Broader challenge as ALP base narrows

Newspoll has not delivered the Christmas present that Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese wished for. Picture: AAP

The magnitude of Anthony Albanese’s task to win back middle Australia is profound.

The broader analysis of where Labor’s popular support is anchored reveals the existential problem for the centre-left. Popular support is being gouged from both flanks — the new left and the right.

This was evident at the election. And little has changed.

The risk for the opposition is it becomes baked in. The Coalition remains ahead on a two-party-preferred basis, 51-49, which is a luxury few governments have enjoyed in a third term. While this appears a small margin, the underlying demographic shift in popular support reveals the magnitude of the structural problems facing the new Labor leader.

This was alluded to in the party’s post-election review but with little direction on how to deal with it in the longer term.

For the first time, Newspoll has broken down voting intentions by household income and education levels. At first blush, it would appear Labor’s base has narrowed further to low-income earners and welfare recipients. This was the only demographic that Labor could claim over the Coalition. But it was only by two points.

The analysis also busts the myth that the Liberal Party has a problem with women voters. On this measure, the Coalition is ahead of Labor.

More troubling for Albanese must be the problem he, and Labor, have with male voters. The margin is substantial. The fact the Coalition’s dominance in this demographic has come from young male voters should be a warning to Labor that it is in a death spiral if it continues to pursue the millennial vote at the expense of aspirational families in their 30s and 40s.

Labor is only a point ahead of the Coalition with 18 to 34-year-olds at 35 per cent, with the Greens commanding 22 per cent of the vote.

Albanese’s starting point should be those on household incomes of between $50k and $99k. This is the heartland of essential services workers and young families who Morrison has captured with income tax cuts, as Howard’s battlers were won over with middle-class welfare.

The obvious parallels will be drawn from the British election result and the “working class” swinging behind Boris Johnson.

In Australia, it is much more nuanced, as the demographic breakdowns reveal.

For Albanese, the task is not insurmountable. His net approval ratings are slightly higher than Morrison’s, which puts him in a contestable zone at a leadership level. And he has pegged back two points from the LNP in Queensland since the election, albeit from a historically low primary vote of 27 per cent at the election.

Weighed against this is the significant ground he has to make up in NSW and the fact the ALP remains behind the Coalition on primary vote in Labor’s traditionally strongest state of Victoria.

The magnitude of the challenges are broad-based and cut across the political and demographic divides.