Listening to the Message

ELECTION WRAP-UP

Joshua Kirsh

AUJS Political Affairs Director

Let’s be clear about one thing; anyone who told you on the morning of the 18th of May that they believed that the Coalition would pull a rabbit out of a hat and secure a third term in government was lying to you. Having lost every Newspoll in the preceding three years, the Coalition seemed destined to suffer a bruising and humiliating loss, and take some time in Opposition to regroup and discover its next move.

Labor is now in search of its new direction. With new leader Anthony Albanese in charge, Labor’s parliamentary team will have to work out which of its policies to trumpet and which to dump. (For what it’s worth, voters appear to have enjoyed hearing a lot more about Labor’s aggressive plans to curb climate change than they did their plans to remove tax concessions from retirees. That might be a good place to start.)

My instinctive analysis, which has been echoed to me many times since the election, is that Labor didn’t count on the aspirations of the Australian people. Rather than approach the ballot box with baseball bats out for the “top end of town”, voters from across partisan divides wondered about the hit to their retirement plans with a Labor government in charge. Shorten’s staunch refusal to grandfather the dividend imputation policy was, in retrospect, short sighted. By reaching for an $8bn war chest in savings over the forward estimates, Shorten failed to appreciate that $2bn would mean the same to the electorate if those currently taking advantage of the concessions were protected.

Without Labor’s policy agenda, it may be that the next three years are a rather sedate affair. Other than personal income tax cuts, and a new policy allowing first home buyers to borrow against 95% of the value of their homes, Morrison did not articulate much in the way of new ideas. The Australian electorate has given his government carte blanche to do as they will.

There is now, however, the sense of unfinished business in our country’s agenda. We are no closer to Indigenous recognition - which is fast becoming a MacGuffin as the government seeks to strip it of meaning and purpose. Religious freedom has been kicked down the road until the Australian Law Reform Commission releases its report into legislative exemptions in April 2020. Business lacks the certainty of a clear energy policy, other than the return of the big stick legislation. There is no high-profile advocate for an Australian republic on the front bench (Labor proposed a plebiscite). A one-man mandate and clear air in place of his predecessors gives Morrison plenty of room to move - but it’s not clear that movement is his intention.

With a slightly refreshed cabinet - emphasis on slightly - Morrison is getting ready to return to business as usual. His healthy parliamentary majority comes at the expense of not just Labor, but also insurgent independents. Wentworth, which sensationally abandoned the Liberals at a byelection in October last year returned to the party, won by former Australian ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma. The seats of Cowper and Farrer failed to make the predicted switch to Rob Oakeshott and Kevin Mack, who were hoping to capitalise on a rusting off of rural voters after sensational stories of water mismanagement. There were some hopes for non-aligned voters; Helen Haines managed to keep the rural Victorian seat of Indi in independent hands, whilst Tony Abbott was resoundingly rejected by the voters of Warringah in favour of former Olympic skier and barrister Zali Steggall.

The wisdom of the 2016 Senate voting reforms implemented by Malcolm Turnbull, with the help of the Greens, has borne fruit for both parties. The Greens managed to retain every Senate seat up for election - one in each state. Whilst seven other crossbench senators were up for election, only two - former Senators Malcolm Roberts and Jacqui Lambie - will be returning to the Parliament, giving the Coalition far fewer competing voices with which to pass legislation.

There has been, from progressives, a great deal of misdirected anger at the election outcome. I have heard some blame people for voting “out of self interest” because of Labor’s changes to franking credits - where the reality is that those people were statistically insignificant. It would require the concern of children, grandchildren, other relatives and friends to make up enough of a difference to swing a seat - which is hardly selfish.

I have heard some blame Bob Brown’s Stop Adani convoy for shifting the electorate in North Queensland. And whilst some voters may have put in a dafka vote against environmentalists and greenies, division amongst the construction and mining wings of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) led to mixed messages coming from Labor candidates and those who campaigned for them. If the CFMMEU, Bob Brown, and federal Labor were all making the perfectly valid case that an Adani mine would eventually be automated from pit to port, resulting in negligible jobs growth (not to mention the damage to our environment from increased coal mining) - perhaps there would have been greater fluency of message.

And whilst many have zeroed in on Queensland as ground zero for the failure of Labor’s campaign, they would do well to remove their blinders. Two of Tasmania’s five seats flipped from Labor to Liberal, after a low-key, well executed local campaign. Promised gains in the supposed Labor heartland of Western Sydney didn’t materialise, with only one flip when the ultra-swing seat of Lindsay swung back to the Liberals. Marginal seats which were supposedly in grave danger across the country - Boothby in South Australia and Hasluck and Pearce in Western Australia in particular - barely registered a peep and returned their sitting Liberal members. This was not a northeastern revolution - it was a national decision in every sense of the word.

After three years of precarious government, and then eight months of minority government, and after state elections in Victoria and NSW as well as nine by-elections around the country, it will be a challenge to adjust to post-electoral processes of change. Without candidate surveys and scorecards, how do we inspire politicians secure in their seats for the foreseeable future to take our issues as a priority? I’m looking forward to finding out.