Niche issues a danger zone for Anthony Albanese

Sacking one set of voters before you are have hired their replacements is a risky strategy but one Morrison seems willing to adopt — and it could lead Albo astray, writes James Campbell.

Anthony Albanese popped into Cairns on Saturday, a place where I’m prepared to bet the top-of-the-mind issues for most voters would be cost-of-living and access to healthcare, just as they are in much of the rest of Australia.

Coming in a distant third would be climate change, an issue of concern up there, as the health of the Great Barrier Reef matters for the future of its tourism industry.

One of the issues that I’d be prepared to bet wouldn’t come up unprompted would be the importance of establishing a federal anti-corruption body.

But after giving climate change the opening five minutes of his Cairns press conference, Albo moved quickly onto the pressing need for an ICAC, an issue which a pollster said to me this week “people in marginal seats give zero f…ks about”.

The reason of course was that a few days earlier Scott Morrison had more-or-less told voters who are concerned about the issue to stick it up their arse. Personally I rejoice in the Prime Minister’s decision.

Anthony Albanese talks to Cairns resident Billi LansKy. Picture: Alison Paterson

Any fair-minded observer who has watched the behaviour of Victoria’s anti-corruption body in the past year — with its “case study” hearings into the factional enemies of the Premier — would never in a million years vote for one in Canberra.

But let’s leave the merits or otherwise of Morrison’s choice to one side and think what it tells us about where the Liberal brains trust think the election is at the moment.

Scott Morrison with his daughters Abbey and Lily at the Sydney Royal Easter Show on Saturday. Picture: Jason Edwards

The fact that all the so-called teal independents have all independently decided to campaign on this issue suggests they have had research — independently of course — that this is an issue that shifts votes among wealthy people who don’t have better things to occupy their minds.

That Morrison has given them the finger shows he either thinks these seats are lost already so it doesn’t matter what he does to offend them, or he thinks they can be held in spite of it, because the people who are voting on this issue aren’t voting for him.

But by doing it so openly made sure that the ABC, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Guardian et al would go berserk.

It was classic Morrison, reminiscent of the chum he threw in the water last year when he baited them by saying “we will not achieve net zero in the cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of our inner cities”.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese at a press conference at Figtree Playground in Cairns, with treasury spokesperson Jim Chalmers and Labor candidate for Leichhardt, Elida Faith. Picture: Toby Zerna

And so it came to pass that the Leader of the Opposition came to be standing up in Cairns talking about a niche issue of concern to rich people clustered around the centres of the nation’s metropolitan areas.

Somehow I’m pretty certain too that, despite the emotional intervention of NSW Treasurer Matt Kean on Saturday, Morrison and the people around him aren’t that fussed to hear Albanese attacking their candidate in Warringah over her views about transsexuals.

Again the merits of the issue are not what’s important, the point is, that just like a federal ICAC, trans rights are a niche issue and anything but a priority for people in the seats he wants to win.

And a day when Anthony Albanese is talking about them is a good day for the Liberal Party.

We’ve known for some time that the government’s route to re-election will require it to win seats to offset those it is going to lose.

Most Queenslanders are more concerned about tourism jobs created by the Great Barrier Reef than climate change. Picture: Shannon Myers/Down Under Cruise and Dive

We’ve also known for some time that the most obvious place for it to do so is in NSW.

During last year’s Covid lockdowns it looked as though this dream was slipping away but as cost-of-living has rocketed up the charts as an issue for voters, the opportunity to pinch seats from Labor is starting to look like it’s back on.

Indeed from the way he is behaving, it’s clear Morrison is prepared to run the risk of losing the teal seats in the belief there is more to be gained elsewhere.

It goes without saying that sacking one set of voters before you are certain you have hired their replacements is a risky strategy. But there is a precedent from overseas that will be in the front of the mind of some of Morrison’s advisers because they are in some cases the same people.

In 2019 the UK Conservatives ran an election campaign that risked writing off their supporters who had voted “Remain” in the 2016 EU referendum, betting they could replace them — and then some — with “Leave” voters in what was then known as Labour’s red wall.

The strategy paid off. Boris Johnson won the biggest Conservative majority in a generation by pinching votes off Labour in what had until then been its heartland. Can a similar trick be pulled off here?

Obviously, no two elections and electorates are the same.

But there are similarities between the areas the Tories broke through in 2019 and the parts of western Sydney and the Hunter that the Liberals are targeting today — starting with the fact they are places where trans rights, climate change and federal integrity commissions are not big vote shifters.

Does Labor understand the danger? From Albo’s performance on Saturday, it isn’t clear it does.

Originally published as Niche issues a danger zone for Anthony Albanese