Since 31 Jan, a protest camp (500 metres from BIC’s home in the Parliamentary triangle in Canberra) of ‘anti-vaxxers’ has been calling for the resignation of Australia’s political leaders. Canberra has also seen Invasion Day marches the week prior and celebrated the 60th anniversary of the longest protest in global history – the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. COP26 saw nation-wide protesting on climate change in November last year. There is no doubt that the ‘voter’s campaign’ is in full swing and the closer we get to the federal election, we may continue to see week to week shifts in the topic of the day.
We think that Australia’s balance sheet, vaccine mandates, Covid management and lack of skilled workers are going to be at the centre of this federal election. We don’t expect climate
change to be the headline act as it was for the 2019 election – but the majors will all have some form of policy to take to the election.
The BIC commenced our election campaign late last year meeting with the Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce (Minister for Transport) and Senator Bridget McKenzie (Minister for Regionalisation).
On Feb 8, the BIC will meet with the federal opposition leader Anthony Albanese at a private dinner. The Australian parliament is set to meet for 2 weeks in February and again in March. And although parliament house remains closed for face to face engagement, the BIC will be taking our industry business to ministers and shadow ministers by way of nearby cafes or online.
The Morrison government will deliver its budget on March 29 – should be an interesting watch – particularly in light of the Omicron wave which has affected much of the country with supply chain issues, staff shortages and low consumer confidence. Morrison’s mid-year economic outlook (delivered in December last year) projected a stronger-than-expected outlook but it is our bet that the average punter out there will be looking at how smartly the borrowed money has been
spent and the guru-plan to reduce the deficit.
On Jan 28, the BIC submitted a pre-budget funding report to the Australian Treasury. In our pre-budget submission, we provided key funding recommendations to support net zero heavy vehicle safety and the necessary skilled and resilient workforce we need (so many in industry are suffering from lack of access to skilled workers). Our submission also called for funding a tourism campaign to support land transport tourism.
BIC’s pre-budget submission to the Australian Treasury can be downloaded from the moving people website.