It seems unthinkable, but could a PM enjoying a two-to-one margin at the last election be tossed out of parliament at the next? Michael Pascoe says it is indeed possible, maybe even probable.
Little wonder Labor is suffering in the polls when the best defender of its economic management is a former Liberal leader.
That’s what John Hewson did in the latest Saturday Paper, providing a clear, rational perspective on the performance of recent Labor and Coalition governments and explaining what the Reserve Bank is up to.
“Economic myth management” was the apt headline as the latest polling shows
the myth working well for the Opposition.
The “old” politics be like that, over-simplification and disinformation repeated ad nauseam. As another commentator, economist Nicholas Gruen, recently put it:
“I think of our system of electoral democracy as a system of competitive disinformation. Each major party spins against its opponents lest their opponents spin more successfully against them. Witness innumerable deflations of left-sympathetic public opinion once the competitive disinformation campaign ramps up. In Australia think of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, carbon pricing, resource rent taxation and various minor tax integrity measures Bill Shorten lost the 2019 election on.
“The dramaturgy of modern electoral democracy is the voter as angry consumer returning to the discount warehouse, indignant about the shoddy goods they bought. Why won’t anyone tell me like it is? Because if they did, you wouldn’t vote for them.”
The success of “competitive disinformation” on top of compromised principles means it’s not just One Hanson voters who want something different.
Unlike Labor delegates at the party’s national conference, Labor voters in Anthony Albanese’s seat of Grayndler are not disciplined by one means or another into staying in line. A long 20 months out from the next federal election, the word from the ground is that they are not.
The Hannah Ferguson factor
A source working with newbie community independent candidate Hannah Ferguson reports being shocked by the level of dissatisfaction with Albanese among hitherto loyal Labor voters; dissatisfaction quickly turned into enthusiasm for Ferguson.
It’s enthusiasm for the candidate and the candidate’s priorities that results in volunteers who win elections for independents. What worked in the safest of “safe” Liberal seats can work in “safe” Labor seats as well.
Politics used to mean old media and big party funding with all the strings and compromises that come with big donors. Anyone for real gambling reform or taxing gas exports more rationally?
Indeed, “the three Gs – gas, gambling and Gaza”
reportedly are Hannah Ferguson’s initial core priorities.
As for old media, it’s person-to-person and social media that work for independents, and Hannah Ferguson happens to be a master of the new media. She is the founder of Cheek Media, a platform claiming to reach more than two million Australians each month on Instagram alone.
It is very early days. Ferguson only announced she would be a candidate at the end of July. But that is what should have Albanese worried – 20 months gives plenty of time for volunteer numbers and the dissatisfaction to build.
How safe is his seat?
How safe is Grayndler? Albanese won with a primary vote of 53.5% last year. In the Australian Electoral Commission’s exercise of preference distribution, he finished on a two-party preferred basis of 64 to 36% over the Greens’ Hannah Thomas, effectively a two-to-one margin, showing a good number of Liberal and One Hanson voters preferenced Labor over Greens.
Given Labor’s national polling decline and the sense of betrayal among Labor voters, Grayndler will go to preferences in 2028. It’s not at all hard to see a strong grassroots campaign for a community independent seeing her finish second on primary votes, with the preference flow to decide it – preferences from people voting anti-Albanese as a priority.
What can Albanese do about it? Well there’s always the institutional corruption of the pork barrel to continue to roll out. Any other golf clubs in the electorate need a few million dollars?
The electoral bribery option
Problem is, the lack of integrity in continuing the Morrison tradition of blatant electoral bribery is one of the key factors in driving educated voters away from the major parties and to community independents.
There aren’t any economic miracles on offer, no magic levers for Jim Chalmers to pull to counteract the current press gallery groupthink and publishers’ campaigns against Labor.
A small indicator of the Sydney Labor mood is NSW Premier Chris Minns actively distancing himself from Albanese, being openly critical of the Federal government and copping the odd slap in return. Minns is facing an election in five months and is expected to win with no thanks to the federal performance.
Minns’ state seat and Grayndler are only five kilometres apart at their closest point, but Grayndler is considerably more “inner city” – the seat description that suits community independents most.
Half of Grayndler’s voters hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with about a third for the greater Sydney area and a quarter for Australia overall, based on the 2021 census. The more educated an electorate is, the more it is likely to consider policy and political options;
the more likely it is to favour the independents’ central issues of climate, gender equality and integrity.
A Victorian precedent?
The Victorian state election is at the end of next month, with Labor set to lose. For both the state and federal parties’ sake, Albanese is likely to be keeping his distance.
Yet Victoria could be the one thing going for Federal Labor. It will provide a guide to how the two major conservative/populist parties will arrange themselves in government, to what extent and to what effect One Hanson and the Liberal Party accommodate each other.
The likelihood of One Hanson blowing up whatever understanding is reached could be the fear factor to help Labor in 2028, just as the GST fear factor saved Labor in 1993 despite Paul Keating’s record low approval numbers.
That was old politics, though.
The new politics means every seat can be vulnerable to a third force.
The AFR no doubt took pleasure in reporting that Albanese’s minus 27 per cent rating is the same as Peter Dutton recorded the day before last year’s election when the Coalition was thrashed – and Dutton lost his seat.
Michael Pascoe is an independent journalist and commentator with five decades of experience here and abroad in print, broadcast and online journalism. His book, The Summertime of Our Dreams, is published by Ultimo Press.