Albanese backs away from surprise election revelation

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Anthony Albanese’s management of expectations over the Dunkley by-election, aware of previous government losses presaging federal election losses, has gone to the extent of turning an inconvenient truth into an (almost) convenient untruth.

As he furiously campaigns for a win in the Melbourne by-election on Saturday, the Prime Minister has repeatedly said “the average swing against the government, in a government-held seat, is 7 per cent”.

Albanese has declared it’s “science and maths” and “just a fact”, as his ministers have repeated the magic number of a 7 per cent swing against sitting governments. The figure of 7 per cent conveniently fits the political narrative in Dunkley, where a 6.3 per cent swing against Labor would be a loss.

Defeat in Dunkley would be a disaster for Albanese. It would return his government to a majority of just one – and, worse, revive ­images of disastrous by-election losses in the past that have foretold a federal election loss or a nadir for the government.

In 1975, the Whitlam government lost the Tasmanian seat of Bass and months later was wiped out nationally. In 1995, the Keating government lost the seat of Canberra and the election the following year. John Howard faced a wipe-out after the Ryan by-election in 2001 and avoided it only with a massive budget effort.

By-elections matter. Even if, as seems likely, Albanese hangs on after a swing in Dunkley of 3 to 5 per cent, a score of seats will be under threat if the swing is repeated nationally at the election.

Campaign signage in Franskton ahead of the Dunkley By-Election. Picture David Geraghty

The real politics will be about the size of the swing in the by-election. There will be backbench nervousness and questions about the value of the voice referendum – which 53 per cent of Dunkley voters rejected – and the huge effort to bring in tax cuts before the by-election where they seem to be disappearing without trace.

Unfulfilled promises on electricity prices are still the main concern of voters.

So, Albanese is clinging to the idea that governments face a natural swing of 7 per cent against them and therefore – if he holds on to Dunkley – he will have done “better than average” even if the swing against the government is as high as 6 per cent.

But in a political version of how long is a piece of string, he has never made it clear where the figure of a 7 per cent swing against a ­sitting government came from despite all other estimates coming up with lesser swings – ­particularly in a by-election after the death of a popular MP.

In all by-elections in government-held seats since the start of the Menzies government, the swing has been -5.9 per cent, and in government-held seats since the start of the Whitlam government it is the same, -5.9 per cent.

In by-elections resulting from the death of a government MP, the average swing against is just 2.6 per cent, and the average swing against a Labor government in a Victorian federal by-election is 0.7 per cent.

So, it took a bit of shifting of the goalposts to fit a swing against the government of an acceptable 7 per cent as “better than average” into the narrative, and Albanese is relying on the average by-election result in a government-held seat since the beginning of the Hawke government.

It’s a convenient truth that will help on Saturday night.