I have no wish to rain on anyone’s parade, nor excuse the inadequacies of the Coalition’s federal election campaign, but I’ve simply had enough of the misreading of Saturday’s federal election result.
Prime Minister Albanese, his colleagues and supporters are grinning widely, because winners are entitled to be grinners, and I congratulate them.
And, of course, Labor is entitled to spin the result any way that suits their political purpose; they are in politics, and how you position your result, win or lose, can be material because the next campaign begins the moment you finish the last. Just ask Paul Keating in reference to his 1993 winning election night declaration that “this is the victory of the true believers”. It became a powerful symbol of his arrogance that led to the Liberal Party’s biggest ever election victory three years later, and the beginning of John Howard’s eleven years as Prime Minister.
So while the political parties have their job to do, so do the political commentators. Their job is to cut through the spin and to the best of their ability objectively present their assessment of what happened, why it happened and how it happened. Their job is not to use the result to reinforce their own political prejudices.
Labor’s election win is truly a huge win; a win that the Labor Party will savour for decades to come.
It is a win that invites lots of accolades for Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party.
But the size of the win, and the speed with which political fortunes changed in the space of virtually 10 days in early May should at least prompt some commentators to ask “why”?
Furthermore, given that just 3 days before the election concluded, a poll reported that a significant majority of the voting population, many who went on to vote Labor, said that Labor didn’t deserve to be re-elected to government (much less with a thumping majority). This warranted some considered analysis.
When you add to that Labor’s three years of broken promises on power prices, living costs and mortgages, the housing crisis, uncontrolled immigration, the neglect of national defence, the loss of nearly a year of governing with the costly and hugely divisive Voice campaign, a forecast of 10 years of Budget deficits, the spread of violence and the wave of antisemitism, recalcitrant unions, burgeoning red and green tape and the related failing “renewables plus storage” experiment, you would think something was amiss here.
Yet on Saturday night’s political panels and subsequent media we heard or are reading an endless stream of “strategic brilliance’, “acute sense of raw politics’, “Australia has changed”, without any serious assessment of how Labor turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse virtually overnight.
No reference to the fact that through January, February and March, Labor Government MP’s thought the Coalition could not win, but were privately expressing major concern that they were heading for a loss of several seats and would be confronted with handling a very difficult minority government for the next three years.
The fact is that such an extraordinary turn-around in polling as we witnessed in early May does not happen without something of a major, unforeseen consequence emerging.
In this instance, of course, it was President Trump, as he traversed the globe with his tariff led campaign of revenge, entitlement, coercion and economic destruction.
President Trump threw his wrecking ball around from the 2nd April to the 9th April as he imposed tariffs on 185 trading partners, from 10 percent to 145 percent (on China).
The Australian election was called on 28th March. Five days later President Trump started his onslaught.
The Roy Morgan national political poll, (the longest running political poll in Australia) had the Coalition on 50.5 and Labor on 49.5 two party preferred vote in the first week of March, 2025.
Just over a month later, after Trump’s global onslaught, and just over a week into the campaign, the Roy Morgan Poll had the Coalition at 45.5 and Labor on 54.5 two party preferred – an unheard-of turnaround in a month, and a result which matched the actual election result four weeks later.
The huge Labor win was not the result of “strategic genius” or a reward for a job well done, it was the result of voters adopting an instinctive human response when confronted with a major global development, over which they have no control. Human nature dictates, when confronted with great uncertainty, “stick with the devil you know, rather than change to the devil you don’t”.
In such circumstances, incumbency enjoys a huge advantage.
An identical phenomenon occurred, just days before our election, in Canada. Two months ago, the incumbent Government in Canada were 20 points behind the Opposition and had been for many months. The Canadian Government was heading for a landslide defeat.
When Trump attacked Canada, the incumbent government responded in a way all Canadians would expect. As a result, the incumbent Government wiped out the massive 20 point deficit, held on to Government – and, by the way, the Opposition leader lost his seat.
Labor was the political beneficiaries of being in power when President Trump began his unbelievable campaign to tear down the international trading rules and structures that were introduced by the Americans, and have served the world so well for 70 years.
Australians are right to be deeply concerned. We are only at the beginning of this Trump escapade, and no-one knows where or how it will end. It is a source of great uncertainty.
Embracing incumbency is an understandable and defensible response to this situation.
My conclusion is that within the first 12 days into the campaign most voters had made up their mind, and for many that meant voting for the incumbent so that they did not have to deal with further uncertainty involving a change to a Coalition Government or a Labor minority government. The subsequent poor Coalition campaign just served to reinforce the Trump inspired early disposition.
This in no way undermines the legitimacy of the Albanese Government. But understanding why many people voted the way they did is important because it pinpoints the priority expectation of many – the Albanese Government will be overwhelmingly expected to provide stability. This result therefore is not a blanket endorsement of Labor policies, as many of those Labor policies created very significant instability and uncertainty in people’s lives during Labor’s first term. Just remember, right to the end, despite voting for Labor, a significant majority were reported to not believe Labor deserved re-election.
Author: Andrew Robb