This is the election editorial from the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

The Herald is a Fairfax publication.

Editorial from the Sydney Morning Herald.

We Can’t Afford The Luxury Of A Long Goodbye

The fake pamphlet scandal in the seat of Lindsay maintains the faint air of unreality that has surrounded the Coalition’s election campaign. This editorial is not the one we should have been able to run on election eve. We should have been able to write about a Liberal Party that had renewed itself – a Government that had managed an orderly leadership transition from one generation to the next. Had things turned out differently, Peter Costello, as prime minister, would have had the opportunity to explain his freshened vision for this country over the next decade. We cannot write about that, because we know little about it. Mr Costello has spoken occasionally outside his portfolio in public, but more to soften his image for a suspicious electorate than to set out an alternative platform. He has always been – to his cost at times – a loyal member of the Government. [Read more…]