Verdict: Who won week five of the campaign?
Election 2022 verdict:Week one | Week two | Week three | Week four
Bramston: Labor has never been more confident; insiders say problem is Morrison
The central election issue this week was cost-of-living and that means that Labor won the week. Anthony Albanese’s support for a minimum wage increase is a no-brainer yet Scott Morrison allowed himself to be portrayed as against a pay boost for the lowest paid doing the hardest jobs struggling to make ends meet.
That said, Labor tied itself in knots saying it would welcome a 5.1 per cent minimum wage increase to keep up with inflation and then said it would not formally recommend it. Why on earth would Labor not formally recommend it to the Fair Work Commission if they supported it? Labor should have made it a key policy announcement not a response to a press conference question.
This underscores where the campaign is at.
Labor has a limited agenda that is cautious and risk-averse with a leader who has stumbled his way through the campaign yet the Coalition is unable to land a knockout blow. Morrison is a superior campaigner but there is little sign the government is on track to re-election. The problem, Liberals privately say, is Morrison.
The two election debates on Sunday and Wednesday were the best opportunity for Morrison to arrest the Coalition’s slide in the polls and set it on a course for victory. I thought Morrison was the better debater despite the online poll and pub test awarding both contests to Albanese. Maybe voters have made up their minds.
The government does not seem to be getting credit for the strength of the economy, notwithstanding inflation, and its overall effective response to the pandemic with relatively low infection and death rates. Instead, the government was on the back foot dealing with Alan Tudge’s sex scandal, Josh Frydenberg distancing himself from Katherine Deves, Fiona Martin mistaking Sally Sitou for Tu Le and Morrison avoiding the former Solomon Islands high commissioner Trevor Sofield.
There was no doubt Labor won last week and the week before given the lift in the polls it received. It can chalk up another win this week. The Coalition has only won just one week during the campaign and that was the first week because of Albanese’s serial blunders. Momentum seems to be shifting away from the Coalition.
I remain cautious about polls and do not discount the silent majority deciding to stick with the devil they know and re-elect the Coalition. But when I talked to senior Liberals this week, the feedback on pre-poll is that the election is going badly for them. Labor, meanwhile, has never been more confident.
Kenny: Near-Teflon Albanese stuffs up, but no price to pay in polls
There is a rhythm about this election campaign that Anthony Albanese will hope carries him right through to polling day. He starts off the week with a stuff-up, spends the rest of the week trying to recover from his stumble, and then does not pay any price for it in the voting intentions measured by opinion polls.
This week the Labor Leader recklessly and “absolutely” gave the Fair Work Commission a public direction to increase the minimum wage by at least 5.1 per cent. Clearly, he did not understand the implications of what he said and, presumably after briefings, Albanese attempted to walk it back to a degree.
In the end, however, Labor decided it was better to double down on this unorthodox intervention and try to use it to bolster their wage increase theme rather than have the Leader make another apology and correction.
If Albanese is not quite a Teflon candidate, he might be more like a reliable family car that has suffered a few bumps and scrapes along the way, so that one more ding from the weekly trip to the supermarket carpark does not bother anybody too much, as long as it is getting the job done.
The frustration from the Coalition is palpable. The entire narrative of the campaign has been driven by Opposition Leader stumbles on policies and crucial facts – it is just the sort of trainwreck that Liberal strategists would have conjured in their dreams. Yet the polls are about as volatile as sandstone.
For the record, I think the polling, especially when extrapolated down to individual seats, is highly speculative and likely to have underestimated the Coalition vote.
But search as you might, there is no evidence anywhere of a Coalition revival – either voters do not care about Albanese’s apparent limitations, or had already factored them in.
If undecided voters are to pull this out of the fire for Scott Morrison, they will have to do it late and decisively over the next seven days – remembering, of course, that up to 300,000 people are now voting at pre-poll booths daily.
It looks like at least a third and possibly close to half of all votes might be cast before polling day – so every day the Coalition fails to crystallise the choice, it might cost them dearly.
The election campaign has not centred on major policy debates, nor has it focused on major ideological differences.
It has been a campaign about not much at all, especially because the Coalition capitulated on net zero emissions and, thanks to its pandemic response, surrendered its contrast on fiscal recovery and restraint.
I will stick to my guns and predict some hardening towards the Coalition as election day approaches, but the big question is whether it will be enough to save them. If week six continues the pattern of the campaign, we will see another major mistake from Albanese, a virtual shrug of the shoulders from voters and good news for Labor on Saturday week.
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Every Friday during the 2022 federal election campaign, Chris Kenny and Troy Bramston will hand down their verdict on the week that was. Here’s how our commentators saw the fifth week, as two televised debates and the minimum wage issue put Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese under the microscope.