James Campbell: Pundits can’t predict if ScoMo or Albo will win
Unlike the last federal election, everyone seems to agree that although the Government is behind, it can still win, but it’s going to be much harder this time around, James Campbell writes.
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Like most pundits after the last election, I decided I would give up for good trying to play Nostradamus. Which has turned out to be a wise decision because three years on I have no absolutely no idea who is going to win next month.
Some days I wake up thinking Anthony Albanese will get the chocolates, some days I reckon
we’re getting three more years of Scott Morrison.
(By the way could there be anything more Australian than an election billed as ScoMo v Albo?)
Strangely, for a mob behind in the polls who are asking for a fourth term in office, the people around the government seem remarkably upbeat. But nor have I yet to meet anyone in Labor who is prepared to say with any certainty they have it in the bag.
This is a big change from 2019 when plenty of Coalition MPs were running around before polling day screaming ‘we’re doomed!’ and most Labor folk seem to have been genuinely stunned to wake up the morning after to find themselves still in opposition.
This time what everyone seems to agree on is that although the Government is behind, it can still win. Fair enough, but there are also reasons why it is going to be much harder this time.
The most obvious is that Albanese is nowhere near as unpopular as Bill Shorten was and he’s junked all the reasons Shorten had not to vote Labor.
The last of Bill’s taxes to bite the dust was his pledge to something about family trusts, a rort that has defeated every attempt at reform since Peter Costello was treasurer.
It’s obvious, too, that since the last election a large slice of the public has soured on the Prime Minister.
Labor is not even trying to hide that this is a central theme of its campaign. On Monday it sent a message alerting the media that Queensland senator Murray Watt would be holding a doorstop “about Scott Morrison’s character”.
And to be fair to Labor the Liberal Party, especially the NSW Liberal Party, is giving them plenty to work with at the moment.
The sudden emergence of evidence of some raw work back during his preselection 15 years ago couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Whether voters will care remains to be seen. The government appears to be hoping that Barnaby Joyce was right when he likened picking a government to a trip to the dentist: “I don’t really care if he or she is my friend or not. I just want to know when they’ve got that drill in my mouth they know what they’re doing.”
But even if you accept Joyce is right – we don’t have to like the person we’re voting for, only to accept they’re competent or more competent than their opponent – it isn’t clear this is a beauty contest Scott Morrison is going to win.
One of the most surprising results from the RedBridge polls which were published by News Corp Australia on Saturday was that a clear majority of voters across the four seats polled either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: “Scott Morrison and Liberals are a safe pair of hands in these uncertain times” while less than third either agreed or strongly agreed.
The four polls also showed the Liberal Party’s once clear lead on managing cost-of-living pressure and keeping interest rates low has been eroded. This is a bit of a problem as these are the issues on which it is running hardest. Does it mean the government is cooked?
No, the polls showed people’s votes haven’t moved much.
Voters might be off the government but there’s no evidence they’re dashing towards Albo.
They’re certainly open to him, or to put it another way, they don’t have strong views about him one way or another.
And Labor seems to be happy about that. As long as they’re right in their bet that Morrison is too toxic for people to vote for again, then there’s no need to define him clearly.
To say that’s a novel approach for a Labor leader is an understatement.
It’s as though Labor, having conducted a whole bunch of focus groups and come to the conclusion there’s no mood for change, have decided to offer themselves as the no-change-except-Morrison-will-be-gone option.
As I said, a novel approach to be sure, but in their defence, if that’s what the research showed, who are they to argue with it? True believers might be underwhelmed, but who cares? The danger of course is although the clock is ticking, there is still time for the Liberals to once again convince us that Labor represents too big a risk.
There’s another reason however why the government’s supporters shouldn’t abandon hope in the next few weeks, something that goes in Scott Morrison’s favour that wasn’t there three years ago.
For decades Labor’s last line of appeal to its working class base who have watched with alarm as it has moved away from them culturally, is that if they get a chance the Liberals will always cut health care spending and welfare if they get the chance.
After the billions and billions Morrison and Frydenberg spent on the pandemic and keeping people in work, that’s a threat that fewer people are going to believe.
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