Three elections in a week, one result to come!

Canadians voted last Monday using their non–compulsory first past the post voting system, Australians voted yesterday using their compulsory full preferential voting system. On Wednesday eligible Cardinals will meet in their conclave to elect a new Pope. The Papal system is relatively simple. The successful candidate must obtain a two-thirds majority vote of the conclave. Strangely, Cardinals older than 80 cannot vote, but those that can vote can elect someone to the Papacy over 80.

And tennis and religious politics will literally sit side by side. As the conclave sits in the Vatican City, the Italian Open will be played in suburban Rome at the time honoured Foro Italico. As the conclave elects the human embodiment of Christ’s message of redemption and forgiveness, the tennis world welcomes back Jannik Sinner from his suspension. Not all believe he has paid an appropriate penitence for his sins; however, he returns to seek to claim his national title for the first time.  Djokovic has withdrawn from the tournament, further extending his wait for a 100th ATP title.

In Sinner’s absence, the tennis world has seen an assortment of champions on the European clay circuit as players prepare for the French Open.  Results have not been easy to predict in the American and European spring with Alcaraz, Rune, Zverev, Mensek, Brooksby, and Draper all winning titles. With her overnight victory over Coco Gauff in Madrid, the mercurial Sabalenka has become the game’s current barometer of predictable success.

Six months ago in Australia, many thought our next parliament may have no dominant party and, like the world of tennis, be a similar assortment of successful parties with differing ideologies and influences.

Instead, it will probably be a parliament with the biggest ALP majority in post-war history.

The tourists and souvenir sellers in Rome this week had better start praying that there will be more drama and excitement in the Papal election than in Saturday’s Australian election.

The Liberal Opposition (read Conservatives in England and Canada) were forced to raise the white flag, not smoke, of surrender and defeat barely two hours after the close of voting in the Eastern States.  It appears that the Opposition will not gain one seat either from the government or independents/Greens. Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth have no metropolitan Liberal members. Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory have none.

Whilst only improving their primary vote by just over 2% to a still historically low figure of 34.7 %, the Labor Party have cemented their authority for probably another two terms, increasing their seat representation by 14%.   The Coalition’s fall in its primary vote to 30%, will, after the distribution of preferences, see the Labor Party gain a greater two-party preferred vote margin than the 1975 Liberal landslide victory of 1975.  Anthony Albanese could well eclipse Bob Hawke as Labor’s longest serving Prime Minister.

Last Wednesday, I wrote of a growing belief “amongst Labor Party diehards of a vision splendid of a maple leaf encore. They sense the possibility of being returned in its own right, with the added hope of Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, losing his Queensland seat of Dickson.”

So, how did predicted electoral uncertainty become a rout that the Labor Party could only have dreamed of?

As always, a political historian must look the long and short-term explanations.

The singular long-term factor that worked against a change in government or a return to minority government is the historical reluctance of the Australian electorate to dismiss an incumbent government after one-term. It has not happened since 1931.

However, this is not enough to explain a further collapse in the conservative vote from its historically low result in 2022. Albanese’s victory was not unexpected; however, the scale of it is.

So why?

For me there are four key short-term factors.

First. Credit where credit is due; the wiliness of Albanese and his campaign.

Successful, not necessarily, great politicians are blessed with great instinct.

Many believed that Albanese was at risk because his 2022 victory was more a rejection of the Morrison government than an endorsement of Labor. Further, when Albanese went to the people with his signature proposal for constitutional change in October 2023 to provide for an indigenous Voice to Parliament, his proposal was defeated by an emphatic 60-40%.

Albanese cleverly crafted an election campaign recognising the failures of his referendum campaign. Criticised for being too vague and insipid in outlining the cause for constitutional change, Albanese’s election campaign was based on sharp and simple messages.

He started his spend-a-thon on the Bruce Highway in January and did not stop.

Having characterised Peter Dutton as the reason for the defeat of the Voice, rather than the policy itself, Albanese relentlessly portrayed Peter Dutton as the potential wrecker of the great Australian social contract.

If you are a public servant, Dutton will destroy your job.

If you wish to work for home and balance work and family commitments, Dutton will prevent you.

If you wish to care for the environment, Dutton will destroy the shift to renewable energy and risk the introduction of nuclear energy.

If you wish to go to TAFE for free, Dutton will stop you

If you wish to lower your HECS Debt, Dutton will stop you.

If you love Medicare, Dutton will destroy your love.

If you depend on the NDIS, Dutton will risk your support.

It was pithily summed up in the government’s slogan: “He (Dutton) cuts, you pay.”

Second. Albanese’s ‘positive negative strategy’ worked because the Opposition fell for it.

Having won the referendum campaign, the Opposition naively believed that Albanese was permanently damaged and that Dutton could successfully prosecute an “anyone but Albanese campaign.” It was hoped that resentment about weekly food bills would feed into electoral outrage against the government.

The problem for the Opposition was that they failed to recognise that to capture outrage amongst a cynical electorate, you must present a compelling case for change. The fates of good timing all fell for Albanese during the campaign. It began with Albanese providing Queenslanders with reassurance after Cyclone Alfred, placing himself above partisan politics by delaying the announcement of the campaign until the weather front had passed.  Trump came along- more about that shortly, ANZAC Day and the death of the Pope also denied the Opposition electoral oxygen.  

However, when they sought to breathe life into their campaign, the Opposition was muddled. Dutton had to recant on his Work from Home and Drain Canberra of Public Servants policy, feeding into the ALP narrative that he was a wrecker. Worse still, he was a confused leader.

Key policies on mortgage relief and petrol excise reductions did not triumph over the ALP’s derisory promised tax cut. The Liberal Party headed into an election campaign opposing tax relief. Their economic costings and defence policy were not released until late in the last week of the campaign, by which stage millions had voted. Perhaps there were too many late campaign visits to petrol stations?

Three. Trump.

All I can do is repeat what I wrote after Trump’s Liberation Day announcement on 4th April:

“When uncertainty and shock reigns, it is not the time for a change in government. With apologies to Auden, stop all the polling, stop all the phone surveys, muffle the noise of the campaign. For thanks to Trump, nothing the Opposition can do can come to any good.”

How bizarre to think that Trump’s seismic tariff changes are on hold and no one is the wiser as to what will actually occur. Too late, the damage was done. The ALP could portray Dutton as Trump-Lite waiting in the wings.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Trump’s policies and personality have led to the election of two progressive Left wing governments and the demise of two Opposition leaders he would consider to be on his side of politics.

Four. You cannot beat gravity or demographic data.

When John Howard won his fourth successive election in 2004, many commentators wrote about the existential crisis facing the Labor Party. It was observed that Australia was no longer a land of unionised workers. The Liberals had successfully invaded the Labor heartland by recognising the aspirational wishes of a working class that were no longer committed to supporting the Labor Party.

Nearly twenty one years later, it is the time of the pundits to talk of the existential crisis facing the Liberal Party.

In highly affluent electorates, voters are rejecting the Liberal Party in favour of non-Labor Independents who are seen as more effective ‘boutique’ style representatives, who do not profess the ‘extremism’ of the Liberal Party’s views.

In the marginal heartland seats, where the majority of voters are now ‘Gen Z’ and ‘Millennials’ rather than ‘Boomers’, it is clear that most believe the Labor Party that is better able to deliver the government assistance needed to provide medical services, transport, education and welfare security.

The fact that such government support comes at an increasing cost to the voters themselves is, apparently, not a concern. Debt and deficit are clearly no longer a disaster in the eyes of most, especially if you think the alternative government will be a greater disaster.

It must be said that the Greens are also facing an identity crisis. There is a chance that the Greens may not win any Lower House seats. Two, at most, is my call. They will retain a presence and influence in the Senate, but the days of being seen as an ascending third force seem crippled.

In December 1977 when the ALP was thrashed in a second successive election, the then influential Bulletin magazine ran a headline, “Is the ALP finished?” Six years later, Bob Hawke began the ALP’s longest period of government. In 1988, the same Bulletin had a picture of John Howard captioned “Why does this man bother?”

In 1996 John Howard took the Liberal Party to victory and began a period of government that saw him become Australia’s second longest-serving Prime Minister.

The question for the Liberal Party is whether it can rely on the historical swings of the electoral cycle to revive its fortunes, or must it recognise that the demographic rules and political priorities of Australians have fundamentally altered. For the Albanese government, their task is to deliver on their promises. Sadly, given that nearly one in every three Australian voters did not support either major party, it seems that low expectations of major parties are entrenched.

Nevertheless, the Labor Party, led by a personable and savvy politician, has, through the preferences of the disaffected, been clearly endorsed as the party that has provided a more compelling case to remain in office. For some time to come it seems.

Australia’s political palette, like so many democratic Western nations, has always been a blend of the radical red and the conservative blue. Combine and you have purple. In Melbourne this morning, as around the country, I have to say, that also as in Rome, the reddish hue is dominant.