The real dangers of Labor, by The Spectator Australia.

The opposition leader is confident of victory, hubristically so. Having built his policy platform over two terms, Mr Shorten is taking to the election the biggest opposition manifesto since John Hewson lost the unlosable election in 1993.

Bill Shorten at an ABC rally. Polls say he will be our next PM.

Unlike Dr Hewson, however, who proposed drastic medicine for the then bloated and inefficient Australian economy and government, Mr Shorten is taking the lazy, give-the-people-what-they-want path to government.

Labor’s manifesto is a tax-and-spend bonanza. On the spending side, whatever the Coalition government has done that was unpopular since September 2013 gets special treatment. …

But Labor’s spend-a-thon will not be paid for from unpopular funding cuts and offsets, except from scrapping Coalition programmes Labor doesn’t like. …

In the absence of spending prudence, revenue raids underpin Mr Shorten’s Father Christmas impersonation. … Removing superannuation concessions and taxing ‘excess’ super income; reimposing double taxation on share dividends; and slashing negative gearing all send a clear message that, under Labor, there is no point in individuals being financially prudent now, or in diverting larger than minimally-required income into superannuation accounts only to see their savings taxed to fund Labor’s spending addiction.

Then there’s the unions. Under de facto industrial relations minister and ACTU leader Sally McManus, a zealot so far to the left she makes Jeremy Corbyn look like Milton Friedman, Labor will ‘change the rules’ of industrial relations to entrench the power of militant unions so completely they will never again be tamed, even though most of the non-government workforce has voted with their feet when it comes to membership of these powerful and self-interested cabals, with their leaderships bankrolled by industry super funds. …

All in all, prime minister Scott Morrison and his ministers should be having a pre-election field day with such juicy targets, as Paul Keating once did with Fightback!. But other than the Energiser bunny, otherwise known as Josh Frydenberg, and Peter Dutton, the Morrison ministry is mostly nowhere to be seen this month: presumably they’re down at the beach. But surely they know the clock is ticking, with Australia’s future prosperity — and their jobs — on the line