Addressing elated Liberal supporters on Saturday night, the Prime Minister said with a wink: “I have always believed in miracles.” But miracles took Scott Morrison only so far. Political enemies helped lift his government to victory; the rest is the Prime Minister’s success.
By God, it was an unequal political playing field. The groups from the Left-Green-Labor side of politics lined up against the Morrison government — Labor, a cashed-up GetUp, law-breaking union leaders, Sally McManus’s change-the-rules campaign, the sons of the rich, from disgruntled Alex Turnbull to deluded Simon Holmes a Court, and many at the ABC, Nine and its former Fairfax newspapers — take a bow. You helped Morrison win.
Political opponents came after his faith, and he won anyway. A Guardian Australia journalist warned us to “watch abortion rights in Australia go the way of the US” — that nutty hysteria will be a fillip to the Morrison government. Keep it coming.
His spectacular re-election, against the odds, polls and predictions, has sobering political lessons. First, let’s dispose of the ABC’s election night fable. Barrie Cassidy, Andrew Probyn and Laura Tingle lined up to announce that an opposition cannot win government in Australia with a “transformative agenda”. Cry me a river. It’s not the existence of policy that destroyed Labor; it lost because it sidled up to voters with tone-deaf policies.
Bill Shorten’s class war did not work in working-class electorates he needed. The fundamental realignment of modern politics, with conservatives better understanding the working class, confirms what John Howard knew: Australians are aspirational and eager to rise from the lower strata of society. Dismissing the rich is dismissing the ambitions of the poor.
Chris Bowen, take another bow. Vote for someone else, the opposition Treasury spokesman said to hardworking Australians who have saved to be self-sufficient in retirement, not a weight on the public purse. It was his version of that career-clipping Hillary Clinton moment when she told deplorables to rack off. They did.
Older Australians abandoned Labor from Braddon and Bass to Lindsay. But it was not only the grey vote that spurned Labor. Those saving for their own old age were sent a message that they would be punished if they got too comfortable.
Shorten and Bowen’s Robin Hood economics of redistribution failed because millions of Australians aspire to succeed. Even those stuck on welfare understand that mocking the rich as “the top end of town” is stupid economics — their taxes sustain the social welfare state.
Shorten could not see that whipping up class war is un-Australian. It was political suicide to hark back to 1972, not 1983. Perhaps the death last week of reforming leader Bob Hawke reminded voters that Whitlam-channelling Shorten was not in that league.
Learning nothing from Saturday night, Labor’s Andrew Leigh said: “We hoped it’d be 1972 but it turned out to be 1969.” Will the Labor Party, under a new leader from its Left faction, say Anthony Albanese or Tanya Plibersek, return with more dodgy Whitlam economics next time? Good luck with that.
We were told, over and again, this was a climate change election. So it was. And those elites who can afford sky-high energy prices, blackouts and Teslas lost. Morrison was mocked for bringing a lump of coal into parliament but Saturday was a firm nod to his instincts. That black rock symbolises jobs, lower energy bills for the poorest Australians, flourishing trade and cheap, reliable energy to domestic businesses, big and small.
The story of the night happened in a seat the Liberals did not win. Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon suffered a swing of more than 14 per cent in Hunter in regional NSW — a bombshell symbol that a religious fervour about climate change, 50 per cent renewable energy targets and Labor’s loathing of coal is political poison far away from swanky, big-city suburbs.
How good is Queensland? Morrison said it on Saturday night: a lesson to remember, as the sunshine state delivered a swing of more than 4 per cent to the Coalition. Election night was not meant to end with a swing to Peter Dutton in Dickson.
Take a bow, too, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Her shenanigans over the Adani coalmine drew a thin black line between a government that cares about people’s jobs and one that doesn’t.
On that score, GetUp deserves extra credit for Morrison’s win. Those rowdy left-wing activists won one battle, turfing out Tony Abbott, but lost the war with climate change zealotry. And by removing Abbott, GetUp gave Abbott a warrior’s mantle.
“I’d rather be a loser than a quitter,” he said, delivering a classy, dignified speech that told Liberals to look forward. It was the telling contrast to Malcolm Turnbull’s resignation speech last year, full of excuses, anger and self-delusion.
Another blessing from election night: Turnbull’s sulky narrative that Australia would punish the Liberals at the federal election for the “madness” of removing him has been resolutely refuted, an amusing footnote in Liberal history.
On that note, Turnbull helped make Morrison a winner. His removal made way for a leader who voters understood and who understood voters.
Morrison described the win as a victory for “those Australians who have worked hard every day; they have their dreams, they have their aspirations — to get a job, to get an apprenticeship, to start a business, to meet someone amazing. To start a family, to buy a home, to provide the best you can for your kids. To save for your retirement and to ensure that when you’re in your retirement that you can enjoy it because you’ve worked hard for it.”
Morrison rises to the ranks of Liberal hero because he understands these quiet Australians better than his opponents.
Hospitals ill-prepared to cope with terror attack
A mass casualty event would expose chronic shortcomings in our emergency response.
Rethink energy transition or face economic disaster
The opportunities for a reset and a plan B should have been taken earlier. Instead, Labor doubled down as it presided over ever-increasing power prices.