More seats fall to Coalition as Labor assesses damage

COUNTING CONTINUES

As of Monday morning, with 76% of the national vote counted, the ABC reports the Coalition on 75 seats and Labor on 65, with six other parties taking prizes and five seats still outstanding. The AEC, has called Cowan and Lilley for Labor and is projecting 77-68 — enough for Scott Morrison to avoid minority government.

In the Senate, where 48.9% of votes have been counted, the ABC is predicting new totals of 33 for the Coalition, 26 for Labor, 9 for the Greens, two for Center Alliance, one for One Nation, one for Cory Bernardi’s Conservatives and one for the Jacqui Lambi Network. As The Age notes, this could mean the balance of power rests with the Greens, despite the party’s mixed and disappointing results.

Meanwhile, former senators Jacqui Lambi, Larissa Waters and Malcolm Roberts are back.

ASSESSING THE DAMAGE

Labor’s campaign post-mortem began on Sunday, with fingers being pointed at its big target policy agenda, the platform’s complexity, the “retiree tax” scare campaign, Clive Palmer ($), “Queensland”, Bill Shorten’s unpopularity, and more. The Guardian reports that insider blame is being placed at the feet of national secretary Noah Carroll, with claims he ignored negative focus group feedback about Labor’s policy platform. Shorten’s analysis? “We didn’t get enough votes”.

Meanwhile, everyone is asking how the polls got it so so wrong. YouGov Galaxy director David Briggs said this was unprecedented for Australia, while Ipsos director Jess Elgood dismissed the “shy Tory” theory, but suggested Australian pollsters get together to discuss, as pollsters did after Britain’s famous 1992 surprise upset.

WHO WILL LEAD LABOR?

Journalists started asking senior Labor figures who the next leader would be before the election was even conceded on Saturday, but the second election began in earnest on Sunday. Anthony “People’s Choice” Albanese threw his hat in the ring at Unity Hall Hotel (the birthplace of the Labor Party), saying “I am someone who can take on the other side of politics in a vigorous fashion,” The Age reports.

Deputy leader Tanya Plibersek is also expected to run, telling Barrie Cassidy on Sunday’s Insiders that “I’ll talk to my colleagues today but, of course, I’m considering it.” On the right, Chris Bowen, Tony Burke, Jim Chalmers, and Richard Marles are all reportedly considering runs. 

[free_worm]

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

Drop the attitude!

Jacqui Lambi

The newly reelected senator has some words of advice for the newly reelected prime minister.

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CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

How Dutton kept Dickson

Margot Saville

May 20, 2019

6

“According to the AEC stats, Dutton’s electors are older, whiter and more affluent than the average Australian. The party faithful inside mirrored that profile: a sea of Anglo-Celtic people in blue t-shirts set off by heads of silver hair. Ali France’s father, a former Queensland Labor member, told me he had been handing out leaflets in the expensive end of the electorate where the mood was hostile opposition to Labor’s removal of franking credits. This particular issue had really grabbed their attention, he said, although they were people for whom $3000 was clearly not a large sum.”

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‘Bye bye, Tony’: Warringah abandons a former PM

Charlie Lewis

May 20, 2019

2

“For now, we reflect on the end of Abbott’s tragicomic fall. It was one thing when the kid who was told he’d be prime minister or pope — the tireless fighter for a world that’s lost or was never there — struggled to the summit of his ambition only to be offed by his party after half a chaotic term. But in one last public indignity, he couldn’t even leave parliament at the time of his choosing, as voters rushed to the first viable alternative they were offered.”

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In the end, disaffected, angry voters endorsed business-as-usual

Bernard Keane

May 20, 2019

21

“There’ll be plenty of commentary in the weeks and months ahead suggesting Scott Morrison’s election shock win has a Trumpian quality. After all, he too, defied the pollsters to deliver a win for the right. He too made blatant and enthusiastic lying a key part of his campaign. He too was endlessly sneered at by elites, only to throw their condescension back in their faces on behalf of what he called “quiet Australians”. It’s a useful analogy, but misleading.”

THE COMMENTARIAT

‘It’s not you, Bill, it’s the country’: is this election Australia’s Trump or Brexit moment? – Brigid Delaney (The Guardian): “‘It’s not you Bill, it’s the country.’ It’s the country. It’s not Morrison, it’s not the Liberals, it’s not the policies, it’s not Queensland, it’s not Dutton. It’s the country that’s rotten. The call from the floor chilled me to the core. This is it, I thought. This is the hardening of the arteries, the cleaving of the country in two, the thing that Australia has largely avoided so far.”

Labor’s bitter lesson: change is hard to come by in this country – Sean Kelly (The Age): “Australians have, for a very long time, been cautious with their votes. Change is hard to come by. For example, first-term federal governments always win. On the rare occasions change does come, it arrives either via disgust – as in Keating’s broken tax promises in 1996, or Labor’s long-lived leadership chaos in 2013 – or excitement, as with Whitlam, Hawke and Rudd. So Shorten didn’t bring the thrill. Shouldn’t this government have inspired the requisite disgust? The short answer is yes. On any fair measure, it has been hopeless: ramshackle, mean, often laughable, possessing neither ambition nor philosophy. If it had lost this election it might have gone down as the worst that we have had.”

Morrison must strike while the iron’s hot – Dennis Shanahan (The Australian): “Scott Morrison has more authority than any modern Liberal leader and must wield it immediately, judiciously and inclusively to ensure the “miracle victory” doesn’t soak into the sands of Coalition division. The re-elected Prime Minister’s authority — arguably greater than that of John Howard after 1996 because Paul Keating was expected to lose — can be exercised in a political atmosphere reminiscent of the “upset” victories of Donald Trump and Brexit.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

International

• The Game of Thrones finale airs after eight seasons, amid great anxiety and fierce backlash to its recent turns.

Melbourne

• The Communities in Control Conference — a post-poll event that sees community organisations set the agenda on climate, refugees, gender equity, indigenous rights and social justice — will commence at the Moonee Valley Racecourse, with speakers including Father Rod Bower, Tracey Spicer and Lee Lin Chin.

• The Labor Party National Executive will convene to begin making arrangements for the ballot and the post-election postmortem.