Governments lose elections, but Oppositions still must demonstrate that they are a capable alternative. Both the Morrison Coalition government and the Albanese Labor Opposition played their part last Saturday. There were many sub-plots in the pattern of voting, but this election was primarily lost and won in the four biggest mainland cities.
While the Coalition led by Scott Morrison was messing around with misplaced scare campaigns about religious discrimination and gender identity it was deaf to the issues about integrity in government, cost of living, equality for women and action on climate change raised by the teal Independents, the Greens and Labor. These latter concerns were the ones which resonated most strongly with the community.
The focus of the Prime Minister condemned to extinction his own urban colleagues, largely party moderates, by pandering to his rural Coalition partner, the Nationals, on climate change and other issues. Effectively the theme ‘A Vote for Josh Frydenberg is a vote for Barnaby Joyce’ resonated across metropolitan Australia. That is not, however, to excuse the Liberals themselves. Morrison bargained that the Liberals would benefit from his focus in the suburbs, but that proved to be mistaken. There was no benefit from his misplaced priorities.
The Nationals manipulated the Liberals by imposing its anti-climate action stance on the Morrison government, and ultimately denied themselves a continuing place in government. Joyce also denied any responsibility for the loss because the Nationals held their seats. He showed no empathy for the lost Liberals. ‘The Liberals fight Liberal battles and the Nationals fight Nationals battles’. But he was mistaken in his complacent view that Labor could not win without the regions. That is exactly what has happened.
Most attention has been given to the outstanding feat of the six female teal independents who built on the foundation laid by Cathy McGowan, Helen Haines, Zali Steggall and Rebekha Sharkie to cut a swathe through safe Liberal seats. This outcome transforms the Parliament and has long term consequences for gender equality and for the party system.
'Labor is back in office with a new Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who is a break from the Whitlam-Hawke-Rudd Labor leadership model. His lower personal profile may turn out to suit the times if he can show he is a good listener, a genuine collaborator and a consensus-builder.'
Equally important has been the breakthrough by the Greens in Brisbane and the further strengthening of their role in the Senate because of a national swing. The traditional third voice has been magnified beyond expectation. Adam Bandt was justified in terming it a ‘greenslide’ in both the narrow party and the broader community sense of that term.
However, it is Labor which looks like it has won majority government under our preferential voting system, proving the opinion polls right on this occasion. It won seats in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and, of course, Perth. The latter state’s slaughter of the Liberals was the decisive icing on Labor’s cake. The ‘Red West’, as one friend emailed me, also partly came about because of the insensitivity and incompetence of the Coalition government, led by Morrison himself (stuck in ‘gold-standard’ New South Wales), in dealing with Western Australians.
The defeat of the government and the remarkable fact that about one-third of Australians voted for other than the two major parties took place despite the enormous structural advantages that benefit the major political parties. The media presentation of all Australian election campaigns gives the old parties enormous privileges. The major election debates are reserved for the two leaders. Many media programs are built around equal time for the chosen representatives of the major parties and little else. No wonder the community is disgruntled.
Added to that was the unbridled, almost manic, support by the largest media company, News Corporation, for the government, plus its constant denigration of the challenges by the Independents and the Greens, not to mention its attacks on Labor. The big tabloids were one-eyed once again.
The challengers were met not just with deafness but with complacency and hostility by the major parties. The holders of the erstwhile safe Liberal seats, shocked by the threat, were in some cases angry and pompous. Their case that working within the party for moderate policies was preferable to going Independent had clearly proved impotent. In defeat, some like Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney and Senator Simon Birmingham from South Australia argued persuasively, however, for a return to a ‘broad church’ Liberal Party.
There was also a Labor version of Morrison’s jibe that the well-off could afford to be critical of his government. On election-night Labor front-bencher Bill Shorten told his media audience that ‘very affluent people tend to vote Green because they don’t have a worry in the world’. That is a narrow-minded and self-interested view which is equally deaf to community concerns.
Labor is back in office with a new Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who is a break from the Whitlam-Hawke-Rudd Labor leadership model. His lower personal profile may turn out to suit the times if he can show he is a good listener, a genuine collaborator and a consensus-builder.
John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University.
Main image: A voter walks past election advertising outside a polling centre in Fitzroy, Melbourne on May 21, 2022. (Naomi Rahim / Getty Images)