Labor’s mandate is much thinner than it appears
As Labor continues giving each other “high fives” after last weekend’s election victory, they are sounding like a returned-government that thinks it has a mandate to do whatever it wants.
The Coalition’s ship hit an almighty iceberg at the ballot box; and the loss of Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson was the political equivalent of the captain going down with the ship. The brutal electoral calamity for the Coalition is beyond dispute.
But efforts to sensationalise Labor’s win with comparisons to selective historical metrics have driven some commentators and analysts to compare the Albanese victory with the historic mandates of Labor’s Hawke and Whitlam; and to dismissively and prematurely consign the Liberals and Nationals to several more terms in opposition.
Both these conclusions are politically flawed. With just under 35 per cent of the vote after an entire term to prove it could deliver in government, Albanese and Labor were less popular at the ballot box than even the disaster of Mark Latham and Labor, when the party secured just over 37 per cent of the vote.
Labor’s thumping victory on Saturday was delivered by preferences for Labor, not votes for Labor. That means there is a yawning gap in the sentiments that drove people to vote Labor this time, compared with previous election victories.
Labor’s historically high two-party preferred vote of over 54 per cent is built on a historically high reliance on preferences: over a third of its nationwide two-party margin is based on Labor being the second, third or fourth choice of voters. Not the first.
That was never the case with the mandates of Labor’s Hawke or Whitlam, just as it wasn’t the case for the Coalition’s John Howard and Tony Abbott. It’s also why the short and medium-term electoral fortunes of the Coalition are not as doomed as some political soothsayers are supposing.
On Saturday’s figures, Labor’s primary vote shows the party does not enjoy the devoted love and confidence of the electorate that underpinned its past high-water mark victories. Core support for a government has rarely been so skin-deep. But just as Labor will need to understand what made up its win, the urgent imperative for the Coalition to understand our loss is undeniable.
It’s not a time for Henny Pennys. With shock losses and narrow escapes, the election aftermath is being flooded with reasons and solutions with the usual and predictable mix of being genuine or motive driven. When the Liberals and Nationals complete a forensic review of the results and the reasons, it won’t dispute that a campaign is not won or lost over the final five weeks. A focus on campaigning alone would skirt around deeper issues. This was a three-year journey for which the entire team bears a responsibility.
If there were structural or capacity or policy or communications weaknesses, that is on our collective shoulders. Just as it is now on our collective shoulders to understand the result and quickly get back on our feet. The Coalition must not get bogged in the nuances or, as former deputy prime Minister John Anderson calls them, “the trivialities” of why we lost. This results in a consuming tit-for-tat debate that would be an added electoral blessing for Labor.
There are those who argue we need to be more “moderate” versus we need to be more conservative. Yet I can show a 2.1 per cent swing to Tim Wilson; just as clearly as I can show a 2.1 per cent swing to Barnaby Joyce. There are those who say there was a Western-democracy Trump factor with Canada’s Conservative Party hit first, and Australia’s Coalition hit second; and with both losing their leaders. But that compares entirely different electoral systems. If Australia had Canada’s “first past the post” voting system, the Coalition would have won at least 15 additional seats last Saturday, including Dutton in Dickson.
There are claims the Coalition’s commitment to nuclear energy cost votes. Yet there are seats that were to be home to nuclear plants that swung strongly to the Coalition, and others that swung strongly against.
There were Coalition seats the teals hoped to win, but didn’t; teal seats the Coalition hoped to win back, but didn’t; and teal seats they hoped to hold, but didn’t.
There were double-digit swings to the Coalition in the regions; and there were double-digit swings against the Coalition in the regions. All facts and debates to validly consider. But they distract from the major focus of the Coalition’s pathway back to office.
It’s doubtful the core challenges facing Australia will be different at the next election than they were last Saturday. Our economy – underpinned by the “rivers of gold” from our resources sector – is under threat and will remain so. Our national security – in both a military and cyber sense – is under threat, and will remain so. Our standard of living, and the associated cost-of-living crisis, is under threat, and will remain so.
These are not only the Coalition’s traditional strengths, they are the nation’s actual challenges. And while the Coalition needs to get a clear measure on what were its policy successes and failures and why, I suspect Australians are still doubtful that anything in Labor’s policies will address those core challenges.
The Coalition’s biggest threat from here would be a failure to forensically and accurately understand the core reasons for our loss, just as Labor’s biggest threat from here would be to misunderstand what it actually received a mandate to do, and how it got that mandate.
Susan McDonald is the opposition spokeswoman for resources and Northern Australia.
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