Australians want change, but not if it looks like Donald Trump

One of the most-told political stories of this term is how much Anthony Albanese’s campaign for the Indigenous Voice damaged him. If in a few weeks Albanese loses the election, this story – about a prime minister whose priorities were all wrong – will be set in stone. And Dutton’s victory will, at the same time, cement the other story that took hold then: that Dutton is a brutally effective campaigner.

But this raises an intriguing question. If Albanese wins, will our story about that campaign and its lingering political impact shift? Here’s another version of the story. Referendums without bipartisan support do not succeed. Once Dutton had decided to oppose, the result was inevitable: nothing he did after that had an effect.

Artwork: Joe BenkeCredit:

Through 2023 and 2024, inflation dragged down the popularity of incumbents everywhere. If anything, against a hapless opponent amid an inflation crisis, the Coalition should have pulled dramatically ahead: it never did.

If Dutton loses this election, the moment he decided the referendum meant more than it did may be remembered as decisive. Recall two of his biggest splashes in that campaign: the attack on the Australian Electoral Commission and a “rigged” process, and his quickly rescinded proposal to hold a referendum on Indigenous recognition.

The similarities with his current campaign are striking: policies leaning Trumpward (talk of school students being “indoctrinated”, potential cuts to the education department and the ABC, and others lacking detail, soon withdrawn (using defence in negotiations over tariffs, more referendums). A campaign built mostly on opposing rather than proposing. Did Dutton simply assume the tactics could be repeated?

Right now, for the rest of us, there is a more important echo of the Voice campaign. Australians will sometimes present themselves as wanting change – but then, when a specific change is offered, they reject it. Action on Indigenous affairs? Yes, please. The Voice? No, thanks. Climate change? Please act. A carbon price? No! In the past decade, the pattern became clear: Australians want things fixed but consistently reject reforms to fix things.

This isn’t always unreasonable: of course it’s acceptable to reject particular proposals. But the contradiction is worth noting because this exact situation is now playing out on a global scale. For some time, voters across the world have been saying they want dramatic change. Before the US election, 53 per cent of Americans preferred the idea of a “shock to the system” over “basic stability”. Similar desires can be read into the move away from major parties across the world.

In Donald Trump, we are witnessing dramatic change. Meanwhile, polling suggests many voters in other countries, including Australia, want dramatic change – just not this one. That’s being felt now in the “Trump bump” that incumbents – including Anthony Albanese – seem to be getting.

What will this reaction against Trump do to the widespread desire for change? Will it cool it more permanently, as citizens come to realise that such change has consequences? Or is the reaction only linked to Trump? The question may have an impact on Australia’s federal election. Will the incumbent get a voting boost against all challengers or only at the expense of the right-wing opposition? That is, will voters flock to Labor – or alternatively, will voters prefer Labor over the Coalition but nevertheless hang on to their hopes for another type of change and flock to third parties?

One interesting side effect of Trump’s actions is to highlight how hollow some Australian political rhetoric is. For years leaders have talked a big game on wanting Australia to be a country that makes things. This is the exact promise Trump is making and perhaps – for better or worse – delivering with his tariffs. So, is continuing to make things something we actually want, or just something we like our leaders to say?

And then there is the most challenging question posed by Trump, who has made clear that governments can change things dramatically if they want to. So what have our leaders been up to all this time?

To take just one of many examples: on Sunday, Peter Dutton announced a plan to cut the foreign student intake to help with housing. Even if you ignore a study released last month showing foreign students have no real impact on rents, the numbers are small: a drop of 30,000 from Labor’s policy.

This is a fair representation of the campaign so far: little difference between the parties and little change offered by either. The immediate dampening of the desire for change may help Albanese in the short term. A key question is how long it will last. Either before the vote or after, Trump’s actions may become a reminder that we are being offered mere tweaks to a system with which many people remain unhappy.

The early stages of the campaign have been dominated by Dutton’s difficulties, including missteps. Mostly, though, there is a sense of missed opportunities: not taking his chances to paint himself as the change candidate. But this comes back to the great difficulty facing politicians, at least in this country: it’s hard to demonstrate you want to change things if you don’t explain how. But, as Bill Shorten found out in 2019 with his proposals to change negative gearing and capital gains tax, once you explain how, voters often turn on you.

Because the polls are close, there is a lot of commentary about this campaign being decisive. As I wrote two weeks back, I’m not so sure. It’s possible that external factors have driven, and will continue to drive, most of the major polling trends of this term: first inflation, then Trump.

There is an important lesson here for the prime minister. Arguably, Dutton conned himself into thinking he was doing brilliantly because of his early success – even though the gifts of the referendum and inflation were more important – then tried to repeat his tactics.

Similarly, Albanese could win this election largely because of Donald Trump then convince himself it was all his own doing, and that his second term should look exactly like his first.

Of course, the really important thing about the Voice defeat was what it did to Indigenous policy in this country. Real change was delayed, probably for a long time. That may yet be the result of this election too.

Sean Kelly is a regular columnist and a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

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