This is an election year in Australia. April 12, the date previously recognized by the outside world, is no longer likely to be the date of the election. With at least 33 days between the announcement of the election and the official vote, there are only three possible election dates left: May 3rd, May 10th and May 17th. The general election must be held no later than May 17, and the campaign must last at least 33 days. To vote on May 3, Albanese must announce the election no later than Monday, March 31; to vote on May 10, he must announce it no later than Monday, April 7. By convention, Election Day is usually announced on a Sunday. If the election is not announced by April 7, then May 17 will be the only election date. As the federal election draws nearer, the latest opinion polls show Labor narrowly ahead of the Coalition.

Election is approaching and the race is tight

The latest YouGov poll shows that Labor and the Coalition are now tied, and the election has officially entered the heat of battle. Just two weeks ago, Labor was narrowly ahead of the Coalition 51% to 49%, thanks to Prime Minister Albanese’s response to Tropical Storm Alfred and the government’s support for Ukraine. But now, the situation has been completely leveled. In terms of the first-past-the-post vote, Labor’s support remains unchanged at 31%, while the Coalition’s support has risen by 1 percentage point to 37%, which is growing steadily. However, on the question of “who is more suitable to be the Prime Minister”, Albanese is still ahead of Dutton, at 45% to 40%, but Dutton has overtaken him in terms of voter satisfaction. As for the other minor parties, first-party support for the Greens and One Nation have both dropped by half a point to 13% and 7% respectively, while the independents have also dropped by one point to 8%.

Previously it was significant increases in support for the Albanese government in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania that tilted the overall result in Labor’s favor, giving it a narrow advantage. This advantage did not last long. Meanwhile, the Roy Morgan poll also suggests that the election may be a hung parliament, with the winner needing the support of smaller parties and independents to form a government, as the two parties are so close in support. Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton has said that if Labor were to go into government as a minority party, it would increase inflation through higher taxes and spending. Dutton has emphasized throughout the election that under a Labor government, Australia’s inflation rate has been consistently higher than in most major developed economies, that household and small business budgets have been squeezed to the limit, and that the Coalition would aim to repair the damage done to the Australian economy by the Labor government in Albania, where living standards have suffered the worst of the developed world under Labor. Under Labor, Australia’s living standards have suffered the biggest decline of any developed country. Albanese responded that inflation was falling.

The poll was conducted between March 14 and 19, with 1,500 voters participating, and has a margin of error of 3.4%. It comes as Labor prepares to deliver its fourth federal budget next Tuesday, which suggests it will run a deficit after consecutive surpluses. The fiscal outlook had prompted many to predict the government would call a general election before the budget, but the onset of Storm Alfred forced Albanese to postpone plans to call an early election. Under Australia’s constitution, a federal election must be held on or before May 17, and Albanese is expected to announce a date within days of the budget.

Struggle for a middle-of-the-road vote

The Australian Financial Review has summarized the results of the last three polls to show that the Coalition has made significant progress in Victoria since the last election, but will need to increase its support in NSW and WA if it is to have a chance of forming a government after the next election. Figures show that in the key state of Victoria, policing is approaching the importance of housing as one of the most important issues for voters, second only to cost of living pressures. For the Coalition, Victoria is the most promising place to grab seats. The Coalition currently holds only 10 of Victoria’s 39 seats, and the Labor government’s declining popularity in recent years has given the Coalition a chance. It is only in the past month that the Coalition’s upward momentum has stalled. The reasons for this include a series of blunders by Mr. Dutton, the government’s new policies, and growing unease within the Coalition.

Albanese and Dutton’s joint appearances at three events over three consecutive weekends over the Lunar New Year period underscored their campaign to win over Australia’s Chinese voters, a key group that could play a significant role in the upcoming federal election. There are many reasons why former Prime Minister Morrison and his Coalition Party were ousted three years ago. One of them, rightly or wrongly, was the perception that the Alliance Party was anti-China. The Liberal Party’s analysis of the defeat found that in constituencies with a high concentration of Chinese voters, the swing away from the Liberal Party to other parties was significantly greater. This analysis found that in the 15 electorates with the highest number of Chinese-Australian voters, the swing in support between the two parties was 6.6%, compared to a 3.7% swing in other seats. The Liberal Party’s election analysis suggests that the party needs to prioritize rebuilding relationships with members of the Chinese Australian community. It’s no wonder that both parties are using festivals and celebrations to sway the Chinese vote, and even the popular Chinese social media platform Little Red Book has become a platform for politicians from both parties.

Of course, Chinese social media platforms prohibit political advertisements, but Little Red Book’s algorithm allows politicians to target users in a geographic area with messages that are seldom extremely pro-party. Australian politicians rarely talk about Australia-China relations on the Little Red Book. They celebrate Chinese New Year, engage with the Chinese immigrant community, and sometimes attend community events, but they hardly ever talk about Australia-China relations. Even if they do post relevant information, it’s unlikely to spread very far because politicians’ accounts have recently been secretly blocked. While the MPs’ accounts are still visible to existing followers, new users seem unable to find them. This means that interactions with users and the growth of fans of politicians across the political spectrum on the platform are at a standstill. How this ultimately affects the outcome of the election can only be inferred from the results.

Variables remain

The economic pressures of the last two years have wiped out the accumulated wealth of millions of Australians, particularly in outer-city and remote electorates. A single interest rate cut may boost Labor’s morale, but it’s unlikely to ease the deep economic pain experienced by voters who will decide the election. For decades, pollsters around the world have used the question “is the country heading in the right or wrong direction” to measure voter attitudes to change. As the Australian federal election approaches, pessimism among Australian voters is on the rise.

Overall, Labor supporters are more optimistic than the rest of the electorate, with 56% saying the country is heading in the right direction, compared to 18% of Greens and 14% of Coalition voters. Not only is pessimism deepening among the elderly, but dissatisfaction is also spreading among the young people Labor is trying to win over. Regardless of who is in power, this is not a mess that any professional politician would be willing to take on.

As Cyclone Alfred moved towards Queensland, Albanese abandoned his campaign for the April 12 election. The postponement of the election has hampered the Coalition’s momentum in the same way that a delayed battle affects a soldier’s morale and motivation – it’s all over again. The 30-day campaign was ready to go, every moment carefully planned, the Coalition candidates with their propaganda policies in place, and the ammunition to crush the Labor or Blue-Green candidates. But at the moment, Dutton’s team is at a standstill, unsure of where to point their sights. By contrast, the current government still has all the major levers. In addition to the internal concerns, the two parties are now facing an even bigger variable in the international community – the geopolitical turmoil and great uncertainty caused by the U.S. government’s frequent punches since Trump took office in January of this year. Trump is dismantling the alliances that have kept the peace and safeguarded Western freedoms. This represents a major challenge for Albanese and Dutton.

Today, Australian voters are increasingly anxious, both because of the cost of living and because of ‘Trump anxiety’ and global turbulence. Over the past few years, Australians have been pressured by economic uncertainty, and now even their long-dependent US ally is no longer stable. This will have a direct impact on public attitudes towards defense spending, as well as the most practical questions: will it affect jobs? Will it drive up prices? All of this adds to social anxiety. Ultimately, the person who responds most effectively to these compounded anxieties is the one most likely to win the next federal election. For both Albanese and Dutton, how they balance the need to preserve Australia’s sovereignty and independence with the need to maximize the US-Australia alliance will undoubtedly play an important role in determining the winner of this election.

Federal budget proposes tax cuts to win re-election

On March 25th, the Treasurer delivered his fourth budget in office, and one of the most surprising, but not surprising, features was the tax cuts he introduced, which will reduce income tax by $17 billion over the next year, or an average of $5 less per week per taxpayer. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that although this would leave a $47 billion shortfall in the budget and push Australia’s external debt to $789 billion by 2028-29, it was the government’s determination to ride out the rising cost of living with its citizens. The Coalition is in a dilemma as it disagrees with the tax cut proposal, but it cannot promise that it will not propose tax cuts at the election. The Labor Party’s move to reduce tax is only a symbolic way to reduce the burden of Australians, but it does not actually solve the problem. However, it is believed that it will generally gain the support of the public, and increase their support in the election. If the Liberal Party is adamantly against it, it will be ignoring the people’s suffering. However, it is not easy to put forward a proposal that can specifically solve the problems faced by the low-income group, and it will not be able to take care of the dissatisfaction of the whole nation.

However, the Budget’s optimistic and positive outlook on the world economy may not be able to convince the majority of Australians. If the opposition party wants to continue to reduce its support to the government, it is believed that it will continue to sell the instability in the world, and only the Coalition party can have a strong leadership to lead Australians to face the crisis.

Obviously, the Labor government will be pushing for the budget to be passed by the parliament, implementing the policies that have been put forward in the past few months, and speeding up the process in the hope of getting a mandate from the voters, and at least three more years in power. It is believed that whether the Labor Party can make progress or not will be known in the coming one or two weeks when the budget is debated in the parliament.

Article/Editorial Sameway Magazine

Photo/Internet

After the Second World War, the United States, as the only country that was not affected by the war, rose to become the world’s policeman. The United States and the Soviet Union fought the Cold War under the Iron Curtain until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the United States became the world’s political, economic, and military hegemony. 30 years later, President Donald Trump has reintroduced isolationism, and the rest of the world is adjusting its national policies in the face of this new era. The European countries have proposed an 840 billion euro rearmament program in the future, realizing that they can no longer rely on the US military protection and enjoy the “free lunch” that the US has provided for many years. Australia is the only English-speaking multicultural country in the Asia-Pacific region with a Western democratic system, and it will also have to think about and redeploy strategies to protect its national security, foreign affairs, economy and trade, and social development. As a Chinese immigrant, who is an important ethnic group in Australian society, I believe that Australia has an important role to play in this new era. I will share my views with readers in this column.

Western countries give up their influence

Before World War II, the West dominated the development of many countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia through colonial expansion. During this period, Western countries dominated the world militarily. The invasion and bullying of China by the Western powers in modern Chinese history is a familiar part of modern Chinese history. The small European countries only sent a small number of expeditionary troops to China and easily defeated the corrupt Qing Dynasty government and seized a large amount of China’s resources. Hong Kong, as the Western countries’ entry point to China, developed into the richest free port in the world under the British rule, and became a strategic city for the Western countries to influence China.

During this period, Western missionaries followed the merchants to other parts of the world, but the Christian culture did not have a deep impact on these countries. However, in Hong Kong under British rule, the selfless contributions of many missionaries in the areas of education, medical and health care, and social development have influenced the people of Hong Kong today. This can also be seen as the influence of non-state institutions in western societies.

After the Second World War, the British Empire saw that the development of colonies did not bring long-term economic benefits to the British people, and on the contrary, the country had to spend a lot of military and economic power, so it implemented the decolonization policy. In order to maintain Britain’s image and influence as a great power, Britain also maintained contact and cooperation with these former colonial powers. In the beginning, the Commonwealth organizations played a role, and Australia also played an important role. However, as time passed and these countries focused on geopolitics and development, the Commonwealth is no longer as influential as it was decades ago. Countries that once valued cooperation with Western societies are no longer interested in Western culture and development.

Redistribution of Information Power

Undoubtedly, after the Second World War, information plays an important role in the development of any society, the direction of its economy, world politics and national defense strategies. Since the middle of the last century, radio and television broadcasting have become the most penetrating information media, and global broadcasting is regarded as the most influential information machine in propaganda and culture. Before World War II, the BBC broadcasted globally, symbolizing the promotion of British culture and values. After Britain’s post-war decolonization, the country’s power declined drastically, and the United States took advantage of the situation to rise, the Voice of America (VOA) broadcast in different languages to promote the United States’ views on world affairs through radio broadcasts in different countries around the world. In the 1990s, the U.S. established Radio Free Asia (RFA) to promote Western views on the development of democratic societies and values to Asian countries in the midst of political and economic growth.

During the Cold War, the BBC and VOA played an important role in the world. Through these media, people in totalitarian countries still have some opportunities to access information about democratic and free countries. When the people of these countries realize the progress and development of the western society, they would naturally ask the government to keep up with the development of the western society, culture and system. The phenomenon of globalization has been driven by the interaction of people from different countries and the development of the aviation industry. During the past few decades, many Asian countries have achieved rapid economic development through globalization, and the institutions of these countries have also tended to democratize to a certain extent.

However, there has been a decline in support in the United States and the United Kingdom for maintaining a media that influences other countries. For no other reason than that these media do not seem to be directly contributing to the lives of the people of the United States or the United Kingdom. And naturally, the messages they focus on are not relevant to the lives of the American and British people, so they are not taken seriously. It is easy for politicians who are trying to win votes through elections to feel that it is only natural for them to stop these ideological services in response to the demands of their constituents.

The situation is different in two totalitarian communist countries, China and Russia. Since China’s economic development took off, it has attached great importance to “grand foreign propaganda”, i.e., to publicize China’s development and the success of its social system to the whole world. The first step was to gain the recognition and support of the Chinese diaspora outside of China, and now it is to publicize the superiority of China’s system over Western democracies to the rest of the world. The aim is clearly to expand China’s influence in the world through media publicity.

Australia’s Information Influence

Australia has long been recognized as a major power in the Western Pacific region and has played an influential role as a leader in the region. For many years, Australia has provided a wide range of livelihood assistance and broadcasting information to Pacific Island countries. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has been providing regular information broadcasts in different languages to the Pacific Islands for many years, and through this, it has established economic, cultural and educational cooperation with the people of these countries. Obviously, because Australia maintains good communication and cooperation with the neighboring countries, the Western Pacific island countries maintain close relations with Australia, which makes Australians feel extremely safe. In recent years, Australia’s state support to this region has been drastically reduced, and ABC shortwave broadcasting stopped years ago in favor of providing services to local radio stations through the Internet. It can be argued that the Australian government has neglected the influence it has built up in these countries through the provision of information.

On the other hand, China’s “Great Outreach” has been bearing fruit in the region in recent years. The fact that China International Radio has been providing radio programs in the Western Pacific region is also reflected in the recent shift of these countries towards establishing diplomatic relations and economic cooperation with China. 2022, when Penny Wong became Minister for Foreign Affairs, she immediately travelled to the Pacific Island countries, indicating that the Australian government has become concerned that Australia’s influence on these countries is not what it used to be.

In order to maintain Australia’s influence in the region, the Australian government must not only re-establish cooperation, support and exchanges with the countries in the region, but it must also realize that there is a strong need to resume advocating Western values of freedom and democracy in the region. The establishment of a media that reflects these values in the Western Pacific region is on the government’s agenda again.

The Advantages of a Multicultural Society

Less than two months after taking office, President Trump has drastically halted the provision of information services to the world, citing a reduction in spending and the use of these organizations by other governments to infiltrate and exploit them. In the face of the decline of Western information influence, I believe the Australian government will reevaluate how it can strengthen its influence in the region.

Although Australia has a small population and is not in a position to establish a system such as the BBC or VOA, it still has a major advantage in that it has developed an ethnic broadcasting policy more than 50 years ago, encouraging ethnic minorities in Australia to broadcast in their own languages, and becoming a community force to maintain these ethnic communities. Nowadays, there are more than 800 ethnic radio broadcasting programs in cities and towns in Australia, and there are also many programs for the Western Pacific Island communities.

If the Australian government develops information channels for these ethnic communities, Australia could easily establish an information center in the region to promote the values of a western democratic society. However, whether this challenge can be met will depend on the foresight of Australia’s political leaders to see the benefits of such an investment for the Australian community.

Mr. Raymond Chow

Germany has undergone significant political transformations throughout its history. It was unified as a nation in 1871, followed by a constitutional monarchy from 1871 to 1919. From 1919 to 1933, it experienced the democratic governance of the Weimar Republic, which was later replaced by Hitler’s totalitarian rule from 1933 to 1945. After World War II, from 1945 to 1949, Germany was under the control of the four Allied powers before transitioning to democratic constitutional governance from 1949 to the present day. This history of over a century serves as a testament that democracy is not necessarily straight forward; there is always the possibility of a shift towards dictatorship. Every citizen in a democratic society must cherish and uphold their rights, ensuring that those in power do not inflate their authority without limits.

Today, as Trump has become the President of the United States in less than a month, he has already demonstrated his determination to use his power as the leader of the world’s most powerful nation to reshape the global order. Every country is directly or indirectly affected by the policies he implements under the slogan “Make America Great Again.” For Australia, the U.S. decision to impose tariffs on global steel imports—while considering exemptions for Australia due to their special relationship—has influenced the Australian government’s response to America’s dominating stance and its treatment of other nations and their people.

Without consulting the will of the Palestinian people, the United States plans to rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip while barring Palestinians from returning—an act that clearly constitutes a policy of ethnic cleansing. However, Prime Minister Albanese has merely reiterated Australia’s continued support for the United Nations’ long-standing two-state solution, without explicitly opposing Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to strip millions of people of their right to live on this land. This kind of unprincipled “political pragmatism” is deeply disheartening. In essence, it is no different from the “appeasement policy” implemented by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain before World War II.

At the time when the democratic Weimar Republic in Germany elected a totalitarian leader like Hitler, the world’s tolerance of authoritarian rulers ultimately led to World War II. Today, Donald Trump, backed by popular support for his vision to “revive America,” has made bold proposals, such as reclaiming control of the Panama Canal, openly yelling to force on the purchase of resource-rich yet sparsely populated strategic territories like Greenland, and even suggesting that Canada should become the 51st state of the United States. Furthermore, he views the war-torn Gaza Strip, far away in Palestine, as land for American-led redevelopment—considering it a necessary step to achieve “America First.”. Such actions not only fuel the fanaticism of nationalists but also pose a direct threat to global peace.

As a mediocre nation in the Pacific, it is indeed soul-searching on how should Australia navigate China’s rise, America’s assertive dominance, and the growing ambitions of other nations?  While we lack the ability to change the course of global events, our ability to reduce direct conflicts between nations—and avoid being drawn into them—depends on the vision and ability of our political leaders.

With the upcoming federal election, will the leaders we choose offer us hope? One can only pray that God will raise the right leaders for Australia.

Mr. Raymond Chow, Publisher of Sameway Magazine