It takes about an hour for the cheers to die off, and maybe another for the tears to start.
Labor voters are nervously confident of an ALP victory as they start pouring in to Melbourne’s Hyatt Place at 6.30pm. With exit polls at 52-48 there is widespread fretting about seats, but a general confidence. People are taking the opportunity to mingle in a sea of red, with guests like Father Bob and Egg Boy (if they can get past his media minder); everyone cheers as the early Warringah votes come on. I speak with a foreign social research student on the dangers of voting for self-interest, and what the ALP will get to work on.
By 7.30pm, the cracks appear. Antony Green announces that none of the voting patterns match the opinion polls, specifically in Queensland where Peter Dutton seems certain to retain Dickson. The cheers don’t officially end until Tony Abbott concedes, but now the phones are out and, with audible debates that Western Australia could maybe save the day, the bargaining begins.
Shortly after, an ALP member tells another that, according to a polling insider, the results are no better out west, and no, not even for minority government. “We can’t win, it’s over.”
By 8.30pm people are still friendly but the swing is obvious and the tears have started. I find one of the members with apparent insider contacts about what happened, and ask how it all went so wrong.
“It was a big agenda, the electorate’s conservative, what can you do?” he says matter-of-factly. Going into the election, he says, Labor could have curled up into a ball, gone small target opposition, but they didn’t and, speaking emphatically, “they should be applauded for that”.
He says the tax reforms sounded radical even if they really weren’t, and admits to not even knowing what franking credits were before the reforms were announced. After a minute’s explanation, he agrees that concessions were a “bullshit policy” that should be fixed.
And what about climate change? It was reportedly the biggest issue of the election but, he says, the electorate is probably still too conservative to consider spending money; and that while inaction is a greater cost, that’s a long cost. He laughs that the Coalition will, at least, have to deal with the impending breakdown of the global economy.
Walking through the increasingly packed, distraught, but somehow still lively crowd for the next few hours offers up more theories. It’s all Clive Palmer’s fault. Penny Wong needs to swap houses and lead the party. “Fuck Queensland!” a young, drunk supporter happily yells at me.
After the news has well and truly sunk in, the Shortens take stage at 11.30pm — both Chloe and Chloe’s Husband. The crowd, unsurprisingly, loves Bill. He has to stop himself a few times from starting due to the cheers, and jokes that he appreciates the declarations of “I love you!” but that they might make what he’s about to say harder.
Bill Shorten concedes defeat, "Without wanting to hold out any false hope, while there are still millions of votes to count and important seats yet to be finalised, it is obvious that Labor will not be able to form the next government." @billshortenmp #AusVotes2019 #Auspol pic.twitter.com/QPKqPotW1s
— ABC News (@abcnews) May 18, 2019
Shorten, it has to be said, makes a terrific concession speech. It hits the mark of sad but proud, realistic but passionate of Labor’s genuinely massive reforms. While acknowledging the still-uncertain results, he says that Labor cannot form government. Someone next to me whispers “no” to herself, and Shorten announces he has called Morrison to resign.
His resignation as Labor leader is unsurprising, but causes a similar wave of dismay around the venue. This is the first time I fully appreciate how diverse — or at least relatively diverse — the crowd is. Tears are falling down the faces of white, African, and visibly queer Australians.
Bill leaves to another round of applause, and that’s basically it. People linger around in a stupor for a while, not quite knowing what to do next. Many of the insiders seem to have accepted the result and moved on.
The rage, however, is still there for some well past midnight. Speaking to one of the last remaining groups, a woman declares that Labor should have ditched its franking credits policy and, moving her hand like a snake, “should have snuck it in later”.
“Why be honest?” she says, laughing with a touch of anger. “That’s a lesson for the kids of Australia: never be honest, ha!”
Why did Labor lose the election? Write to boss@crikey.com.au with your thoughts, theories and please use your full name.
I am so angry with my fellow Australians I really thought we were grownup enough and smart enough to see through this snake oil salesman and understand big ideas. !!
A fundamental error; the one where we judge others by our own reality.
You believed that your fellow Australians had far more intelligence than they actually possess.
That was the same fatal flaw in the more rational thinking of the ALP policymakers.
In general, people are not rational and logical, they are still mostly guided by peer-to-peer opinion, being socially ‘acceptable’ and by Bronze Age superstitions manipulated and promulgated for the advantage of the priests and the powerful.
Thinking in an ordered and intelligent manner is a rarity rather than a generalised behaviour.
You have to accept that.
if we’re looking internationally at the likes of corbyn and melenchon, or even into labor’s own history in the 60s and 70s, this is not a big-target agenda. it’s the usual Third Way strategy of ‘at least we’re not the Liberals’ and ‘here’s a free giveaway’. moreover, shorten is the wet cardboard of labor politicians and frankly nobody is going to have any charisma until they democratise the party and stop regurgitating memorised lines from backroom meetins. blaming queenslanders is more of the usual cop-out – that poor people in regional areas are too stupid to understand politics, there’s no point helping them or appealing to them. maybe they should do something for the average person instead of droning on about how they’re a little better than the other guys.
Troublingly, I think I agree with the woman’s comments about honesty. Unveiling a suite of highly technocratic- sounding reforms to tax arrangements allowed the government to paint a vaguely plausible picture of a radical, risky Labor agenda. Add to that a vocal minority of self interested opponents in critical seats and it looks in hindsight like a perfect storm.
Maybe a vague commitment to a root and branch tax and transfers review with no further detail ahead of time would have settled the horses and left the focus on more electorally compatible – and comprehensible – centrist reforms.
I know there were many who votred Labor and this message is not to them – but this morning it is “well f****** done Australia”. The idiots have re-elected the idiots and nowhere was that more evident than in the moron states. You can dispute that, but in which other states do so many utterly appalling candidates get elected?
In the end we get the parliament we deserve and today, and for the next three years, we deserve more of the most corrupt and incompetent government in my lifetime and more government favouring the few at the expense of many.
Yes Shorten didn’t resonate and he and Labor utterly blew it (but did at least lay out a comprehensive policy platform) and a failed, non-collegiate and deluded corporate hack got elected on the basis of a campaign composed entirely of lies, exaggerations, bluster and buffoonery. Great job voters of Australia – which planet were you living on for the last 6 years?
I have been puking for years at politicians trying to say they respect the intelligence of Australian voters – I have never believed it. We all tend to compile a very large dossier of opinion, often based on zero research and no facts but we have sunk to a new low and yesterday, an abject lack of intelligence was on display.
Poor fellow my country…. I too thought Australia was ready for a progressive change… There was nothing wrong with the policies, there is something very, very wrong with Australians…