Having seen breathtaking lies succeed in electing a corrupt administration in the United States, Australia’s Liberal Party is emulating that strategy. Alan Austin reports.
A DOCUMENT titled ‘Achievements of the Coalition Government’ has appeared on the Liberal Party website and is circulating online. This 2,470-word screed, dated 2024, contains blatant falsehoods throughout. Here’s a smattering.
It claims:
‘The Coalition Government led Australia through unprecedented challenges, making our country safer and stronger.’
When the Coalition left office in May 2022, Australia’s military preparedness was in the weakest state in memory.
According to military authorities, construction of submarines to replace the ageing Collins class vessels should have commenced in 2014. The 2009 and 2013 defence white papers specified that South Australia’s shipyards would build 12 new submarines, known colloquially as “daughter of Collins”. By 2013, funding and other preliminaries were in place.
The incoming Abbott Government inexplicably scrapped that plan and agreed in December 2014 to buy eight submarines from Japan. The Turnbull Government abandoned that deal in 2016 and contracted to buy 12 from France. With each successive Coalition administration more inept than the last, the Morrison Government welched on the French deal, then signed another with the USA and Britain — which may or may not deliver. It is too soon to tell.
Australia now has one functioning submarine. Costs have been between five and ten billion dollars — with nothing to show for it except further proof that the Coalition cannot manage defence.
Economic collapse
The Liberals assert:
‘The December 2021 National Accounts showed Australia’s economy grew 3.4% since the pandemic — more than the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy and France.’
That is completely false. Last month’s World Economic Outlook published by the International Monetary Fund records GDP growth for 38 developed countries from 2016 to 2023. See table A2, page 116.
This shows Australia ranked 14th out of those 38 economies in 2016, then a dismal 17th in 2018 and a shameful 25th by 2019. That’s down from ranking first under Labor.
In 2021, Australia ranked a humiliating 28th, with GDP growth lagging the USA, the UK, Italy and France. The latest ranking, at the end of 2023, after 18 months of Labor, was 11th.
Liberal propagandists think their supporters can’t read.
Worst budget outcomes in history
The document claims:
‘Australia entered the COVID-19 pandemic in a position of strength. In 2018-19 the Budget returned to balance for the first time in 11 years.’
Also blatantly false. The years 2014 to 2019, pre-COVID, were global boom years with record demand for Australia’s exports, high commodity prices and strong international economic growth.
In those six years, all well-managed economies generated budget surpluses. Norway, Germany and Luxembourg generated six surpluses in that period. Denmark, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland were in the black five times, while the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Iceland and Greece recorded four surpluses.
Australia, in contrast, did not produce a single surplus in any of those years of plenty. Not one. Instead, it accumulated total deficits of $169.9 billion. Just astonishing incompetence.
Infrastructure lagging badly
The Liberals boast ‘record infrastructure investment’ without any confirming data. We know, however, from earlier analysis that Coalition infrastructure spending per capita was the lowest on record. See chart below.
Mental health needs unmet
The document states:
‘The Coalition Government nearly doubled mental health funding since 2013...’
Maybe. But where did the money go? According to an August ABS report, it did not alleviate psychological stress. See chart below.
Aged care neglected
The Liberals contend they provided ‘better aged care’ and reference their ‘five-year $19.1 billion plan to improve aged care’.
Again, published outcomes show substantial deterioration. See chart below.
COVID deceptions
The Liberals assert:
‘On almost any measure – economic growth, jobs growth, debt levels, fatality rates and vaccine rates – Australia’s recovery from COVID-19 was world-leading.’
Totally false. Australia’s final coronavirus fatality rate was a shameful 937 per million population. That contrasts with Taiwan's 796, South Korea's 700, Iceland's 663, Japan 595, the Philippines' 594, Indonesia's 581, Thailand's 494, Saudi Arabia's 269 and United Arab Emirates' 233.
The worst surges in deaths were in federally-run nursing homes in Victoria.
The Liberals claim:
‘As Bill Gates said in February 2022: “If every country does what Australia did, then you wouldn’t be calling [the next outbreak] a pandemic”.’
Yes, in February 2022, deaths in Australia totalled 4,142. But by the end of that year, they had exploded to 17,292.
An appallingly deceptive narrative.
Destruction of Indigenous aspirations
Under the heading ‘Closing the Gap’, the Liberals claim a billion dollars was spent on Indigenous welfare. But money won’t close the gap. The first step is showing that Indigenous Australians hold a valued place in the nation.
When the time finally came to affirm this, in October last year with the Referendum on The Voice, the craven Liberal Party yanked its earlier support, thus dashing hopes of reconciliation for a generation. This is arguably the most destructive bastardry in the Liberal Party’s forlorn history.
Who is copying who?
Liberals concocting deliberate falsehoods actually predates America’s MAGA movement by more than a decade. The 2001 Federal Election was fought – and won – by John Howard’s Coalition on the lie that asylum seekers had thrown their children into the sea to force Australian naval personnel to rescue them. It was in 2003 that one of Howard’s own ministers dubbed him “the lying rodent”.
Rupert Murdoch’s malevolent manipulation of elections with relentless lies was operational in Australia much earlier than in the USA. Virtually from its beginning in 1964, The Australian deployed deliberate misinformation to undermine the Labor Party, destroy the lives of prominent Australian women and foster hatred towards minorities.
This strategy of intensified malicious lies clearly succeeded in the USA in 2024. Let’s see how it goes in Australia in 2025.
Alan Austin is an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @alanaustin001.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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