POLLSTERS, One Nation and Labor are now all in agreement that a One Nation-Liberal government will be the likely outcome of the Victorian state election on November 28th.
Victorian Labor is using the prediction to try to scare the electorate, but it’s unlikely voters other than hardcore Labor-Green supporters will heed the scare campaign.
Liberal leader Jess Wilson, has repeatedly refused to rule out doing a deal with One Nation, which would create a wider coalition than their present one with the Nationals, who number 11 in the Parliament against the Liberals 31.
Barnaby Joyce says he has already spoken with “very, very senior Liberals” about the likelihood of a joint One Nation-Liberal government and says One Nation will obviously attempt to get such an agreement on the basis of “solid policy outcomes that One Nation would want”.
A poll conducted between September 24th and 28th from a sample of 1030 voters found that on the biased two-party preferred (2PP) basis, the Coalition is leading Labor 53% to 47%, while on primary votes the Coalition is 29%, Labor 24%, One Nation 22% and Greens 14%.
The poll, again ignoring the major presence of One Nation, found the Liberal leader Jess Wilson “comfortably leading Premier Ben Carroll”.
So the poll, at least on the surface, gives the impression that while the Victorian Liberal-National Party will need One Nation as an additional coalition partner, it’s a “given” that the coalition will be led by the 36-year-old Wilson, who would be the youngest premier of that state for more than 100 years.
The Western District grazier and Member for Warnambool, John Murray, was 31 years old when he took office in March 1832
Wilson has been dubbed “a moderate” by The Age newspaper, which would align with her previous decision to support The Voice against the wishes of the grass roots Liberal Party membership. The Age also quoted her as supporting abortion and same-sex marriage.
Her big tests, assuming she becomes the Premier, will be whether she goes ahead with her pledge to abolish the Victorian Aboriginal Treaty within 100 days and replace it with a government department called First Nations Victoria, and whether she will support One Nation’s ban on net zero and support for native forest logging.
Wilson has “the right credentials”, having been a senior adviser with the globally-connected, former Treasurer of Australia and deputy leader of the Liberal Party Josh Frydenberg, who is now chairman of Goldman Sachs Australia and the bank’s Senior International Advisor for Asia Pacific.
She was also employed as the Business Council of Australia’s head of energy and climate policy where she worked with big businesses and helped them develop a policy agenda and work out a pathway to a net zero economy – all based on the flawed assumption that carbon dioxide emissions are somehow threatening the planet.
Wilson, like her state Liberal MP father Ron Wilson, was president of the Monash University Liberal Club and later president of the Victorian Young Liberals.
She studied arts and law at Monash and was a Hansard Society scholar, which paid her way to the London School of Economics to learn how “the real world” of global free-market economics works and an internship at the House of Commons to learn how “real politics” works.
Such a background, apparently, makes Ms Wilson a “properly qualified and educated person” for a high-level position in Australian politics.
Contrast this with Warren Pickering, the Victorian leader of One Nation, who negotiated a failed marriage, drug abuse and then military service and single parenthood.
It’s a contrast of Wilson’s positions and privilege versus Pickering’s university of the rough road tempered with hard-earned respect from military discipline.
Pickering, unlike the political professional Wilson, simply came to a strong belief that things needed to change in Australia in a system biased against white Anglo men and run, in large part, by radical feminists and environmentalists sitting in plush public service offices.
Wilson and her Liberal “moderates” will be severely challenged by One Nation’s plans to scrap net-zero and end taxpayer subsidies for wind and solar generation, to expand coal and gas generation to lower power prices and keep the Loy Yang A power station running past its scheduled 2035 closure, to end the state’s ban on nuclear power and fully overturn the ban on native timber logging.
Wilson and the moderates, like their federal counterparts, desperately hope to win Green and Teal-leaning voters, and hold some favour with the generation 16 and 17-year-old schoolies brainwashed into the New Left LGBTQ+ and evironmentalist ideology of Labor and the Greens.
