Labor Party machine blind to reality of a losing hand

Bill Shorten believed the election was won. His staff and ­advisers were also convinced their time in opposition was over.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - MAY 18: Labor supporters watch the television broadcast at the Hyatt Place Melbourne ahead of the Australian Federal Election announcement on May 18, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. Australians head to the polls today to elect the 46th Parliament of Australia, with a tight battle between incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison of the Coalition party and Labor Leader, Bill Shorten. The Coalition party has led government since 2013. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

After 35 days on the road, three leaders debates, dozens of press conferences and thousands of hand shakes, Bill Shorten was readying for one last push through Queensland, where there were growing signs seats such as ­Herbert and Longman were under threat.

Then, at 5pm on Thursday, after delivering his final campaign speech at Blacktown’s Bowman Hall, where Gough Whitlam declared “It’s time”, the Labor leader received a phone call.

Bob Hawke — Labor’s much-loved prime minister and Shorten’s friend and mentor — had died. After weighing the news, and its electoral effect, the increasingly confident Shorten camp tore up its plan to sweep through Queensland marginals hammering Labor’s tax crackdown on multinational companies.

The next day, Shorten headed to the John Curtin Hotel, in Melbourne’s union precinct, where he toasted Hawke with Victorian Premier Dan Andrews and former premier Steve Bracks.

The mood was sombre, but celebratory. Shorten believed the election was won. His staff and ­advisers were also convinced their time in opposition was over.

Labor operatives had been briefing journalists throughout the campaign that the party was headed for majority government with 79 to 85 seats.

Their confidence was misplaced, as Saturday’s result so ­devastatingly revealed.

taus election 2019 graphic labor fails

Labor’s carefully crafted policy agenda — including plans to abolish cash refunds for retirees for ­excess franking credits, and limit negative gearing to new dwellings — provided ready-made scare campaigns that the Coalition seized upon. While Labor’s candidates in marginal seats conceded the policies were concerning for some constituents, the party was dismissive of the attacks.

It was a confronting policy mix that would pit Australians against each other. Seniors, many of whom would not be affected by the so-called “retiree tax”, felt under attack, while Scott Morrison convinced suburban homeowners the value of their biggest asset was at risk.

One Labor frontbencher said: “Blind Freddy could tell you what went wrong — it was in every one of their ads — retiree tax, housing tax.”

Another Labor source said the party had been captured by Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen, together with the party’s Left faction, and was “driven off a cliff like ­Thelma and Louise”.

“We got caught in a self-­reinforcing death spiral of telling ourselves how good our policies were while everyone in the suburbs that mattered, that determined the election, were saying they were crap,” the source said.

Bowen, one of the chief architects of the policy manifesto, was prophetic when he told the ABC’s Fran Kelly in January: “I say to your listeners, if they feel very strongly about this, if they feel that this is something which should impact on their vote, they are of course perfectly entitled to vote against us.”

An analysis of electorates Labor has lost or will likely lose, and the marginal seats the ­Coalition will retain, reveals large numbers of constituents who negatively geared property or ­received franking credits.

The now-Liberal seat of Lindsay ranked 39th of the top 50 seats with constituents who received franking credits.

The Liberal seats of Reid in NSW, Leichhardt, Brisbane and Forde in Queensland, Swan and Pearce in Western Australia and Boothby in South Australia — all of which Labor hoped to win — were also in the top 50.

Before he went to church on Easter Sunday — kicking off the second week of the campaign — Shorten quipped in the lobby of the Hilton in Brisbane he had been preparing for this election campaign for more than 2000 days.

But for someone who had been training for nearly six years, Shorten was surprisingly unprepared for the campaign, which some Labor insiders believe was centred on a mistaken belief he could not lose to Morrison and his ­“Coalition of chaos”.

His inner circle believed he would set the agenda, stick to his talking points on health and education and have an enjoyable campaign. Then he would romp into power, picking up about 15 seats.

It was a similar strategy to 2016, but everyone thought Shorten would become prime minister at the end of this election so the scrutiny was far more intense.

His early strategy to manage the press pack was to give every ­reporter a question — which he would not really answer — and ­refuse to take follow-ups.

This tactic was blown to pieces on day seven of the campaign when he was embroiled in a stoush with the Ten Network’s Jonathan Lea because he would not answer questions about the costings of Labor’s 45 per cent emissions reduction target. Lea’s performance infuriated Shorten’s team. Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek rolled her eyes and shook her head when Shorten received questions on why he had not costed his policy. Peter Barron, a long-time Labor campaign adviser who helped run Paul Keating’s 1993 campaign, and ALP president Wayne Swan, were on the hustings with Shorten to give him perspective on issues and sage advice.

But Barron, a former News Corp journalist, at one stage suggested Shorten was travelling with the most bloodthirsty journalists he had ever seen and was surprised at how united the press pack was.

Labor believed Morrison was getting an easy time of it and was not exposed to sufficient scrutiny.

It wasn’t until week three, while campaigning in Adelaide, that Shorten took the emissions costings head-on and used the questions to promote action on climate change. There was a sense his team finally acknowledged the legitimacy of the question and had a plan to combat it.

As Shorten neared the finish line, there was a growing sense of anticipation within the party, with hundreds turning out for the Blacktown address.

While Shorten’s delivery was solid, it came across as too ­rehearsed and fell flat in parts.

He may have won the hearts of the party faithful, but they were not the votes he so desperately needed to win government.

Additional reporting: Ben Packham