Groundhog Day, an extreme cinematic exploration of the ‘déjà vu’ experience that many of us have in our lives.  This election seems like Groundhog Day.  After 3 years of tumultuous and largely ineffective government, the Liberal government now tries to present itself as a government of order and stability.  It is as if Tony Abbott never happened.  Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison after some nine months of wandering around offering very little strong direction in government, now present themselves as a government with stability and an economic plan.  It is hard to believe that they can be straight-faced given what happened in the Abbott prime ministership.  It also seems that many political commentators are also being sucked in because there does not seem to be very much outrage about the audacity of the government’s approach

Malcolm Turnbull is saying to the undecided, that as this election they should stick with him, to stick with what they know and as a consequence, to stick with the coalition and give them another term of government

But what is the economic plan?  More of the same?  As the song made popular in the sixties ‘the times they are a changing’, change is afoot.  We only have to look at the Trump phenomena in America and the Brexit vote in England, to wonder what is happening.  Perhaps it is summed up in a simple economic fact: some 20 years or so ago gross national income was made up of a 3^rd from capital and two thirds from wages.  Now, it is two thirds from capital and a 3^rd from wages.  A vast majority of people both nationally and globally are being run over by the juggernaut of feral capitalism and the huge inequities of wealth that it breeds.

Labour is being brave, in the light of years dominated by focusing on reducing the budget deficit, to propose a short-term larger deficit, for a long-term gain.  The advantages to be gained in health, education and infrastructure.

Sadly, to say for those that travel in the juggernaut, history tells us that there will be a time of reckoning, particularly where a society is democratic.  Eventually, the hardships caused by the inequities of wealth will show in the ballot box.

Will it be this Saturday, July 2, in Australia or a time to come?