CANBERRA
\nAustralia\u2019s prime minister has called for a May 21 election that will be fought on issues including Chinese economic coercion, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.
\nPrime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday advised Governor-General David Hurley as representative of Australia\u2019s head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, to set the election date.
\nMorrison\u2019s conservative coalition is seeking a fourth three-year term. The date is the latest available to him.
\nHe urged voters to stick with a government that delivered one of the lowest pandemic death tolls of any advanced economy rather than risk the opposition Labour Party. \u201cThis election is a choice between a government that you know and that has been delivering and a Labor opposition that you don\u2019t,\u201d Morrison said. Morrison led his government to a narrow victory at the last election in 2019 despite opinion polls consistently placing the center-left opposition Australian Labour Party ahead.
\nThe Liberal Party-led coalition is again behind in most opinion polls, but many analysts predict a tight result.
\nThe last election occurred in the hottest and driest year Australia had ever experienced. The year ended with devastating wildfires across Australia\u2019s southeast that directly killed 33 people and more than 400 others through smoke.
\nThe fires also destroyed more than 3,000 homes and razed 19 million hectares (47 million acres) of farmland and forests during the Southern Hemisphere summer.
\nMorrison was widely criticized for taking a secret family vacation to Hawaii at the height of the crisis while his hometown Sydney was blanketed in toxic smoke.
\nHe cut his vacation short due to the public backlash, but was further criticized over his explanation for his absence: \u201cI don\u2019t hold a hose.\u201d His government was criticized for its responses to the fires and also record flooding this year in some of the same areas in Australia\u2019s southeast that were razed two years earlier.
\nBoth the government and opposition have set a target of net zero carbon gas emissions by 2050.
\nMorrison was widely criticized at the UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November for failing to set more ambitious targets for the end of the decade.
\nThe government aims to reduce emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels, while other countries have made steeper commitments.
\nThe Australian Labour Party has promised to reduce emissions by 43 percent by 2030. Australia was initially successful in containing the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic largely through restrictions on international travel. But the more contagious delta and omicron variants have proved more difficult to contain.
\nThe opposition criticized the government over the pace of Australia\u2019s vaccine rollout, which was derided as a \u201cstroll out,\u201d as it fell months behind schedule. Australia\u2019s population is now one of the most vaccinated in the world.
\nThe government has defended its pandemic record and takes credit for Australia having the third-lowest death toll among the 38 Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation countries.
\nWith China imposing official and unofficial trade sanctions against Australia in recent years, the government argues that Beijing wants Labor to win the election because the party was less likely to stand up to economic coercion.
\nLabor takes credit for thwarting the government\u2019s plan in 2014 to sign an extradition treaty with China. Bilateral relations have since deteriorated, and the government now warns that Australians risk arbitrary detention if they visit China.
\nSeveral experts say both sides of politics are largely united on national security issues and that the government in confecting differences on China.
\n\u201cThe government is seeking to create the perception of a difference between it and the opposition on a critical national security issue, that is China, seeking to create the perception of a difference when none in practice exists,\u201d said Dennis Richardson, a former head of Defense, Foreign Affairs and the spy agency Australian Security Intelligence Organization and the former Australian ambassador to the United States.
\n\u201cThat is not in the national interest. That only serves the interests of one country and that is China,\u201d Richardson added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CANBERRA Australia\u2019s prime minister has called for a May 21 election that will be fought on issues including Chinese economic coercion, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday advised Governor-General David Hurley as representative of Australia\u2019s head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, to set the election date. Morrison\u2019s conservative coalition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-254216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n