James Campbell: Echoes of Gough Whitlam as Bill Shorten charges towards victory

Another national poll tells roughly the same story as all previous polls — that Labor is on track to form government, and there are eerie parallels to Gough Whitlam’s 1972 victory, writes James Campbell.

Another national poll which tells roughly the same story as all the previous polls: Labor has increased its primary vote since the last election, the Coalition has gone backwards.

With a primary vote of 39 per cent, Scott Morrison would make history if he were to win tomorrow, beating John Howard’s 39.5 per cent in 1998 — the current record for the lowest winning primary vote for an incumbent Coalition Prime Minister.

To be sure, at 37 per cent Labor’s primary vote is also lower than the 37.99 per cent Julia Gillard sneaked over the line into minority government with in 2010.

Tanya Plibersek and Bill Shorten at Bowman Hall in Blacktown, Sydney, on Thursday.

But when you toss in the preference flow it can expect to get from “others” on top of the vast majority of Greens votes, it should be enough to get it over the line.

The mystery box is the 7 per cent who were undecided or were refused/excluded — a drop on the 17 per cent who were undecided in the Newspoll earlier this week. So basically on the evidence we have, the campaign — so far — hasn’t changed many votes.

The government could in theory be re-elected but realistically, its best chance of retaining the treasury benches at the moment is in minority with the support of an independent, while Labor seems likely to fall over the line into government with a smallish majority, and there’s an outside chance things might break its way tomorrow, allowing it win more than 80 seats.

It’s Time merchandise available at Bill Shorten’s speech.

If Bill Shorten does win narrowly, there will be eerie parallels to Gough Whitlam’s 1972 victory.

At that election, just as now, the Opposition had an ambitious program for change that it had laid out before the public.

And while 1972 is remembered for the It’s Time jingle and the euphoria of Labor folk as they returned to office after 23 years in the wilderness, it is not as well remembered that Whitlam, while not quite falling over the line, did not win in a landslide at that election, but got there with an eight-seat majority.

Bill Shorten at Bowman Hall in Blacktown, Sydney on Thursday.

Nor was it a uniform swing — the McMahon government actually got a swing to it in Queensland. The biggest electoral parallel — if Shorten gets up — is that like Whitlam, Shorten will have actually done most of the heavy lifting at the previous election.

In 1969, Whitlam won 18 seats off John Gorton, who was removed by his party room in the next term.

MORE: BOB HAWKE DIES, AGED 89

THE KEY MELBOURNE SEAT ON A KNIFE’S EDGE

THE 10 SEATS THAT WILL DETERMINE ELECTION

In 2016, Shorten won 14 seats off Malcolm Turnbull, who was removed by his party room in the next term.

Whether it was a good idea for Shorten to end his campaign reviving the spirit of Gough given how many Australians regard him as a calamity will be answered tomorrow night.

[e-mail]