ALP review: ‘dud combination’ sank voter appeal

Bill Shorten’s unpopularity was one of the three key reasons Labor lost the election.

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten at the launch of the ALP’s federal election campaign in Brisbane in May. Picture: AAP

Bill Shorten’s unpopularity was one of the three key reasons Labor lost the election, with his public standing and big policy offerings labelled a “lethal combination” amid concerns in the caucus he still had ambitions to return as leader.

The ALP campaign review — led by Labor luminaries Jay Weatherill and Craig Emerson — referenced research claiming Mr Shorten’s leadership was a major reason voters swung late against Labor and delivered a surprise May election defeat.

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It also pointed to his early campaign “stumbles” as helping fuel the Coalition’s “Shifty Shorten” and “the Bill Australia can’t afford” attacks that damaged Labor at the polls.

Labor figures close to Mr Shorten were upset with the report’s focus on the former leader, claiming he was unpopular only because of the “collective” policies the party adopted.

“The fact they refused to look at the impact of unpopular policies on Shorten’s popularity is absurd,” a Labor insider said. “He was the bloke standing up every day — of course it was going to have an­ ­impact. His popularity and unpopular policies don’t exist in ­parallel universes.”

Other senior Labor figures ­believe Mr Shorten is trying to put the blame on the policies rather than himself because he believes he can come back as a reformed and ­centrist leader.

Mr Shorten, who first read the review on Thursday morning, pre-empted the release of the report by releasing his response first.

 

He declared the political attacks by Clive Palmer and the Liberal Party “successfully tarnished my public standing” and reiterated his ambition to stay in politics for ­another 20 years.

“I note the review considered the relentless and unprecedented multi-million-dollar political attacks on me by Palmer and the Liberals successfully tarnished my public standing,” Mr Shorten said in a statement.

“This is an important lesson for any future leader to confront.”

Mr Shorten said the election loss was a “shock and surprise” but declared it “was not a landslide”.

“I was proud to unite the party and lead the rebuilding effort following the 2013 election where Labor won only 55 seats,” he said.

“In that time we saw off two Liberal prime ministers in Mr (Tony) Abbott and Mr (Malcolm) Turnbull, nearly snatched victory in 2016, and won a series of by-­elections.

“I thank the 48.5 per cent of Australians who gave us their first or second preference.

“There are many players on a team but as captain of that team, I accept responsibility for the pol­icies taken to the election.”

Mr Shorten said he would run a different campaign if “the universe (were) to grant reruns”.

“I would campaign with fewer messages, more greatly emphasise the jobs opportunities in renewable energies and take a different position on franking credits,” he said.

Mr Shorten and his allies had lobbied for the review’s criticisms of him to be watered down after hearing that the draft review was scathing of his performance and leadership.

The focus on Mr Shorten is understood to have created frictions within the review team.

The Australian has been told Dr Emerson voiced his ambition for the report to be heavily critical of Mr Shorten to cull any ambitions he had of returning as Labor leader.

Mr Weatherill on Thursday said he always believed Mr Shorten’s unpopularity had been “part of the story”.

“We arrived at a conscientious view based on the evidence that Bill’s leadership made a contribution to the loss, not the only contribution, but part of the story,” he said after handing down the report in Melbourne.

“We arrived at that view based on evidence, and obviously there are lots of different perspectives that have been put to us, but we have remained steadfast in that view.

“We think it would have been wrong for us to place all of the blame on Bill Shorten’s leadership.

“We think that would have been a wrong analysis and not based on the evidence. We think it would also have been wrong to say he played no role, his leadership played no role.”

The review noted concerns during the campaign about Mr Shorten criticising Scott Morrison for failing to say whether or not he thought gay people went to hell.

“This led to Shorten defending criticism that he was seeking to ­embarrass Morrison because of his religion,” the report said.

It was also critical of Mr Shorten’s divisive class-war rhetoric and phrases such as the “big end of town”.

Deputy leader Richard Marles on Thursday refused to say Mr Shorten was unelectable and suggested the former Labor leader’s unpopularity was the “least significant” finding of the ALP election review.

Mr Marles, who maintained that Mr Shorten could have won the election despite Labor’s defeat, said he accepted “collective ­responsibility” for the result.

“I think we could’ve won the election with Bill as leader. What the review makes clear was that this was a complex landscape. There were many factors,” Mr Marles told Sky News.

“If we are looking at the lessons that we need to take out of the ­review … obviously this is the least significant part of the report.”