The choice for Australia at the general election is between a slow or an accelerated decline. Managed decline is à la mode— just recall the administration of the sainted Barack Hussein Obama.

When Donald Trump promised to make America great again, Obama dismissed this by asking what ‘magic wand’ Trump would use. Yet in the mid-term election, Obama claimed responsibility  for the Trumpian economic miracle.

Australia, alas, has no Donald Trump and while the Coalition’s policies  are often too identical to the socialists, their overall package makes them the ultimate two-party preferred choice.

Where Morrison is significantly better is on the crucial issue of  border control and thus the sovereignty of the nation vested, as it must be, in the people. The advent of a Shorten government would undoubtedly act as an invitation to the people smugglers and their faux refugees  to force their way onto Australian territory. Shorten’s support for the bill brought by his clear choice as member for Wentworth demonstrates that.

In the meantime, Morrison should reflect on the indisputable fact that ours remains the world’s most successful policy on border control. He should also remember that while Abbott chose him later as the responsible minister the policy was, against a juggernaut of political and commentariat ridicule and opposition, all Tony Abbott’s. Moreover, he should recall that the policy was executed on the ground by the abandoned  General Molan.

Even Morrison’s half-brave policy of recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital follows Abbott’s all-the-way policy to move the embassy outlined originally in this magazine. Unfortunately, this compromise demonstrates Morrison’s political instinct to try to walk on both sides of the street.

The problem for Australia is that as John Ruddick explains in Make the Liberal Party Great Again, our Liberal party is almost alone among comparable parties in leaving the choice of the leaders to the very much self-interested party room. Their  judgement, like that of most of the commentariat, even the conservatives, proved so abysmal they actually chose Turnbull as leader, even after his earlier failed trial. And when several lost their seats,  including the trusty and well beloved Wyatt Roy, they  kept him. This is why today we have a Morrison government, when any one with any proven predictive capacity, such as moi, would have chosen Abbott. With his first-class campaigning skills and the policies Abbott had properly enunciated from the backbench, the rank-and-file would have returned and the undecided, especially the ubiquitous ‘Tony’s Tradies’, would have flocked to the Liberal  banner.

The proof of that is in the hysterical and frenzied desperation of a Greens, Labor, LINOs and GetUp! juggernaut to remove him as Member for Warringah, thus ensuring that their recurring nightmare can never be fulfilled by his return to The Lodge.

In the meantime, if they want to win, the Morisson government must above all resile from the fundamentals of that insane policy which has meant that this energy-rich country now has the most expensive energy in the world. That we may well be meeting our Paris emissions target ‘in a canter’, as Morrison  puts it, is not a price worth paying.

We know what we are losing. The question is, by the politicians brazenly and hypocritically writing a national suicide note, just what are we gaining?

The  answer is absolutely nothing, as  Chief Scientist Finkel famously conceded when asked what would be the effect on the climate if Australia turned off all man-made  emissions. ‘Virtually nothing.’

While people seem sometimes to express support for the IPCC agenda,  this is the result of the capture of our institutions by the latter-day Marxists. It is as rare for the popular mainstream media even to mention scientific dissent from the increasingly discredited theory of man-made global warming as it is for them not to rush to endorse the latest ‘news’ that President Trump’s days are numbered.

Once the people realise the consequences, they will be very angry, as they have just demonstrated across and beyond France.

In the meantime both sides plan to continue immigration at a rate beyond the capacity of our infrastructure and without regard to the subsequent decline in living  standards. It is difficult to believe that the choice of a ‘big Australia’ expert to speak at COAG was a ‘mistake’. The Liberals should now offer a responsible choice to the people, for example, by halving the rate.

The list of identical policies is disappointing and long. For example, both sides will continue the failed and unconstitutional intrusion of Canberra into education which has led to the scandal of declining standards compared with those of significantly poorer countries. Neither side is sufficiently interested in drought-proofing the nation and ending the persecution of our farmers, although the Coalition is marginally better. Both will establish a federal corruption commission, with the Coalition at least insisting that the presumption of innocence and the separation of powers be preserved.

Among the differences, Labor will increase taxes, steal from the self-funded retirees, even from the savings of youths just starting off, as well as inviting a vote of no confidence in one of the oldest and best drafted constitutions in the world.

The latest difference is that the Coalition will enact the guarantee of religious freedom Turnbull promised as a precursor to his same-sex marriage legislation, but did not deliver. The urgency for SSM was always grossly inflated, with Shorten even warning about impending youth suicide were this delayed. The emptiness of Shorten’s outrageous threat has been demonstrated by the fact ignored or played down by the media that there was no massive backlog. In the first six months there were only about 3,000 SSMs predominately female with one third aged over 60.

Rather than some new law and a new  bureaucracy, couldn’t we handle the need for religious freedom as we always did, through our civil society and under the common law? This would involve the repeal of all of the legislation incorporating various human rights treaties not needed in democracies and totally ignored by the various dictators and kleptomaniacs who inhabit the UN. Then abolish all those various bureaucracies which use them too often to persecute law-abiding Australians.