they might yet surprise us all.
