Scott Morrison won an astounding victory on Saturday because his Coalition government, for all its faults, was the only side to frame a narrative around economic growth, personal opportunity, lower taxes and aspiration. What Mr Morrison on Saturday night called “the quiet Australians” have likely returned a majority for his government. This is not a crushing mandate, but a win against the odds, after three years of negative polling and civil warfare that has gripped the centre-right of politics.

Those quiet Australians who turned out for the Coalition, against what the opinion polls predicted, voted for growth. They lined up with The Australian Financial Review’s consistent rejection of Bill Shorten’s high tax, high spending, big government and low growth agenda that sought to redistribute the economic spoils from some invented top-end-of-town to more deserving voters and government programs. This should be a lesson for Labor to never again take a big government, big spending, union boss-empowering, dirigiste policy framework to an election.