The teals may rout a couple of progressive Liberals, but the Coalition seems destined by demography to emulate Republicans in the US and Tories in the UK, embracing outer suburban and rural voters, as wealthy city conservatives vote on issues less related to material wellbeing.
The Australian Financial Review discussed this issue in an editorial last Monday that borrowed ideas from David Goodhart, the founder and former editor of the UK magazine Prospect. Goodhart suggested Western democracies were being polarised between “somewheres” and “anywheres”.
“Somewheres” were traditional voters with values aligned to those of a particular place. “Anywheres” were the winners of globalisation whose values were shared globally and were more focused on environmental and identity issues. The “somewheres” supported Donald Trump in 2016 and Brexit in the UK.
But while the AFR piece argued the teal rebellion was the natural fallout of Coalition populism in its quest to win the “somewheres”, it failed to explain how that theory sits with the Coalition’s support for net zero emissions by 2050.
Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan probably got closer to the truth in The Courier-Mail on May 8, where he was reported as saying the Coalition needed to remember poor people have the same vote as the wealthy.
“My view is there is no reason to be scared of what some have termed the boganisation of the Liberal/National parties because there’s a lot of bogans out there and they all get the same vote as high-wealth people,” he said.
Canavan was more worried about the jobs of ordinary Australians than he was about the jobs of progressive Liberal MPs such as Dave Sharma in Wentworth in Sydney’s east and Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney. He wanted them to hold their seats but knew they would be OK financially if they lost.
While Scott Morrison has taken credit for ending the climate wars inside the Coalition, this column pointed out on May 2 that he had also removed one of the main differences between the Coalition and Labor on which the conservatives had won the previous three elections.
The evidence from Morrison’s campaign suggests he thinks he can take “somewheres” from Labor even if he can’t defend “anywheres” in teal seats. The PM has been campaigning in Labor outer suburban seats in Sydney and Melbourne and in Labor’s Hunter Valley coal seats.
This “somewheres” focus helps to explain his support for controversial Sydney candidate for the electorate of Warringah, Katherine Deves. Her views on trans women competing in women’s sport might be unpopular in the inner city seats where many journalists live but in the rest of mainstream Australia, Deves’ views are resonating.
All this is part of what Paul Kelly in this newspaper has described as the fracturing of the centre of politics. It’s a problem for both sides and for the national interest.
Labor is being challenged by the Greens in formerly working class innercity suburbs. These are now expensive areas with few working-class homeowners. To hold such seats Labor has tried to walk a delicate balance criticising coal mining in inner cities while supporting it in the Hunter and Central Queensland.
The Greens are to the ALP’s working class base what the teals are to Liberal voters in wealthy seats – a drag to the left from traditional party values. House prices in former working-class areas are instructive.
In inner Sydney Marrickville, where Anthony Albanese’s electoral office sits, the median house price today is $1.9m. This is a largely industrial suburb under the flight path close to Sydney Airport. In the former wharfie heartland of Sydney’s Balmain, the median price today is $2.65m.
Sydney’s Inner West Council, which includes Marrickville and Balmain, now has five Greens among its 15 councillors. Labor has eight. Few in such areas vote Coalition but increasingly they are not voting Labor either. For the party set up by the trade union movement to represent workers, this is an existential issue. Yet Labor has an advantage federally. Green voters overwhelmingly preference Labor. We do not yet know how teal preferences will flow or who any potential teal MPs might back in parliament.
The Coalition is also losing votes on the right to One Nation and the United Australia Party, whose preference flows are less disciplined than those of the Greens.
Protecting Labor’s working class base is central to Albanese’s position on a rise in the minimum wage and to his personal story of growing up in a housing commission flat as the son of a single mum. The media’s focus on his wage rise pronouncements last week only helped Labor. It’s just a pity more ABC reporters don’t remember what happened last time we had a wages/price inflation spiral during the stagflation of the 1970s.
Whoever wins on Saturday, heartland Liberal and Labor seats will continue to drift away from values associated with jobs and class. Yet John Howard’s suburban battlers are still interested in their jobs, as well as schools and employment opportunities for their children, overcrowded roads and public transport.
Outer suburban seats will increasingly host the battle for political supremacy as post-materialist Greens and teals capture older, wealthier areas in our cities. Union membership in the private sector has fallen below 10 per cent as Labor becomes the party of public sector workers. These people live in the same suburbs as the incorporated tradies and small business people the Coalition needs to target.
The Liberals may not remain the party of big business. They are alienated from the preoccupations of big business. Think climate change, diversity in and out of the workplace, gay marriage, defending trans rights and Aboriginal reconciliation. Big business panders to the social media left’s campaigns that are destroying good government across the world.
Remember the Republicans were once the party of big business and the Democrats the party of blue-collar workers. Now the Democrats represent big-tech billionaires and the Hollywood elite, while many supporters of Donald Trump are more like National Party and One Nation voters here.
The hollowing out of our two main political blocs does not bode well for good government. Populist politics does not serve the national interest. But populism is all that has been on show from Morrison and Albanese as both leaders pretend they can resist international inflation and change wages from the PM’s desk. The media seems blind to the point.
This is the most dangerous time for Australia since World War II. China is extending its influence into the South Pacific. We face debt of $1 trillion and are heading for a repeat of 1970s stagflation.
Yet the public is so disengaged from reality that the two free-to-air TV election debates had to wait until after Lego Masters on Nine at 8.45pm on May 8, and until 9.10pm on Seven last Wednesday after Big Brother.
We get the governments, and media, we deserve.
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While many journalists believe the Liberal Party needs to move to the left after Saturday’s election to protect heartland inner-city seats that do not fall to “teal” independents, the opposite is more likely.