Too close to call? Antony Green’s surprising verdict on his last federal election

In a fortnight, Antony Green will anchor his last federal election as the go-to numbers man.

PF: And now the end is near, and so you face the final curtain. Why are you going after such a stunningly successful career?

This will be Antony Green’s last election broadcast. Credit: Peter Rae

AG: I just think it’s time to go. I’ve read enough candidate profiles to last a lifetime and I’m less and less interested in following actual election campaigns. I’ll probably stay involved but I think I can do that without doing the presenting.

Fitz: Do you have a sneaking disappointment that this election feels like a singularly dull one in that, short of a stunning upset, it already feels fairly sure that Anthony Albanese will form a government of some kind – robbing election night of dramatic tension?

AG: A lot of people are saying that halfway through the election campaign, who weren’t saying that three weeks ago, which shows how quickly things can change. And it could change again. But it looks to me like Anthony Albanese has had a lot of media training over the summer. He’s sticking much closer to being “on message”, getting his lines right and has looked activated and interested.

Fitz: You’re saying the Coalition campaign looks amateurish?

AG: [Very long pause] Ummm, it doesn’t look as well organised as the Labor campaign. Where are the announcements? Where’s the detail? And the measure I always use is, who’s got the most interesting pictures?

Fitz: Really? Why do you say that, particularly?

AG: For one thing, because they are the pictures that so much of the population is influenced by, those people who don’t follow the politics closely. And at the moment, Anthony Albanese looks happy and engaged every day in the stories, meeting interesting people, while Peter Dutton doesn’t seem nearly as engaged. The Coalition campaign looks a little lifeless, as though preparing for something else.

The two leaders on the election trail. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen, James Brickwood

Fitz: You are looking at things in a different way ...

AG: Well, that is what people see every night. They see this picture and that picture, the detail washes over them, but they’ve got this sense that one side looks more interesting than the other, just in terms of pictures. It does have an impact.

Fitz: What else do you see?

AG: The other thing that’s going on is what’s happening in America, with all the upheaval and change and flip-flops going on over there. The Coalition’s tide has gone out with Trump. Do people want to start flip-flopping and changing government here? The mob does not want that.

Fitz: You obviously can’t make political comment, but in your memory, has one party ever started out so strong in a federal election campaign only to melt like an Icy Pole on Uluru in January once the campaign started and the electoral heat was turned up? Because in this campaign, we’ve seen such a rapid turnaround in the Coalition’s fortunes it’s been staggering.

AG: It reminds me a little bit of the 2004 election campaign when John Howard looked in real trouble against Mark Latham. But then once it was into the campaign, the Labor momentum just disappeared.

Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Mark Latham crossing paths in the ABC radio studios during the 2004 federal election. Credit: Penny Bradfield. Fairfax.

Fitz: I find it hard to believe the polls, some of which even say the ALP is going to have an expanded majority. One of the polls has even got it at 53.5 /46.5 to the ALP on two-party preferred. Do you believe it’s as bad as that for the Coalition?

AG: Well, that one’s come out of the Herald pollster, Resolve, and they’ve tended to be one of the worst pollsters for Labor. But they’ve now picked up something which is occurring in every opinion poll – there’s been a real change of mood. Perhaps the Labor Party has finally escaped the whole follow-up from the Voice referendum, which dogged them all through last year. I don’t think anyone wants to talk about it any more, and so everyone’s just moved on.

Fitz: And yet we all remember 2019, when Bill Shorten was meant to romp home, only to lose to Scott Morrison, of all people. The pollsters were all completely wrong.

AG: Much of that was to do with the campaign that was going on against franking credits and changes to capital gains tax. Clive Palmer was painting it as a death tax, and the Liberal Party were also hammering on whether this was an unfair tax on retirees and that really had an effect on the electorate. And the Labor campaign had so many promises it was easy to paint it as being extreme on higher taxes. I think in the end, Labor just lost that election campaign with all that detail, the way John Hewson lost it in 1993 with all his detail on the proposed GST. And this campaign is just not like that. So there is less likely to be a surprise this time.

Fitz: Have you been bemused, amused or shocked by the Liberal Party turning over some of its principal policies so early in this campaign?

AG: To be honest, I don’t watch it that closely, but certainly to have to execute two backflips in the campaign is embarrassing.

Fitz: Eden-Monaro used to be the famous bellwether seat – where goes Eden-Monaro, so goes the nation. For those of us watching Antony Green on the ABC on the night of Saturday, May 3, what’s the seat we should be looking to, for an early indication of which way it is likely to go?

AG: The seat that’s now got the longest record of going with the nation since 1983 is Robertson, based around Gosford.

Fitz: Do you believe that Peter Dutton might be in trouble in his own seat of Dickson? There was one poll I saw that had him behind 52-48 to Ali France, the Labor Party candidate.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Ali France, Labor’s candidate for Dickson, in Brisbane.Credit: AAP

AG: Look, for over a decade, people have been telling me that Peter Dutton is in trouble in Dickson. He’s still not lost in all that time. So, I mean, we’ll see what happens on the night. But there needs to be a more general swing in Brisbane before Dickson would fall. I can’t see that right now, and I’m always very doubtful of individual seat polls.

Fitz: Look, I know you’re a numbers man, but after 40 years of this, you’ve got to have a very good gut feel to go with those numbers. What is your gut feel on this election?

AG: The Coalition is going to struggle to make up enough seats to get ahead of Labor. If the Labor Party’s vote holds up in Victoria, it’s nearly impossible for the Coalition to get more seats than Labor. The ALP will lose seats in Victoria, mainly in the eastern suburbs, but the question is whether the swing gets beyond those marginal seats that have been fought over the last couple of years and goes deeper, which currently looks unlikely. The problem for the Coalition is there are school holidays and public holidays for the next two weeks. So how do they get their message across when people are concentrating on other things?

Fitz: I asked you this once about state elections, but let’s do it federally. When all you election analysts get together for your annual dinner, with Mr Gallup up one end, Mrs Morgan and Mrs Poll and Nielsen down the side and it’s getting near midnight, what’s your best war story of great federal elections you’ve known?

Paul and Annita Keating on election night in 1993.Credit: AAP

AG: The one I will always remember was my first one in 1993 above all else because we were having these arguments about whether Labor had won or not, and I kept insisting they had won – and the executive producer and all the ABC board was saying “Keating can’t possibly have won”. And I won that argument.

Fitz: Leigh Sales has joked about wearing adult nappies on air on election night because it’s just seven hours of such unbroken intensity. Have you ever had to have a strategy to cope with being on air for seven hours? No coffee for you on the day?

AG: No, it’s usually a bit easier for me because I’m a bloke and I can usually nip out during leaders’ speeches.

Fitz: You once told me that the late, great ABC journalist Andrew Olle pushed your career early, telling your mutual masters that you were the one, and should be hired full-time. Now, in his eulogy the equally late Paul Lyneham said he worked with Olle for most of his career and never knew which way he voted. Have you strained for a similarly political neutral profile?

“I don’t report and I don’t ask questions, so it’s easy for me to appear completely neutral.”

AG: Yeah, but to be honest, it’s easy for me. I don’t interview people. Journalists have to ask questions, which sometimes means asking pointed questions from the other point of view, and therefore people say you’re biased. So when I hear people say, “Oh, more people at the ABC should behave like Antony Green”, well, that’s a ridiculous comparison because I’m not a journalist like that. I don’t report and I don’t ask questions, so it’s easy for me to appear completely neutral.

PF: But deep down, do you nurture political passions even if you needn’t tell us what they are?

AG: On issues, yes, rather than parties.

Fitz: Antony, on behalf of a huge chunk of the nation who have loved your work over the past 40 years, good on you, and thank you. Love your work.

AG: OK. Thanks. Bye.

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