There’s a lot of polling to come between now and Saturday night, but Scott Morrison’s decision to hold a six-week campaign might be key to his hanging on to power, albeit in minority government.
A lot needs to go right for Morrison to struggle to 75 seats — plus Katter, or 76 seats, and a lot of polling has to be wrong, but we’ve been here before in 2019.
What does he need? He needs several things to go his way:
- The teal independents fall short. The campaign to save Frydenberg in Kooyong succeeds — perhaps because of a high level of informal votes by Monique Ryan voters; Dave Sharma hangs on against Allegra Spender; a strong Labor candidate cruels Kylea Tink’s chances in North Sydney; the polling showing Tim Wilson being booted out of Goldstein proves wrong; Sophie Scamps in Mackellar proves popular with the affluent in that seat but not enough to dislodge Jason Falinski.
- The Nationals hold off independent challenges in seats like Groom.
- Expected Labor gains evaporate off the back of a falling Labor vote in the last fortnight of the campaign and the flow of Clive Palmer preferences to the Coalition. The tale of multiple polls out in the last 48 hours is Labor’s primary vote sliding, even if the Coalition’s vote isn’t picking up. Labor picks up Chisholm in Victoria, Boothby in South Australia, Braddon in Tasmania and Swan in Western Australia, but there’s no change in Queensland because a higher vote for UAP flows straight back to the LNP via preferences, putting LNP MPs and candidates in Longman, Leichhardt and Brisbane over the line.
- Predictions of a surging Greens vote in Queensland, too, cruel Labor: Terri Butler loses Griffith. Kristina Keneally also loses Fowler to independent Dai Le.
- There are surprise gains for the Liberals in NSW: Andrew Charlton loses to his rival, fellow out-of-seat challenger Maria Kovacic; the high-profile Andrew Constance wins in Gilmore (in fact, I wouldn’t tip that as a surprise — I’d wager he’ll win, if not comfortably).
That kind of scenario leaves the Coalition on 74 seats. If they jag another seat — Luke Gosling loses Solomon, say — then it’s game over: Bob Katter’s support will give Morrison a majority, and another miracle win.
As the above list indicates, lots of things have to go right for Morrison. But he delivered a shock win in 2019 and he has hauled the Coalition back within striking distance in the last fortnight of the campaign, with his campaign launch powering up a final-week assault on Labor’s lead. Opting for a six-week campaign may be vindicated as the right strategy for a patient prime minister to build his case against Labor.
The more likely scenario at this point given current polls is Labor falling over the line, or reaching 74 or 75 and being in a position to claim minority government. But Labor people thought they’d fall over the line with Bill Shorten in 2019, and we know where that ended.
The reasons why Morrison has proven to be competitive will be examined endlessly if this scenario plays out. Much of it will have to do with the power of the political party News Corp, which operates in coalition with the Liberal Party and its campaign strategists, while its staffers masquerade as journalists. But the role of the actual media will also be scrutinised; the complaint that Labor made itself too big a target will be replaced with the complaint that Labor made itself too small a target; the more nuanced take might be that it failed to provide a defining reason for voters to identify with Labor.
But that’s all speculation at this point. Labor and independent supporters just need to know that the nightmare scenario for them is very plausible.
Labor seems to be determined to lose another unlosable election. The “small target” approach never made any sense to me and it is making even less now. Add to that the deafening silence about the past 3 years of sins by the LNP Government which are being ignored by the Labor campaign. Words fail me.
I agree, where is the campaign against the corruption and debt of the last 3 yrs..Nothing..
Whoever is incharge of the ALP campaign needs to go
They needed to play dirty and they haven’t.
No Mercurial, you are plain wrong!! Decent people in the electorate (and if you look hard enough you will find a few here and there), are very tired of that sort of thing. “Playing dirty” is one of the main reasons for the rise of the Independent candidates.
How about replacing ‘dirty’ with ‘hard’? It would be a transformation if Labor stopped being so damned polite and defensive all the time. What would happen if Labor never missed an opportunity to attack the Liberals and Nationals in the most aggressive terms for corruption, incompetence, waste, lies, betraying Australia, wrecking its civil institutions and undermining its security?
I think Anthony’s address at the National Press Club today might weaken these points. I hope it wasn’t too late. i was not “undecided” and voted eight days ago.
I know senior Labor figures occasionally show some spirit. That’s nowhere near enough. They need to be relentless.
“They needed to play” TFIFY – but they did not/could not/would not.
Just hid in the bushes in the hope of Scummo spontaneously combusting and the explosion wafting them into office.
Unfortunately anything Labor says is shouted down by the media proprietors, not by logic but by being the bully in the school yard, and they are able to with no recourse. ( other than people not listening or reading their product.
There is enough stuff out there on the public record. Lack of accountability, establishment of an ICAC, Rorts, Old Aged Care, Education and Training, Climate change, Alan Tudge , Robo Debt, AAT stacking, Sexual Misconduct, Bernard Collaery, Ndis Funding. Detention of Refugees for 9 years, Corruption of Water Allocation in the Murray Darling Basin, Foreign Affairs, Darwin Port leasing. Solomon Island security. Submarines Helicopters These alone should be enough to get some serious debate going, I am sure not all them are investigable, but we got to stop sweeping under the carpet.
It really doesn’t really matter which way they went.
Either way they get crucified by the main stream media.
The only miracle would be if Labor win and that reflects badly on us as a nation that we have allowed an American, in Murdoch, to have such a detrimental influence over our so called democracy.
Makes us a laughing stock ultimately.
Yes, this is certainly the problem. The MSM are uniformly in support of the LNP and half of the population who are not interested in the minutiae of politics and policy will be those most influenced by the MSM, especially the Murdoch Press and the commercial television news. Many of these people define their own world in a very narrow way, culturally, spatially and historically, and do not go outside of this. For them all politicians are crooks and this allows them to cast a vote–which they probably would not do were voting not compulsory–on a whim, but more likely on who they have voted for before, either LNP or Labor.
Their knowledge of macro-economics will be zero, believing a national economy is identical to a household and that deficits are always bad. The past is another world for them and even the short-term future is too difficult to imagine. So a small target or a large target will not be of much moment, though they are easily frightened by law and order matters. Remember that the purpose of commercial television news is to create fear in people and to entertain, not to educate and provide sound, if superficial analysis.
I only hope I am wrong and will be voting Greens as always.
It is totally bewildering that Labor hasn’t highlighted more specifically each of this government’s failings and misdeeds. Especially in response to any criticisms levelled at them by the LNP. I think Newscorp has made the small target approach a necessary evil and hope that if the ALP gain government they will be better placed to run a competent three years and take a more progressive agenda to the next election as the encumbent.
Including a review of hollowing out, consolidation, crossing channels and increasing reach of legacy media.
Courtesy of the lovely Malcolm.
And Rudd and Turnbull presented well on Al Jazeera doco in ’21 about the undue influence of Murdoch media on Australian politics, then Turnbull finished by blaming Labor &/or Hawke/Keating for our predicament….. Too easy but says much about the esteemed and high status individuals in the Liberal Party who are intimidated by Murdoch, lesser extent 7WM and 9F, if the LNP do not comply with policy messaging and implementation.
And what did the visionary, well costed, well planned big target last time achieve?
I assume Labor’s internal pollsters have told them that the Morrison haters are already locked in and they need to convince the so called swinging voters by making themselves look as much like the Liberal Party on economic policy as possible. The swinging voters presumably being small ‘l’ liberals who are socially progressive but economically conservative. Campaigns always aim at the margin, not the whole electorate, and especially not the bit who is already committed to vote for them or the bit that will never vote for them.
Wise words StBob64. Most Australians are unconcerned with politics.
What do you expect Labor to do in a country that is run by a media which is in bed with the LNP and their properganda machine. Australians that think that they live in a country with the best democracy in the world are kidding themselves. If this government comes back into power, I hate to think what the future of this country holds.
see Shorten V Murdoch… one and two..
I posted this on the GA’s site today and I can’t improve on it for Crikey, so hope you don’t mind Crikey eds:
How can the polls be “tightening”? Did all this, for which this terrible government is responsible, suddenly not happen: blatant lying, cheating, dudding and calculated unaccountability, misuse of public money in LNP and marginal seats, other blatant corruption, cronyism and big bucks for big corporate mates, Robodebt, tribunal stacking, Christian Porter, Jam Land (Grassgate), staffers tossing off over ministerial desks, Alan Tudge and an alleged $500m payout to his former staffer that no one in government apparently knows about, rampant misogyny, the vicious prosecution of the Liberal East Timor disgrace whistleblowers, and grand-scale service and policy delivery failures (climate change, quarantine, vaccines, RATs, NBN, aged care, JobKeeper overpayments, higher education, submarines, Solomon Islands, trade with China, housing affordability and on and on in the complete absence of absolutely anything successful, let alone in the full and true public interest) and the blowing out of our debt to nearly $1 trillion???? Is Morrison suddenly not “horrible”, “a psycho”, “a bully”, “a liar” and “unfit to be PM”, as a wide range of his so-called colleagues have labeled him? Just how high is the level of political ignorance in this country? If the LNP are not banished to the political wilderness for a minimum of two terms on 21 May then I will know, for sure and once and for all, that the fair go, progressive, more egalitarian Australia I once knew and loved is gone for good, with too many of my fellow countrymen and women standing by passively and/or ignorantly watching its cold-blooded murder by a thoroughly corrupted, democracy-destroying, propagandist MSM in lock step with a morally and intellectually compromised political outfit.
I am in despair.
The voters in Kooyong know that the $500k payout has little to do with Mr Tudge.
If it has anything to do with Tudge he shouldnt be a Cabinet Minister full stop. Since we know his name is mentioned in dispatches he is part of it and therefore unfit to be a Minsiter of the Crown. Of course Sci-Mo has no standards so he will be back in if he wins.
And if has anything to do with Frydenberg..?
Update, if it has..
Have to agree – seems very bizarre. I was astonished enough when the polls said 46% of people prefer the Coalition.
That about sums it up Meg.
Well said.
Most people on here share your despair and frustration.
We often scoff at what goes on in American politics and think that we are far superior in our ways.
But in reality if Morrison is re-elected how do we stack up then.
At least they saw past the blatant Murdoch bias and voted for a much needed change.
Not sure that we will be that savvy and do the the obvious thing.
Labor were always up against it no matter who the leader is or what tactics they employed.
I think Gough or Bob Hawke would have struggled against this current main stream media.
Anyway we live in hope for “the messiah from Marrickville”.
Not quite the same ring to it but here’s hoping.
Me too…
What you don’t take account of in all your scenario gaming is that as of yesterday 3 million voters (close to20%) have already voted. Do the opinion polls take that into account?
Good point, Paul.
And how many of those left to vote are ‘fired-up’ youngsters fearful of their futures? Their grandparents, aunties and uncles make up a significant portion of the pre-pollers (ie those who want their vote to count even if they die/get struck by lightning/Covid or the flu before Saturday I am voting tomorrow.
Frankly, I wonder if many of the younger ones would be bothered responding to polling questions. But also – we don’t really know how big they are in terms of the percentage of voters.
I don’t see how the polls would not count them. Pollsters are not going to ask anyone in their sample ‘have you voted already?’ in order to exclude all who say yes.
I actually think, sadly, that the Libs’ superannuation policy may have been a game changer. People are literally just thinking ‘cool I get a free $50k to buy a house!’
Which buys an awful lot of debt – if their meagre salted-away super Humpty Dumpty even spreads to the necessary deposit – and they can find a bank willing to cover the other 90+% price?.
And if the market falls off that welfare-fed hyper-inflated asset wall – they’ll be left with a mortgage worth more than the property, bugger even calling out all the king’s horses and all the king’s men ….
“Happy daze are here again …..”
A lot of them won’t have $50 or have spent it already the last time.
$50k
The prospect terrifies me.
Me too, Sue. I’m a Greens voter ( no such thing as Teals in my seat, and the “independents” were a little…they all seemed to be related to each other. Reminded me too much of my decades in Katter country) – but Greens voters need a Labor PM as much as Labor voters, do.
Trump “Lite” is not a joke . . . it is a fact! Are Australians prepared to surrender our Nation’s culture, language and independence? Saturday’s vote to determine outcome allegedly hanging in the balance. Who would have thought . . . .