Tweet of the Week

 

Thank you ladies.
Morrison won the lowest percentage of female votes in the history of the Liberal Party. I’m pretty sure Dutton hasn’t won a single one back. pic.twitter.com/RTVIBBK0Qp

— SharynM (@SharynLeeMcG) May 29, 2023

 

A brief look at "The 2022 Australian Federal Election: Results from the Australian Election Study"

 

Australian National University-Griffith University, THE 2022 AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION: Results from the Australian Election Study, released 5 December 2022, excerpts:

Executive Summary

This report presents findings from the 2022 Australian Election Study (AES). The AES surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,508 voters after the 2022 Australian federal election to find out what shaped their choices in the election. The AES has fielded representative surveys after every federal election since 1987, which allows these results to be placed in a long-term context. This report provides insights into what informed voting behaviour in the election and voters’ attitudes towards policy issues, the political leaders, and the functioning of Australian democracy generally.

The main findings are as follows:

Public policy and the economy

• A majority of voters (53 percent) cast their ballots

based on policy issues, down from 66 percent

in 2019.

• The most important issues in the election identified

by voters included the cost of living (32 percent),

environmental issues (17 percent), management of

the economy (15 percent), and health (14 percent).

• Voters preferred Labor’s policies on the cost of

living, education, health, and the environment.

• Voters preferred the Coalition’s policies on

management of the economy, taxation, and national

security. The Coalition’s advantage in economic

policy areas was significantly reduced since 2019.

• Evaluations of the national economy were worse in

2022 than in any election since 1990. Two thirds of

voters reported that the national economy became

worse over the past year. [my yellow highlighting]

Leaders

• Anthony Albanese was evaluated more favourably

than any political party leader since Kevin Rudd in

2007, scoring 5.3 on a zero to 10 popularity scale.

[my yellow highlighting]

• With Anthony Albanese as party leader, Labor

attracted more votes based on leadership than in

the 2016 and 2019 elections.

• Scott Morrison became the least popular major

party leader in the history of the AES, scoring 3.8

on a zero to 10 popularity scale, down from 5.1 in the

2019 election. [my yellow highlighting]

• Anthony Albanese was evaluated more favourably

than Scott Morrison in eight of nine leader

characteristics, with the biggest differences

in perceptions of honesty, trustworthiness,

and compassion.

The ‘Teal’ independents

• Political partisanship for the major parties reached

record lows in 2022. The proportion of voters that

always vote the same way is also at a record low

(37 percent). This growing detachment from the

major political parties provided the conditions that

supported the Teals’ success.

Most Teal voters were not ‘disaffected Liberals’, but

tactical Labor and Greens voters. Less than one in

five Teal voters previously voted for the Coalition. 

[my yellow highlighting]

• On average, Teal voters are ideologically close to

Labor voters – placing themselves just left of centre

on a zero to 10 left-right scale (Teal mean: 4.4; Labor

mean: 4.3).

Socio-demographic influences on the vote

• Men were more likely to vote for the Coalition than

women (men: 38 percent; women: 32 percent).

Women were more likely than men to vote for Labor

and the Greens. This represents a longer-term

reversal of the gender gap in voter behaviour, since

the 1990s women have shifted to the left and men

to the right in their party preferences.

• Since 2019, the Coalition lost support from both

men and women. [my yellow highlighting]

• There are major generational differences in voter

behaviour. The Coalition has very little support

among Millennials and Generation Z. The Coalition’s

share of the vote fell in almost every age group, but

especially among the youngest cohorts of voters. 

[my yellow highlighting]

• The self-identified working class remain more

likely to vote Labor (38 percent) than the Coalition

(33 percent).

• Since 2019 the Coalition has lost support among

university-educated and higher income voters. 

[my yellow highlighting]

The COVID-19 pandemic

• Overall, Australians evaluated the performance of

the federal government’s handling the pandemic

more negatively than their state government. 

[my yellow highlighting]

Around half (51 percent) thought their state

government handled the pandemic well, compared

to 30 percent who thought the Commonwealth

government handled the pandemic well.

• There are major differences across states – in

Tasmania and Western Australia 75 percent

thought the state government handled the

pandemic well, compared to just 36 percent

in Victoria.

• Among those who thought the federal government

handled the pandemic badly, only 12 percent

voted for the Coalition, while 42 percent voted

Labor and almost one third voted for a minor party

or independent

• A majority of Australians thought the pandemic

had negative impacts on social cohesion or

inclusiveness (64 percent) and individual

rights and freedoms (54 percent). One third of

Australians reported that the pandemic had

negatively affected their personal economic

circumstances. Only a small minority of

Australians believed the pandemic had positive

impacts for Australian society.

Preferred party policies

The major parties have long-term electoral

advantages in different policy areas (see Figure 1.4).

The AES asked voters for the same 11 issues, “whose

policies – the Labor Party’s or the Liberal-National

Coalition’s –would you say come closer to your own

views on each of these issues?” The Coalition holds

an advantage as the preferred party on management

of the economy, national security, and taxation. Labor,

on the other hand, is well ahead as the preferred

party on global warming, the environment, health,

education, and the cost of living. As nearly one-third

of the electorate considered the cost of living to be

the most important issue in the 2022 election, in

principle this benefitted Labor. The management of

the economy benefitted the Coalition.

Although there are fluctuations from election to

election, overall voters’ preferences for one party

over the other on these policy areas have remained

constant over time. Of note in 2022 compared to 2019

is the larger proportion of voters who said there was

‘no difference’ between the parties on salient issues

in the campaign. In 2022 an average of 25 percent

of voters said there was ‘no difference’ between

the parties compared to 19 percent in 2019. Voting

in the 2022 election was clearly less policy-driven

than in recent elections. Another notable shift is that

the Coalition has lost their advantage over Labor on

immigration and refugees, and their advantage on

management of the economy and taxation is much

reduced since 2019. [my yellow highlighting]

Climate change

The 2019-2020 bushfires and the 2021-2022 floods

affected significant proportions of the population

and brought home to voters in the most dramatic way

the effects of climate change. This is reflected in

the significant increase in the proportions of voters

mentioning global warming as the most important

election issue (see Figure 1.5). In 2019 and 2022,

10 percent mentioned global warming as the most

important election issue compared to 4 percent in

2013 and 2016. Mentions of the environment show a

long-term increase, albeit with a slight decline from

11 percent in 2019 to 7 percent in 2022.

While not everyone sees the environment as their

top election concern, there is a broad group who

are concerned about climate change. Nearly half

of all voters see global warming as ‘extremely

important’, with only around one in four seeing it as

‘not very important’ (see Figure 1.6). However, there

are substantial party differences in these views. 

[my yellow highlighting]

Almost six in 10 Labor voters see global warming as

‘extremely important’ compared to less than one in

four Coalition voters. As we would expect, the vast

majority of Greens voters—80 percent—see global

warming as ‘extremely important’. A large majority

of all voters see global warming as being either

‘extremely important’ or ‘quite important’.

The economy

Following the lockdowns related to the pandemic

and the associated decline in economic activity,

the Australian economy recovered in 2021-2022,

with unemployment declining to historic lows and a

significant increase in economic growth. However,

the government was left with major debt because

of the economic subsides put in place to shield

businesses and individuals from the pandemic, and

inflation has jumped to levels not seen in decades.

As a result, voters took a very pessimistic view of the

performance of the national economy in 2022, with

two-thirds saying that it had become worse over the

previous year (Figure 1.7), a figure only surpassed in

1990 during the recession of the early 1990s.

TRENDS IN AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL OPINION: Results from the Australian Election Study 1987– 2022 can be read or downloaded at:

https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/Trends-in-Australian-Political-Opinion-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study-1987-2022.pdf

THE 2022 AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION: Results from the Australian Election Study can be read or downloaded at:

https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/The-2022-Australian-Federal-Election-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study.pdf

Australian Parliamentary Office releases post-election report on the cost of election promises made during the 2022 election campaign

The Australian Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) released its 2022 Election commitments report on 14 July 2022.

The report stated in part:

The report includes commitments expected to have a material impact on the Australian Government budget. In the lead-up to the election, the PBO identified and assessed almost 2,000 relevant election commitments and determined that 314 of these met the criteria for inclusion in this report. Of those items, 41 are commitments by the Coalition, 154 by the Australian Labor Party, 99 by the Australian Greens, and 20 by the independent member for Indi…..

As is often the case for the party in government, the Coalition also announced policies in its budget update, released prior to the election, resulting in fewer Coalition commitments included in this report compared to the other major parties.

Major Parties Net Impact of Election Commitments

Indi Independent's Net Impact of Election Commitments

This is how The Guardian reported PBO findings on 14 July 2022:

Labor’s commitment to scrap the cashless debit card will save $286.5m over four years, the Parliamentary Budget Office has revealed.

On Thursday the PBO released election costings showing that Labor’s policies would add $6.9bn to budget deficits over four years and a further $33.6bn would be spent in off-budget investments including for housing and the electricity grid.

Before the election Labor had estimated its policies would cause deficits to be $7.4bn bigger over four years, despite measures to crack down on multinational tax avoidance and save on the public service’s use of contractors.

The PBO found Labor’s most expensive promises were cheaper childcare ($5.1bn over four years) and fixing aged care ($2.5bn).

But it also identified savings, including from abolishing the cashless debit card and mandatory income management, which Labor did not estimate due to “commercial sensitivities”. Over 10 years that measure would save $786.9m, the PBO said.

The cashless debit card and income management scheme quarantines up to 80% of a person’s welfare payments onto a card with which one cannot withdraw cash or buy alcohol.

The Coalition extended the scheme for two years in December 2020 after failing to win support to make it permanent in four sites. The auditor general later found the Morrison government had not demonstrated whether the scheme was working despite operating trials across the country for more than five years.

Labor pledged to scrap the “privatised” Indue-operated cashless debit card, though smaller welfare income management programs requested by a local community could continue.

The PBO said overall its estimates “are not materially different from the costs for the forward estimates period released by Labor prior to the election”.

“While there are some material differences for individual commitments, when taken together, these differences amount to not more than 0.1% of GDP in any given year.”

The PBO noted 11 Labor policies that added to off-budget spending (such as loans and equity) to finance promises including public housing upgrades, the Help to Buy housing scheme, the Powering Australia plan and the National Reconstruction Fund.

The promises would result in the headline cash balance being $33.6bn lower over four years, or $62.7bn over 10 years…...

The PBO found the Coalition’s policies would have resulted in “slightly smaller deficits”, although the difference was “negligible”.

The Greens’ policies would “result in larger deficits” due to the minor party’s commitments “on both receipts and payments [which] are significantly higher than the other major parties”, it said.

Under the Greens’ policies, revenue as a share of GDP would rise to 29% and deficits would be $6.5bn a year higher than the Coalition…..

Quote of the Year

 

“In parliament house’s ministerial wing on Monday, shredding machines were working flat out, fragments of their massive output leaving a light snowstorm on the blue corridor carpet as it was carted away. Cardboard boxes had been delivered; enormous wheelie bins were everywhere. How many hours had gone into preparing and working on all those papers suddenly no longer needed, or needing quick and confidential disposal?”  [Michelle Grattan, EveningReport.nz, 23 May 2022, on the subject of the former Morrison Government's departure from Parliament House of Australia]

 

So what exactly happened at Kirribilli House on Election Night 21 May 2022?

 

We may never know the full story of the night it was confirmed that Scott John Morrison had come close to destroying the Liberal Party of Australia, but here is a sanitized version of how events unfolded…….

Weekend Australian, 11 June 2022, p.6, excerpt:

No Liberal strategists anticipated the Coalition’s seat total to plunge from 76 to 58.

“I wasn’t expecting us to win but wasn’t expecting our seat count to be so low,” a senior campaign source said.

The Liberal Party’s final polling in the 20 marginal seats it was tracking nightly was accurate – just 0.8 per cent out from the two-party-preferred result.

That final tracking poll was 72 hours from the close of polls.

Misplaced confidence

Undeterred, Morrison remained “relentlessly disciplined in his confidence” and upbeat in the final days of the campaign. At that point, there were high hopes at senior levels of the Liberal team that the 5 per cent of undecided voters could fall their way.

Morrison’s confidence was also attributed to how Labor’s primary vote had plummeted in the final weeks of the campaign, according to Crosby Textor research. Morrison’s view was understood to be that Labor couldn’t form majority government with a primary vote that had crashed so low.

At midday on election day, Finkelstein was downcast about their chance of success, confiding to his colleagues that Anthony Albanese would win. “He thinks the undecided started to fall the way of change on Thursday night and last night,” a source said at the time.

Federal Liberal campaign director Andrew Hirst was also pessimistic and was bracing for a loss, although not as brutal as the scenario that eventuated.

The Prime Minister, however, dismissed Finkelstein’s dire prediction. “Yaron is just tired, he’s exhausted after a long campaign,” Morrison said early in the afternoon to a close confidant.

Those close to Morrison say he was “quietly confident” that he could win minority government; that he could pull off a miracle once again.

On election night, Sky News host Paul Murray was reporting from the Liberal function at the Sofitel hotel in Sydney’s CBD.

He recalls that at the start of the night there was no sense of the scale of the impending defeat.

“There are times when you’re going to lose so everyone walks in going ‘how bad is this going to be’,” he said.

But that wasn’t the mood in the room on election night. Instead there was an initial sense of hope.

“The whole scenario is they weren’t supposed to win last time,” Murray said. “They all had muscle memory of winning against the trend.

“On election night, everyone saw Labor’s vote was down so they assumed this was happening again. Even in the second hour when it started going against the Libs, they were very much of the view that pre-poll hasn’t been counted yet.

“Then there was the final realisation that the train is not going to arrive.” At Kirribilli House, Morrison remained hopeful and upbeat as he bundled into his study with his closest friends, advisers and strategists including David Gazard, ­Andrew Carswell, Finkelstein, Adrian Harrington and John Kunkel. Morrison sat at his desk, ­examining the raw numbers as they were coming in from the Australian Electoral Commission.

Outside, Jenny Morrison, ever-positive and smiling, entertained about 20 of the couple’s friends from the Shire.

The first hour looked to be a repeat of 2019, with early polling showing Labor’s depressed primary vote.

Then there was a view in the room, about 7.30 to 8pm, that there wouldn’t be a definitive result that night.

Nail in the coffin

But then it changed.

“The pre-poll voting, which we would have thought favoured us, it just didn’t,” said one source from the room.

“When those results started being dropped, it cemented the trend. And then it changed really quickly.” Morrison left the room to take a long call from Frydenberg, who a source said was “in a pretty bad way”.

During the half-hour that he was out of the room, the size of the “teal” problem crystallised.

Morrison walked back in and said: “How is it looking?” “It’s not good,” an adviser said.

“I know it’s not good,” Morrison replied.

“It’s got worse,” a friend replied.

Then the Mackellar numbers started flowing in. “Jason (Falinski) is in trouble,” Morrison said.

A source in the room said that “when Jason’s results became clear, that’s when hope was abandoned”.

Finkelstein was the one who called it, according to those present. “We will be conceding tonight,” he said….

Morrison may have resigned as leader of the federal parliamentary Liberal Party, but this is not necessarily a signal that he will not fight to keep a degree of influence within the party in the hope of rebuilding his power base.

Currently he appears to be putting forward ideas on how to rebuild the Coalition and rebrand the Liberal Party:

In the wake of the election, Morrison has expressed an idea to some of his confidants about a possible strategy to deal with the independents in future elections: establish the Liberal National Party brand Australia-wide as the main conservative political movement.

Instead of the Nationals being the Coalition partner, he has suggested setting up a new progressive Liberal movement as the Coalition partner. It could run a different brand in the inner-city seats.

He has also begun accepting invitations to events where his former leadership status is recognised and where he can begin post-election networking.

Cartoons of the Week

 

David Rowe

John Shakespeare

Cathy Wilcox

David Pope

Tweet of the Week

 

Poor little moderate me ... #auspol pic.twitter.com/RnXhXXneZC

— Sammy J (@sammyjcomedian) June 2, 2022

 

AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION 2022 UPDATE: AEC Tally Room Party Representation Count on Tueday, 31 May 2022 at 6:15:45 PM AEST

https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HousePartyRepresentationLeading-27966.htm
Click on image to enlarge

WHY WE LOST GOVERNMENT BY FORMER AUSTRALIAN LIBERAL PM MORRISON & FORMER NATIONALS DEPUTY PM JOYCE: eight successful female Independents ran "very vicious and very brutal" campaigns and an intellectually lightweight national electorate "just wanted to change the curtains"

Successful metropolitan Independents. 

Top row left to right: successful incumbent Independent MP for Warringah (NSW) Zali Steggal, incoming Independent MP for North Sydney (NSW) Kylea Tink, & incoming Independent MP for Mackellar (NSW) Sophie Scamps. 

Bottom row left to right: incoming Independent MP for Wentworth (NSW) Allegra Spender, incoming Independent MP for Kooyong (Vic) Monique Ryan, incoming Independent MP for Goldstein (Vic) Zoe Daniel.

IMAGE: The Guardian, 23 May 2022

Left to right: successful incumbent Independent MP for rural Indi (Vic) Helen Haines & incoming Independent MP for metropolitan Curtin (WA) Kate Chaney. 

IMAGES: helenhaines.org & ABC News, 26 May 2022

Incoming Independent MP for metropolitan Fowler (NSW) Dai Le, who successfully contested the seat against Liberal, Labor, Greens & 3 minor parties candidates, after it fell vacant on the pre-election retirement of the Labor incumbent.

IMAGE: ABC News, 25 May 2022

The first eight of these nine Independent female candidates at the 21 March 2021 federal general election were frequently referred to as "teal candidates".  A soubriquet initially arising from the dominant colour of Zali Steggal's how-to-vote electoral material and, a tag which was adopted by right-wing media and political commentators in an attempt to overtly label these candidates as an ersatz politically aligned group. Faced with the absurdities being woven around the term, "teal candidates", Independent campaign teams seemingly decided to turn the term back on their critics and to successfully use it to their own advantage.

As is typical of both the Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison and Nationals MP for New England Barnaby Joyce, neither politician was willing to admit that the fault for the Coalition's loss at the 21 March 2022 federal election lay within the Liberal and National parliamentary parties - as well as with their own poor performance in the respective leadership roles of prime minister and deputy prime minister.

It was not a surprise to see the language used by both men had more than a tinge of resentful chauvinism. 

The Canberra Times, 27 May 2022, p.10:

Scott Morrison has claimed his devastating election loss was simply Australians wanting to "change the curtains", and accused the teal independents of running "very vicious and very brutal" campaigns.

The former prime minister has also refused to be drawn on the future direction of the Liberal Party, facing a reckoning after its moderate wing was decimated at Saturday's poll.

Speaking to 2GB on Thursday, his first post-election interview, Mr Morrison said he was "going back to being a quiet Australian".

He claimed the "trauma" of two pandemic-ridden years explained the party's worst result in 70 years.

"It's been incredibly tough, and I can understand that," he said.

"After all of that, as Barnaby [Joyce] said to me the other day, sometimes people like to change the curtains. They just like to change the curtains."

The Liberals' moderate faction was decimated as teal independents won previously-blue ribbon seats, including Kooyong, held by former treasurer and presumed future leadership contender Josh Frydenberg.

Dave Sharma, who lost Wentworth on Sydney's eastern suburbs, has claimed the leader's personal unpopularity had damaged his chances, a view relayed by other moderate MPs privately.

Mr Morrison said whether his personal unpopularity had hurt the Liberals in inner-city seats was a matter for the party to work through, but attributed the teal movement's success to simply promising "to change everything".

"They were very vicious and very brutal campaigns, talking to my colleagues about them. They played things very hard on the ground," he said.

"Anyway, that's politics; it can be a tough and brutal business."

Mr Morrison said he was "devastated" by Mr Frydenberg's loss, describing the former treasurer as a "huge part of the party's future".

In Mr Frydenberg's absence, conservative Peter Dutton is expected to be elected Liberal leader unopposed on Monday.

Saturday's results included a surge for the Greens in both houses, and independents promising stronger action on climate action, a federal anti-corruption commission, and better treatment of women….. 

While Morrison may focus on a handful of highly visible House of Representatives candidates when accounting for his demise and Joyce on what he sees as the fickleness of the national electorate, the fact of the matter is that a majority of voters across Australia numbered their Lower House ballot paper preferences in the hope of ridding themselves of what these two particular men represented.

That majority doesn't just live in those eight comfortable to affluent metropolitan electorates or in the 15 other electorates where like-minded Independent candidates ran - it comes from all walks of life, every economic circumstance and cultural perspective.

Something all re-elected and newly-minted federal politicians would do well to remember during the next three years.