Election 2022 Verdict: Who won the final week of the campaign

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, left, and Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Pictures: Supplied

Every Friday during the 2022 federal election campaign, Chris Kenny and Troy Bramston have handed down their verdict on the week that was. Here’s how they saw the final week of campaigning as Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese notched up the frequent flyer miles crisscrossing the country in their last-ditch bids to shore up votes.

Election 2022 verdict:Week one | Week two | Week three | Week four | Week five

Kenny: PM competent, but unconvincing, even as Albanese melted like a Paddle Pop. Whatever the result, we deserve better

This has been the least substantial election campaign in living memory. The most significant interventions have come from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Rising inflation and interest rates, falling unemployment, and shrinking wages have injected some semblance of reality into a largely phantasmagorical debate where opposition parties have pretended Australia can change the global climate or that a federal anti-corruption commission is the crucial missing element in our democracy.

Chris Kenny

Scott Morrison has been orthodox and competent but lacking in a strong future agenda while Anthony Albanese has melted before our very eyes like a Paddle Pop in the summer sun.

From the first day of the campaign it has been clear that because of the entrenched polling deficit and itch-scratchy nature of public debate, Morrison would need to win every week to have a chance of winning. He has done that, but not all of them convincingly.

Albanese has had a shocking campaign.

Only Labor loyalists could point to a single day where he outperformed the incumbent, let alone a week.

He has displayed inexplicable ignorance about central economic data, his own policies, and the positions of his opponents. He fessed up to mistakes early and made a virtue of correcting them, but when the tally got out of hand, he started denying errors and trying to plough on.

At the start the Labor Leader promised to answer all media questions but he dropped that undertaking within 24 hours, and by the time we got to this week he was scurrying away from the press pack and trying to send the travelling journalists to cities other than the one he was visiting.

It is damning but incontestable to observe that Labor’s best campaign week was when Albanese isolated at home with the virus.

Yet for all of this, Labor’s polling has held quite firm.

A hardening towards the Coalition has come later and less dramatically than I would have expected and most observers are convinced that it will not be enough.

PM Scott Morrison is the superior campaigner. but truth is, the most likely result could be a messy hung parliament. Picture: Jason Edwards

I am less certain. Our public debate is so febrile that Coalition voters are increasingly shy, and minds will truly focus when the real choice is before them on the ballot paper. Besides, the primary votes for both major parties are set to be historically low, so that the preference flow from the gaggle of crossbred and inbred minor parties and independents will be the deciding factor in many crucial seats – and those preferences will be about as predictable as a Joe Biden thought bubble.

If Labor wins a majority, it will tell us the campaign has been pointless; even a terrible campaign failing to diminish its support.

If the government holds on then the pressure test of the campaign will have saved them, and the prevailing media narrative will be exposed.

Truth is, the most likely result could be a messy hung parliament hinging on postal vote counting into next week. We deserve better.

The real lesson of the past six weeks is that our political debate lacks conviction. We have lost policy differentiation and robust debate on the major issues in favour of cynical manipulation of social media memes to neutralise negatives, foster grievances and assassinate characters.

Still, in the digital age our politics has degenerated into an almost permanent campaign. So perhaps we have just experienced six weeks of more of the same.

Bramston: Amid unpopularity and gaffes, teal independents and fringe parties the final week winners

The winners of the final week of the election campaign are the teal independents and fringe minor parties. Why? Because this election is likely to see the primary votes of the major parties – Labor and the Coalition – at near record lows and yet one of them will form a government with perhaps two-thirds of the electorate not voting for them.

This election has always been Labor’s to lose and Anthony Albanese seemed to do the best he could to lose it with serial blunders, gaffes and stumbles.

But none of them seemed to matter that much. He did well in the three leaders’ debates, steered the campaign to Labor’s key issues like wages and cost-of-living, and maintained a lead in the polls.

Troy Bramston.

Morrison was the superior campaigner but there is a strong mood against the government and him personally. My column on Tuesday noted that Liberal MPs report from pre-poll booths that the single biggest problem they have is Morrison. Voters are turning off him in droves in key Liberal seats.

Yet, oddly, Morrison is not as unpopular in outer-suburban and regional seats, including those held by Labor. This is the Coalition’s pathway to survival: offsetting suburban loses by winning seats such as Corangamite and McEwen (Victoria), Lyons (Tasmania), Lingiari (NT), Parramatta and Gilmore (NSW).

If the Coalition dips to 74 seats, it can still form a government with independent Rebekha Sharkie and maverick MP Bob Katter. Labor’s magic number is also 74 because it can confidently form a government with Green Adam Bandt and independent Andrew Wilkie.

The shift in public mood towards Labor has been maintained over the past six weeks. But the polls have tightened and this will be a close election contest. Most elections in Australia are close and landslide results are rare. Labor is hopeful, indeed quietly confident, it can secure about 80 seats and therefore majority government.

The electoral strategies of the Coalition and Labor have been disrupted by the teal independents and fringe parties: the Greens, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and the United Australia Party. The teals could win a half-dozen seats from the Liberals but one or two is probably more likely. Preferences of PHON and UAP could make it hard for Labor to win Coalition-held seats, especially in Queensland. Labor is concerned about losing a seat to the Greens, perhaps Griffith or Ryan (Queensland).

There was mixed economic news for the government this week with wages not keeping up with inflation but another drop in unemployment to the lowest level since 1974. Most of the campaign has been about cost-of-living and wages, which benefits Labor. But the Coalition’s overall economic record will appeal to many voters. Indeed, Morrison is still preferred leader of Albanese on economic management, national security and pandemic response.

Most of the campaign has been about cost-of-living and wages, which benefits Labor and Albanese. Picture: Getty Images)

Labor’s decision to lock in higher budget deficits over the decade is risky but maybe voters don’t care anymore as we are so far in the red that a few more billion more won’t matter much. Budget surpluses were once a political virtue. But this was an opportunity for Labor to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility and show it could reduce the deficit faster. It has given Morrison a last campaign opportunity.

On election day three years ago, I said on Sky News that Labor was favoured to win but you should “never say never” and rule out a Coalition victory. I hold the same view today. Most voters do want a new government and a new prime minister but they have doubts about Labor and its leader. This is why so many Australians are looking to independents and minor parties. The two-party system, a strength of our parliamentary democracy, may be consigned to history tomorrow.