History against both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton – neither may be able to win an election outright

Labor literally can’t afford to go backwards by any more than three seats, unless it wants to repeat the Gillard experiment and govern in coalition with the Greens, writes Simon Benson.

There is a new political reality dawning for both Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese.

The increasingly likely outcome of the next election is that neither leader can win it outright.

History is against both men, but for different reasons.

For the Opposition Leader, the problem is obvious. No opposition has ever won an election without having been ahead of the government in a Newspoll on a two-party-preferred basis at least once in an electoral term.

The Coalition has come close only on one occasion in the first two years of this current cycle – a 50-50 recorded in November 2023, post-referendum. It has trailed Labor in every other poll since the May 2022 election.

In fact, it is rare for an opposition in any context to not have at least a few Newspoll wins up its sleeve during a term. Tony Abbott managed to pull off a 51-49 in the middle of 2010, although many regarded that as a rogue poll.

Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt and Anthony Albanese during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The reality that would be dawning on Liberal Party strategists is that the Coalition’s primary vote has remained so consistently low throughout this term that the prospects of the Liberal/Nationals having a chance of winning an election are rapidly evaporating.

It would need to break through the 50-50 barrier and remain there. There is time for this to occur, but presumably only if Albanese decides to go full term and hold the election when it is due in May next year.

That said, even a 51-49 result in favour of the Coalition at the election would be unlikely to win it government. It’s hard to see how it could get to 76 seats at this level.

A different historical problem faces Albanese and suggests that he will struggle to form a majority government in his second run at it.

The historical rule is that most first-term federal governments go backwards at their second ­election.

John Howard lost 14 seats in his second election, Julia Gillard managed to lose 11 seats at the 2010 election, sending the former Rudd government into minority, and Malcolm Turnbull eroded the ­Coalition’s first-term lead secured by Abbott by dropping 14 seats to Bill Shorten in 2016.

All governments held on for a second-term government only by virtue of having reasonably large buffers to work with; in the case of Gillard, it was owing to the Greens and a couple of independents.

The only government in the past 40 years to have increased its margin in its second term was the Hawke government in 1984, in an election that was called 18 months early.

Albanese does not have the luxury of a buffer to underpin a ­second-term tilt. Labor literally can’t afford to go backwards by any more than three seats, unless it wants to repeat the Gillard experiment and govern in coalition with the Greens.

The latest Newspoll has Labor at 52-48 on a two-party-preferred basis – a virtual repeat of the 2022 election result. This suggests on the surface that it could hang on by a thread.

However, the trend in News­poll over the past six months points more towards minority government with the average two-party-preferred split being 51-49 since November last year.

The reality is that based on the fortunes of past first-term governments, Albanese will effectively have to defy history in order to maintain a majority government.

His main salvation is that the Coalition is battling its own historical demons by possibly going to an election having never won a Newspoll in an entire term in ­opposition.