Tom Minear: Pollies’ summations of election results ignore factors that don’t fit their narrative

There are consequences for politicians who frantically write history in the aftermath of an election. It’s self-serving and risks missing vital lessons.

One of the strangest things about elections is that politicians essentially spend three years campaigning for them – and then many think they know what went right and wrong before all of the votes are counted.

They’re not even Monday morning quarterbacks. They’re ready with their hot takes on Sunday, or even during the election broadcasts on Saturday night. It’s hard to see a lot of this as anything other than self-serving positioning.

For some of their (current and former) colleagues who have chosen to keep their views out of the public domain so far, this frantic writing of history has left them with political whiplash.

The speed of this is somewhat inevitable.

Outgoing PM Scott Morrison gave an emotional addresses to the congregation at his church in the Sutherland Shire.

A reluctant opposition cannot spend months without a leader, a strategy or a message. An enthusiastic government must immediately start governing.

But in moving so fast, they run the risk of only heeding the lessons that suit their interests – and that will have consequences.

Much of the post-election analysis in Victoria has focused on the Liberal Party’s losses in its heartland – Kooyong, Goldstein and Higgins – to two independents and a Labor candidate.

Other than the profound dislike of Scott Morrison among residents of those seats, a factor that is inarguable, many Liberals have boiled these defeats down to the theory that voters made up their minds on the wrong issues: climate and integrity instead of the economy.

They hope these voters will come back in three years, when a combination of inflation, rising interest rates and Labor’s economic management means they can no longer afford to back candidates who aren’t worried about their hip pockets.

That may be so. But it would be incredibly shortsighted for Liberals to place their faith in that without attempting to fix their shortcomings on the issues that cost them those seats in the first place.

Prime Minister elect Anthony Albanese signs a poster for a young boy near his home on May 22. Picture: Getty Images

They will soon be tested on both, when Anthony Albanese asks the parliament to legislate his 2030 emissions reduction target and his planned anti-corruption commission. The new PM has a clear mandate, and so the opposition must decide whether to be constructive, or to keep fighting a losing battle.

Other Liberals are baffled by the focus on Kooyong, Goldstein and Higgins. They rightly argue the party should be even more worried by Corangamite, McEwen and Dunkley.

These Labor-held seats were Morrison’s Victorian targets in an outer suburban offensive.

By encouraging the harmful trans debate and deriding the NSW corruption watchdog, the PM wrote off the so-called teal seats to try and win urban fringe electorates off Labor.

How did that work out? Dunkley and Corangamite are no longer marginal seats, after impressive Liberal candidates saw their vote go backwards by 7.61 per cent and 8.11 per cent – worse than the swings in Kooyong and Higgins.

The Liberal primary also shrunk by 1.44 per cent in McEwen, where Morrison visited twice in the final week.

Josh Frydenberg spoke to the media after the Liberal party lost the federal election. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Winning these seats should not have been extraordinary. Since 1990, the Liberal Party has held Dunkley for 26 years, Corangamite for 23 years and McEwen for 17 years. Each was as important to the Coalition forming government as the inner city electorates.

Tony Abbott this week argued Liberals needed to realise the trend in affluent areas was not to their advantage, and that focusing on those seats risked losing in outer metropolitan areas that were now “quite winnable”.

There is some truth in his logic, but it ignores the question of why his party is actually going backwards in these supposedly winnable electorates.

In the Victorian branch, others have taken heart in the big swings against Labor in Holt, Scullin, Lalor, Fraser, Hawke, Calwell and Bruce. They believe this reflects an anti-Dan Andrews sentiment that gives them a chance in November’s state election.

But in all of those seats except Fraser, the Liberal vote also declined as minor parties were preferred.

The Nationals are engaged in a similar arm wrestle. Barnaby Joyce believes Saturday was a success as the party held its seats and added a Senate spot. Darren Chester said that was “a bit like a surgeon declaring an operation was a complete success, but the patient died”.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce prepolling in Echuca for The Nationals candidate, Sam Birrell. Picture: Brad Hunter

Given the wipe-out of the government, it is understandable Joyce and his allies are satisfied. But Chester and former leader Michael McCormack rightly argue the Nationals bear some responsibility for the defeat of Liberal MPs – and that cruelled their chances as a coalition.

This tension has been central to years of chaos in the Nationals, and while it will be tested in a leadership contest next week, it is difficult to see the result uniting the party any time soon.

As for Labor? Well, as Tanya Plibersek said on election night, a win’s a win’s a win, even though Labor’s primary vote was its lowest in almost a century.

Some in the ALP think their supporters switched to minor parties because they trusted Albanese would win either way. But by ceding ground to teal candidates and failing to take the fight up to the Greens, Labor was left with the support of less than one in three voters.

That gambit worked in opposition. It could easily backfire in government.

Originally published as Tom Minear: Pollies’ summations of election results ignore factors that don’t fit their narrative