At the risk of coming over just a little too perspicacious, not everyone wrote the Coalition off.
This newspaper, on April 20, ran this column, showing a clear path to victory for the Morrison government.
Shall we see how it stacks up?
It said: “Shorten can’t lose, can he? The ALP has won 51 consecutive Newspolls, it is way ahead with the bookies, who last week had Shorten ahead of Winx.
“Add to that the fact the Coalition has no seats to lose, literally none, being a minority government.
“It’s over, or so everyone says, in capital letters, bold type and italics. OVER.
“Except it’s not over. There is a path to victory for the Coalition … shall we follow those crumbs, see where they lead?”
Yes, let’s follow those crumbs.
“Let’s say the Coalition snatches Wentworth back from Kerryn Phelps … No, it’s not impossible. Wentworth was a Liberal seat for 60 years before she took it … The Liberal candidate in Wentworth, Dave Sharma, is quietly raising lots of money, and meeting lots of people.
“The Coalition doesn’t want to make too much of how well he’s doing, actually, because that will prompt GetUp to swarm back into the seat, pretending to be independent, LOL.”
We can’t say for certain that Sharma has regained Wentworth but his primary vote has surged, and they’ve not yet written it off.
A recovered Wentworth gets the Coalition back to 74.
The column went on: “Let’s say the Coalition also grabs Lindsay in western Sydney. It’s held by Emma Husar, who says the Labor Party slut-shamed her out of her seat.”
This has indeed happened.
“Heading down to Tasmania, well, the Coalition got smashed there in 2016, losing Bass, Braddon and Lyons.
“Could it conceivably get one of them back? Well, Bass has changed parties at seven of the past nine elections, so, sure.
“Let’s give the Coalition Bass or Braddon.”
It’s probably won both.
“Then you’ve got those seats that had to be counted, and counted again, before they were handed to Labor in 2016: Cowan, a traditionally conservative seat, is held by Anne Aly on a margin of 0.07 per cent; Herbert is held by Labor’s Cathy O’Toole, on a margin of 37 votes, or 0.02 per cent.”
Cowan is still being counted, but the Coalition has won Herbert.
“The conservatives also have one eye on Solomon in the Northern Territory, which Labor won with a massive swing in 2016.”
They won’t win Solomon. The same column also predicted that Peter Dutton would lose (dead wrong) and that Tony Abbott could well hang on (even wronger.)
But it went on: “If they can keep losses in Victoria to two; if they can convince voters in Chisholm to let them swap out Julia Banks for one of their own; if they can hold what they’ve got in Western Australia and South Australia … look, nobody on the conservative side is saying it’s going to be easy. It’s going to be tremendously difficult for the Coalition, not least because not only does it have no seats to lose, it has to put them on.
“Which, by the way, Bob Hawke did in 1987.
“Which, John Howard also did in 2001.”
And this is exactly what has happened, meaning you can now add Morrison to that list of Liberal champions. The Coalition held what they had, and they’ve added a few. That’s a very rare feat, and on that basis, and for the good of the nation, Morrison should now be allowed to govern for a full, three year term.