Saturday 14 May 2022 06:07 PM Australia will become intolerant and socialist under Labor, says Scott Morrison ... trends now

Australia under a Labor government will become intolerant, with citizens worrying about what they can think and say, and economically weak due to excessive government intervention, Scott Morrison has warned in a last-ditch election pitch to voters.

The Prime Minister - who is in his final week of the job if the polls are accurate - painted a bleak picture of what life would be like under Anthony Albanese as he gave an interview to Daily Mail Australia on his RAAF plane after a busy day campaigning in Tasmania.

He thoroughly rejects any suggestion there is little difference between Liberal and Labor at this election, saying 'that's never been true and it's still not'.

In fact, this is a contest between two polar opposite views of what Australia's economy and society should look like, he believes.

Mr Morrison says if Labor wins, then government - not families and communities - will be 'at the centre of everything', interfering in the economy and citizens' lives at the behest of the 'militant unions'.

Meanwhile, wokeism - excessive sensitivity to social issues - and cancel culture will prevail, leaving Australians 'walking on eggshells forever' and 'second-guessing' everything they think and say.

In the wide-ranging interview, Mr Morrison - who was heavily criticised over the slow Covid-19 vaccine rollout and subsequent rapid test shortage - admits he didn't 'get every call right' during the pandemic but insists he was under extreme pressure.

He also takes a swipe at Joe Biden's 'build back better' agenda, reveals his long-term vision for Australia to make billions from clean energy exports and explains why he can win on May 21 despite polls predicting a Labor majority.

Cancel culture   

Mr Morrison, an Evangelical Christian who prays every day, describes himself as 'socially conservative' and fears Australia would change culturally if Labor wins.

He has been blasted by the Left and also socially progressive members of his own centre-right party for standing by Warringah candidate Katherine Deves after it emerged she described transgender children who had undergone reassignment operations as 'surgically mutilated and sterilised' in tweets last year.  

Asked if he is worried about the rise of wokeism and cancel culture in Australian society, Mr Morrison said 'absolutely I am' and warned they would be more pervasive under a Labor government. 

'They (Labor) will be completely pulled by the Left and the Greens and potentially woke independents, if that's what the government looks like,' he said, referring to the potential for a hung parliament.

'That will see a government which has Australians walking on eggshells forever.

'Everybody second guessing everything they say and think to see whether it complies with what the diktat is from government. 

'And that's not the Australia I believe in. I don't think it's the Australia that the vast majority of Australians believe in.'

Mr Morrison, who condemned Ms Deves' language but refused to dis-endorse her, said Australians 'believe that people should be respectful and sensitive'. 

'We should be tolerant and understanding of people's backgrounds and different perspectives,' he adds.

But the 54-year-old believes it is wrong to simply 'cancel' someone who holds a controversial view, saying the Left 'seem to only want to tolerate those they choose to tolerate.'

'I've spoken about how I want to see more women in parliament - but I'm criticised for not having the women only they (the Left) want to see in Parliament,' he says.

'The whole point about our party is people should live the life of their choice. And that doesn't mean I've got to agree with all of their choices. 

'I'm a socially conservative person and I think people who know me understand I hold those views and they're very sincerely held - but I don't see it as my job to impose them on others.

'I see it as my job to live my own values. And others do the same. Even those who have very woke views that are very different to mine. That's okay. Just don't try to impose it on everybody else.

'That's sort of my point. Live and let live. Let there be diversity, including in the Liberal Party.'

Mr Morrison describes his party as a 'broad channel' that can connect with 'a much larger part of the population' than Labor. 

'With the Labor Party now increasingly left wing, you've got to pass their virtue test to be accepted,' he says. 

'And I just think that's at great odds with where Australia's at and wants to be.' 

The economy

The Prime Minister believes a Labor government would oversee an economy that is 'more controlled by government', 'weaker' and 'less confident', leading to higher prices and interest rates for Aussies.

A key issue in this campaign has been the rising cost of living, with inflation hitting 5.1 per cent in April and the interest rate rising to 0.35 per cent as a result. 

But Mr Morrison believes his party is the best at tackling such economic headwinds. 

'Labor and Anthony Albanese in particular very much see government at the centre of the picture,' he says.

'I remember when (former Labor PM) Kevin Rudd was elected during the Global Financial Crisis and he said ''the government is back at the centre of the economy, where it should be''.

'It put a shiver down my spine when I heard him say it. But that's fundamentally how they think about things. 

'They think government is the thing that changes your life. My view is you do. Your community does, your family, the environment that you live in, the opportunities that you take.

'Our job is to facilitate, to encourage, to create the right environment where communities and individuals and families can be as strong as they possibly can,' he adds.

'So if you like it's bottom up rather than top down. I have limited belief in government.   

'They (Labor) want to keep that big role of Government in the centre of everything, pulling all the levers.

'It will only lead to slower growth and fewer opportunities, higher interest rates and greater inflation.'

After taking 240 policies to the 2019 election, including significant tax hikes, Labor has dramatically slimmed down its policy agenda this year. 

Key proposals include a review into providing a universal 90 per cent childcare subsidy and a new 'help to buy scheme' which would see the government take a 40 per cent stake in homes to help Aussies on to the property ladder. 

But the Prime Minister believes Mr Albanese - who on Thursday said he will 'under-promise and over-deliver' - is going to do things in government that he's not telling voters about right now.

'The only lesson he seems to have learnt at the last election was don't tell people what you're going to do. Because last time the Labor Party told people what they were going to do they rejected them,' he says.

Mr Albanese - who was raised in housing commission by a single mother on benefits - is from the Left of the Labor Party. 

In his younger years he spoke out against the privatisation of companies and advocated an inheritance tax.

The 59-year-old now presents himself as a mainstream centrist but Mr Morrison does not buy his change of heart. 

'I don't believe Antony Albanese has changed at all,' he says.

'I think he's the same Tory-fighting leftie that he's always been. My observation is that what's always motivated him is political struggle.'   

Mr Morrison says Labor is filled with 'fantastical visions' about how to reform the economy but 'always stuff it up'.

'They stuff it up because they don't understand the limitations of government and they don't understand the full power of community and individuals and businesses and people making their own choices.

'It's like they don't trust Australians with their choices, that they have to make them for them. And I've always found that quite elitist and quite arrogant,' he says.

The Prime Minister also warned 'militant unions' who fund the Labor Party would 'have a much stronger say in how our government is run'.

Mr Albanese backed unions' calls for pay rises in line with the 5.1 per cent inflation rate - despite warnings from economists this would stoke further price rises.

How Australia will get rich 

Labor criticises the Prime Minister for lacking a long-term vision, but when pressed he says Australia in 10 years' time will be wealthy and prosperous on the back of advanced manufacturing and - ironically for a man who once took a lump of coal into Parliament - clean energy exports. 

'I see this as the most significant period of opportunity Australia has had since the post-war period,' he says.

'Australia has come out of the pandemic stronger than most of the advanced countries in the world.

'Our small businesses and medium-sized businesses are capitalised, they've kept their staff and their apprentices.

'The biggest challenge we have as a country is skills and labour force. And that's where the majority of my economic attention will be applied.' 

Quoting British economist John Maynard Keynes, Mr Morrison says he wants to empower 'the entrepreneurialism and the animal spirits that can really drive this next period.

'We've got to be on our game. We've got to have a the right research and technology and a very vibrant private sector,' he adds. 

The Prime Minister rejects US President's Joe Biden's approach to increase government spending across several areas including education, child care and welfare as a way of recovering from Covid-19.

'The whole build back better thing, I can't stand that stuff. What that talks about is that prior to the pandemic the world economy had it wrong. And somehow we have to build the economy back in a sort of centre-left, socialist model. Rubbish,' he says.

'I've argued at the G20 for the last few years and had good support from those who are more centre-right like myself, we want business-led growth, we want entrepreneurial-led growth. 

'We don't want government coming in and controlling the economy and telling it how it should function.

'We want capital markets to function. We want investment to find a home. We want free trade which is breaking down barriers, particularly between like-minded partners.'

The Prime Minister then warns Mr Albanese will simply 'parrot what we're seeing in other progressive left governments around the world which sees a greater encroachment of government into every single sphere.'

Labor has pledged to spend $15billion through a National Reconstruction Fund to re-build after Covid-19 with huge investments in infrastructure and

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