When the Murdoch media launch into its ritualistic ‘Labor leadership tensions’ routine it can only mean there’s an election on the horizon. But with a poll showing states rated ahead of the feds regarding administering the vaccine, it would appear trust is an issue that will continue to bedevil the Coalition.
It began with an obscure opinion poll in mid-January conducted for the CFMEU, led in Victoria by former Labor stalwart turned vehement anti-Albanese force, John Setka.
Perhaps unsurprisingly this poll, conducted by a little-known polling company, of which scant details were released, found that the ALP could lose two heartland seats in the Hunter Valley. This was helpfully kicked along by Labor’s perennial thorn-in-the-side Joel Fitzgibbon, who quickly returned to his favourite and, it seems, his only, theme – coal – and his comments were circulated through NCA Newswire, Murdoch’s new newswire service. It was reported by other media as a leadership problem that now had to be dealt with, Albanese ‘forced to defend his position’, and the ‘Labor leadership crisis’ narrative had begun.
In a series of pieces from print to Twitter, click-bait headlines formed thinly disguised political slogans: ‘tick tock’, ‘time’s running out’, ‘the sharks are circling’, ‘Albo’s dead in the water’, and the ubiquitous ‘Albo’s not cutting through’. Although, as Jack Waterford has observed in these pages, exactly what ‘cutting through’ means and by what measure, is never explained.
Albanese’s putative difficulties can scarcely be based on the latest opinion polls, now apparently rehabilitated after their collective failure to accurately predict the last election. These show Labor in a competitive position, if not better. Newspoll this week has Labor and the Coalition evenly split on 50% of the two-party preferred vote, making Albanese no more or less likely to form government than Morrison were an election to be called today.
Essential Poll, also out this week, has more encouraging news for the opposition, with Labor at 47% two party preferred, Coalition 44% and 8% undecided. The significant factor in the Essential poll is that this is a reversal of their relative positions two weeks ago – Labor has increased its two party preferred vote by 2% and the Coalition has dropped by 4% over that time – and yet the drums are rumbling for Albanese, not Morrison.
In the midst of a pandemic in which Australia has performed better than most, this is not where the Morrison government would want to be. As JobKeeper payments are wound back next month, deferred mortgage repayments kick in, and with unemployment showing no sign of shifting, the next six months will be the most difficult the government has yet faced. The power of incumbency is strongest in times of crisis, and even more so when that crisis has been managed effectively as this has. That we have done so, however, is almost entirely due to the states, despite the clear federal responsibility in matters of quarantine and aged care, and this has not been lost on voters.
Morrison’s failure to take responsibility for management of the pandemic has handed that power of incumbency to the states, squandering that political capital in what could be a significant own-goal. The Essential poll bears this out in one critical respect. Asked which tier of government they would prefer to administer the Covid-19 vaccine, respondents rated the states ahead of the federal government. This is telling both as a measure of trust in managing the pandemic and as a recognition that it is the states which have successfully done so.
In Victoria, it will not easily be forgotten that Morrison failed to visit this state during the protracted, and ultimately successful, lockdown. The prime minister found the time to make a 24-hour visit to Japan, and to quarantine for two weeks in order to do so, while at the same undermining the medical advice on lockdown and border closures in the Labor states of Victoria and Queensland through which those successes were achieved. Nor will it be quickly forgotten that his Victorian ministers Greg Hunt and Josh Frydenberg mocked and undermined the Victorian state government’s protective measures – from border closures to lockdown – without any apparent concern for how those comments might impact on Victorians struggling through it.
Morrison badly misread the mood in Victoria, seeing only political opportunism in the state’s second-wave difficulties and failing to support Victorians just when they needed, and wanted, co-operative national leadership. Morrison’s failure to offer that leadership to all states, and not just his own home state of NSW, may well prove costly at the next election and signs are already emerging that it will. Support for the Victorian Labor premier Daniel Andrews and his government is significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels and Victorian Labor is now polling higher than at the last state election, at 58.5% 2pp and with the Liberal-National party opposition languishing on just 41.5% two-party preferred.
The Victorian Liberal party is adrift, beset by branch-stacking and riven by ideological divisions – most recently over the Andrews’ Labor government’s move to ban the use of ‘gay-conversion therapy’, a move opposed by a core conservative group in the Victorian Liberal party. A recent audit of the Victorian Liberal branch membership led to the expulsion of 150 illegitimate members, further intensifying internal divisions.
The state ructions have now spilt over into the federal arena with key Morrison conservative ally and long-serving member for Menzies, Kevin Andrews, defeated in a bitter pre-selection battle, a coruscating result given the outspoken support for Andrews of the Prime Minister and senior Victorian ministers Josh Frydenberg and Greg Hunt. It is the first time a sitting Victorian Liberal MP has been defeated in a preselection in more than 30 years.
Morrison also has to contend with his party’s own thorn-in-the-side, Liberal MP Craig Kelly, over his support for faux Covid treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, his anti-vaxxer stance, and likening of compulsory masks in schools to child abuse. Morrison has refused to condemn Kelly and this week derided ABC journalist and president of the National Press Club, Laura Tingle, for suggesting that Kelly’s repeated Covid-19 misinformation was undermining the government’s multi-million dollar pandemic response. ‘He’s not my doctor and he’s not yours’, Morrison snapped at Tingle, before praising Kelly, ‘But he does a great job in Hughes’ – to much laughter at the press club luncheon.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners must have missed the joke, issuing a testy statement criticising Kelly for ‘disseminating misinformation’ about coronavirus, and stating that ‘all public figures’ should ‘act responsibly’. As Scott Morrison pegs his electoral fortunes on the successful roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine, while refusing to rein in his party’s chief peddler of misinformation about it, there seems little chance of that. And that can only spell trouble for the Morrison government.
Jenny Hocking is emeritus professor at Monash University, Distinguished Whitlam Fellow at the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University and award-winning biographer of Gough Whitlam. Her latest book is The Palace Letters: The Queen, the governor-general, and the plot to dismiss Gough Whitlam. You can follow Jenny on Twitter @palaceletters.
Comments
11 responses to “‘You can set your political clock to it’: federal election looms”
Thank you for this article Jenny.
The only thing that is holding the LNP/BCA/IPA together is the rabid stench of corruption, both federally and states-wide, which is also falling away like the rotting carcass that it is.
Hello Jenny: Excellent article (without sounding like a tutor grading an assignment). I agree the Albanese stuff in the right wing Total Media (Murdock, Costello, Stokes and the ABC) says the election campaign has started. Essential Poll is interesting: the two major parties are approximately on about 45% with about 8% undecided. The campaign is all about the 8%. That’s where the inattentive “we, the Australian people” live. They’re not bad people, just engaged in their own lives. But that’s what the Total Media (Goebbels without the rats) dominates. Timing of the election is tricky because of Climate Change. Morrison will probably take advice from the climate scientists. He would not want to go in Oct/Nov if there is likely August bushfires in the Blue Mountains; if next year, it would have to be in Apr/May with the autumn rains, in case of a new norm summer. Well done with 1975!!!
If Labor are already ahead, or equal, then Morrison should be quite worried. I notice that since you wrote the article he finally caved in on Kelly and reprimanded him in parliament, but only after Tanya Plibersek confronted Kelly in the halls of parliament house.
Looking at the US election Biden appeared like he was the underdog yet came right to the front when the election took place. I think many were surprised with the magnitude of his win.
I’m now waiting for Morrison to reprimand Kelly again over his fake claims concerning climate change as well. No doubt Morrison is going to have to perform difficult yoga positions as much of the rest of the world recognizes the immediacy with which we have to act. It is appalling that numbskulls like Kelly get more news coverage than our own scientists who are focussed on climate change, several of which reside at the ANU in Canberra, and have a depth of experience and knowledge to make them very highly respected world experts. Professor Will Steffen and Dr Andrew Glikson for a start. Kelly’s credentials are ex-furniture salesman and football. Not that that is wrong, but how does it compare with those who have 30-40 years of study and research under their belts and are revered around the world for their high level of expertise? And if Morrison accepts the science from immunologists, then how come he switches off that acceptance over the science of climate change? He’ s painting himself into a corner.
This kind of inversion of society where lazy minded and ignorant people who get the fast track into power and think they know better than the our experts has to stop. To add to this, their motivations are dubious, and some are clearly preparing for post political careers in the fossil fuel industry or worse.
You are correct about the MS media’s rapid shift to finding any fault and claims of instability within the party that can besmirch Labor, just as they did the same thing last election, and every one of them before that. Last time it was Shorten, where the meme “you’re unpopular” (including Ms Sales of the ABC) was used over and over again without anyone saying why he was apparently unpopular. At that time others said Albanese should take over as leader as well. This even when Shorten’s range of policies proved to be exactly what we needed over the last few years, and would have been a far greater step in the direction of admitting the seriousness of climate change and even the intensity of fires that we were about to receive in 2019 – 2020.
Some clearly differentiated policies need to come from Albanese and I know he can do it. He did it in the last budget reply speech. I suspect he will deliver on that well before any election, and if the accent is on authenticity and clear and distinct alternatives to Morrison’s fake sideshow and cronyism, he has it in his lap to win. Especially with powerful women in the party like Tanya Plibersek who have their hearts and expertise in the right place.
Sean Carney (Age) warns of Labor “dark age”, whereas John Della Bosca (Guardian) says “of course” Albanese can win. My TAB account says that Carney is closer to the money. Nothing personal, mind you.
And all of the betting agencies were completely wrong last time. .. just saying.
I think that in light of several recent media articles highlighting the pragmatic approach being taken by Hunter Valley residents towards the inevitable demise of coal, Joel Fitzgibbon might like to re-calibrate his support of coal. At the last election his safe seat became a marginal seat. If he keeps up his hubris and blather, he may well find himself unelected and unelectable.
This. There really is a pattern. Almost as if there is a coordinated ‘deep-state’, ‘the establishment’ or whatever you want to call it so it doesn’t grate on your am-I-a-conspiracy-theorist sensibilities. And it’s not just the Murdoch papers. I am grateful these papers label their given talking points as “exclusive” and provide all the usual suspects with the same articles to write, it’s so much easier to spot the brainwashing this way than having to Google other newsites for balance.
I do have a question about Kevin Andrews’ loss – is the replacement, being a past defence or special forces guy or something like that, another Hastie recruit or Dutton-lite? Should I be watching those SAS and doomsday prepper shows instead of switching channels?
And, the Tanya Plibersek-Craig Kelly thing feels like theatre to me. Very inappropriate theatre in the tradition of “let-them-eat-cake” where there’s a pandemic, trade war and climate change to deal with but our politicians are staging gotchas and playing political games. And I emphasise neither Tanya Plibersek nor Craig Kelly came across as winners. What does come across is Scotty was again forced to act against his will to tell Craig Kelly off, so he’s the good guy in all this, while Tanya Plibersek was the **** and Craig Kelly the 2018 Donald Trump. MAGA! Those spinmasters they flew over from the US and the foreign interference money are certainly worth every penny.
Given that Morrison reprimanded Kelly not long after what you refer to as a ‘theatre’ from Plibersek as well, then it made its mark. That is one idiot down in my opinion and it shows Scott is worried. I do not know with certainty whether it was theatre myself although I did think about it as being staged – but if you paint both sides as the same, there is no point in voting is there?
I know several younger people last election who did not vote for that very reason, and so shades of grey are not taken into account. How does that change anything, or are we going to wait for some minor party to get bigger, or the Coalition with its National’s anti-climate change action and coal loving nutters once again? How would you see change being made?
I agree with all the rest you wrote however particularly the brainwashing from the US and MAGA Trumpets.
Hi George,
I am not sure who set up the confrontation but the whole thing came across as theatre to me. I thought I read somewhere Tanya Plibersek was coming out of an interview and Craig Kelly was going in for an interview next door, and Craig Kelly was the one who approached Plibersek, but it really doesn’t matter how it came about, it just gave me the “Canberra Bubble” fiddling-while-Rome-burned impression. And so, it really made both actors look poorly. I admit to some negative bias when it comes to Tanya Plibersek (I won’t go into it, don’t want to pass on unwarranted negativity or give the LNP and Murdoch/Costello free ammunition) so maybe Craig Kelly came out worse to others similarly disinterested in the games of the Establishment and just want politicians to grow up.
And I don’t have an answer to your questions about the point of voting and in what form change will or may be made to come. I can see this blog is causing some consternation and you yourself have had to fend off some gaslighting efforts so maybe this is where it will start. Someone mentioned starting an Independent Australia party or something like that somewhere. One can hope.
All good Banana3
I did not know that you had read some of my other posts, and you have a good memory over the gaslighting incidents, and the need for a genuine party that actually delivers real things for the Australian people.
It sure is getting hard to know the motivations of people these days and believe without doubt what appears in the MSN news. We’ve reach a point now where people are disguising themselves as if they are on the left side yet are really on the hard right side, and sometimes vice versa. Makes it very complicated.
We need rapid change but how to get there? Even if another party was set up, it would take some time to have a major effect and draw voters, while most of our problems like climate change and a post consumer economy are immediate.
Anyway, good to chat with you.