The election aftermath

Well the election has come and gone.

It went pretty much as I thought . Skeptikoi shows a variation on a theme.

With nominal GDP much lower than trend most people thought the economy was either in a recession or a slowdown. Hence the large win. A I explained above it is similar but a bit different to 1996.On both occasions the Coalition really did/does not understand why they have won.
This has implications for the next election.

Whilst that was the major reason for the loss another reason was the strategy adopted by the ALP. After being Prime Ministerial in his first couple of weeks once the campaign started he looked and sounded like an Opposition leader. We heard little about the Government's reasonable record or the ALP's policies.
Quite frankly it looked liked Gillard was still PM or her team was. The ALP need to clear away all the deadwood that were part of strategy. They have no idea.

Why did we not hear about this for instance?  Why no comparison about inflation rates of the previous Government and this one, A comparison of interest rates would have been interesting  as well.
This of course would have meant explaining to people the myth of  cost of living pressures!

If you leave the economic area and let the Opposition dictate the story you cannot come in at the last minute and change the storyline. This means the opposition again gets away with murder on their costings and you cannot point out despite their hysterical claims over time the two economic policies are pretty much the same.

(By the way can some-one point out to Poor old Rafe the NBN is in the debt figures. This group of delusionists were claiming it wasn't even in the balance sheet when it clearly always has been. Given there has been no correction at that blog they must still believe that rubbish. This is what happens when people do not even read budget papers!)

I do not expect any major policy change. Tony Abbot has always been a big government conservative as I stated here.So I pretty much agree with Ross Gittins.The Piping Shrike makes a lot of of sense as well.

I do expect them to play the 'oh look the cupboard is bare approach' however given  MYEFO and PEFO this won't wash. In fact it might be an embarrassing repeat of what Barry O'Farrell did in NSW. however it won't do much political damage to them. It is too early. This may intercede however.
And if they do start to make noises about the structural budget deficit then they will/should end up with egg all over their place.

I have low expectations for the Government a so I doubt if I will be disappointed in them.

Two sidelights to the election
1) I am not going to vote for a male bimbo again so next election I will be voting against John Alexander.

2) Kevin Hogan won Page and I know him. His wife Karen is one of the loveliest people you would ever want to know. I went to their wedding in Clunes and it was nice.
I do hope he isn't into conspiracies anymore. He loved to assert the Clintons were drug running murderers!
If so he would do well in an economic portfolio given his academic background and work experience.