Changing nation leaves Coalition behind

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton must address the ‘structural challenge around generational change’ if he is to start reviving the Coalition after the Morrison government’s election loss. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The Morrison government lost the 2022 election on policy, leadership and socio-demographic grounds that, taken together, constitute an existential crisis for the Coalition and the Liberal Party that will not be solved merely by the normal cycle of political change.

The grim reality for the Liberal Party is its double loss – it lost on the core issues of the election and it lost on the structural trends changing Australian society and politics. The Coalition’s future is in doubt.

The essence of election 2022 is that it delivered a narrow Labor victory and a devastating Coalition loss. The Coalition lost 18 seats, 10 to Labor, six to the pro-climate action teal independents and two to the Greens. The Liberals have multiple vulnerabilities. They are weakened in the capital cities, with their metropolitan seat numbers falling from 33 at their 2007 election defeat to 19 seats at their 2022 election loss.

In the 151-strong House of Representatives, Labor has 77 seats, a tight majority, while the Coalition has been reduced to 58 seats – its lowest seat share in the house since the 1946 election.

The ALP election review released this week – while realistic about the challenges facing Labor – calls the poll “a realignment election for the Liberal Party”, a persuasive conclusion.

The Australian National University 2022 Australian Election Study also released this week is the best insight so far into what happened in May and based on a sample of 2508 voters – the latest in the ANU studies of federal elections since 1987 and the work of academics Sarah Cameron, Ian McAllister, Simon Jackman and Jill Sheppard.

It shows three alarming long-run trends for the Liberals. First, they are the victims of generational change, with only one in four voters under the age of 40 voting for the Coalition and only one in five voters among Generation Z (born after 1996) voting for the Coalition. The report says that at no time in the 35-year history of this election study “have we observed such a low level of support for either major party in so large a segment of the electorate”. It suggests how the Coalition tackles this problem “is perhaps the single biggest question confronting Australian politics”.

Second, women constitute a challenge, with just 32 per cent of women casting a primary vote for the Coalition compared with 38 per cent of men – yet this is part of a deeper phenomenon as women move to the left, shown by the remarkable figure that almost twice as many women voted Greens (16 per cent) compared with men (9 per cent). Social and economic changes are delivering a higher proportion of women voters to progressive parties.

Third, Australia is becoming a higher education nation and that is working against the Coalition. Among people with a tertiary education Labor’s vote lead over the Coalition was 35-26 per cent. Yet the Coalition’s situation is worse since 18 per cent voted Greens, which means the combined Labor-Greens tertiary vote was 53 per cent. The Liberals are being beaten in the cohort that heavily represents decision-makers and opinion shapers.

The Labor review, co-authored by Greg Combet and Lenda Oshalem, concludes that Scott Morrison was the central vote determinant: “The focus on Morrison’s character was highly effective. Morrison’s unpopularity is the single most significant factor in Labor’s victory.” Labor said that over 18 months Morrison’s net satisfaction in Newspoll fell from +41 per cent to -19 per cent by January this year.

The ANU study, with its broader scope, assesses policy and leadership. It finds 53 per cent named policy as being the most important factor in voting. Yet the Coalition was gravely diminished on its traditional strength of the economy while Labor’s lead on its usual issues of the environment, climate change and health became embarrassingly large.

The pivotal point, however, is that Labor won on the main policy issue of the election – cost of living – by a hefty 41-29 per cent over the Coalition. This vindicates Labor’s central campaign message. It was important in its own right but also because it undermined the Coalition on its core strength of economic management. The study found, unsurprisingly given the recession and pandemic, that voters were pessimistic about the economy, with 67 per cent saying it had become worse over the previous year.

While few voters nominated the pandemic as a major election issue, the pandemic was fundamental in ruining confidence in the Morrison government. Asked how the federal government handled the pandemic, the figures were 37 per cent badly as opposed to 30 per cent well. Morrison, having started with popular support, lost the politics of the pandemic. The study says people were “much more negative” about Morrison’s pandemic management than they were about their premiers.

Victoria apart, there was distinct public support for pandemic handling by the premiers from 48 per cent in Queensland to the 75 per cent high in Western Australia and Tasmania. Only 23 per cent in the west rated Morrison’s handling – a pointer to the Liberal Party’s disastrous loss of five seats in WA. The study found pandemic performance was more impor­tant than economic performance in determining voting behaviour.

It also shows Labor winning by a country mile on what voters saw as the second most important issue – the combination of environment and climate change. The environment favoured Labor 51-19 per cent and global warming favoured Labor 50-18 per cent. The more important the environment becomes, the more the Liberal Party’s dismal showing is a liability.

This is a dilemma for the Coalition because its own voters don’t see global warning with the same seriousness as most of the community. Indeed, nearly half of all voters see global warning as “extremely important” yet less than one in four Coalition voters register this view. It means the Coalition is trapped on global warming between majority sentiment and its voting loyalists.

The study found only 11 per cent of respondents cast their vote based on leadership but these people are more likely to be swinging voters and influential. Anthony Albanese was the most popular leader to win an election since Kevin Rudd in 2007 – Albanese rated higher than Julia Gillard in 2010, Tony Abbott in 2013, Malcolm Turnbull in 2016 and Morrison in 2019, a result that would have astonished most analysts at the midpoint of the last term.

Morrison was found to be the least popular main party leader in the history of the surveys dating back to the 1987 poll. His fall was dramatic and came in the latter part of the term. In 2019 Morrison was the 12th most popular leader since the 1987 election but trailed the field in 2022 as the 26th and last in the popularity stakes. Again, this confirmed Labor’s tactic of running against Morrison’s style and character.

In assessing the Coalition defeat, McAllister nominated three main factors – leadership, the pandemic legacy and the Coalition’s declining hold on economic performance. He said “it would be difficult for the Coalition to win again” unless it was able to address the structural challenge around generational change.