Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, has called a general election for May, hoping for a second victory against the odds as he faces accusations of lying and bullying from within his own party.
An informal campaign has been under way for weeks, but Morrison pulled the trigger on the election on Sunday, with opinion polls showing his personal popularity plummeting and his party losing ground with voters.
In a highly produced video released on Saturday, Morrison admitted his government had not been perfect but appealed to voters to stick with the status quo, saying the ruling conservative Coalition had kept unemployment low, Covid deaths down and the economy stable during the pandemic.
Australians will head to the polling booths on 21 May to choose between the governing Coalition and Labor. The Coalition is made up of the conservative Liberal party and its junior partner the National party, ostensibly representing the regions.
Morrison became the Liberal leader, and therefore the prime minister, in 2018 after a messy leadership challenge. Thanks to what the Pentecostal true believer described as a “miracle”, he went on to win the 2019 election, despite opinion polls pointing to a victory for the opposition Labor party.
The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, who has been in the job since the opposition’s surprise loss in 2019, describes himself as a working-class kid, raised by a single mother in a council flat. Albanese hails from the party’s left faction and the government has sought to paint him as a radical.
Morrison is keen to draw attention to Australia’s economic recovery from the pandemic. The party’s traditional objections to high debt and deficit have been flattened by the need for fiscal stimulus during Covid-19.
The prime minister and his treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, recently released a budget that unabashedly targeted hip-pocket relief, with short-term tax offsets, cash handouts and fuel price cuts to deal with cost of living pressures.
Albanese used his budget response to also address cost of living issues. But his focus was on aged care – which was in a dire situation in Australia even before Covid. Albanese is also promising wages growth and more spending on health, education and childcare, with the Coalition questioning where the money will come from.
To retain office, Morrison will need to overcome lingering resentment over the pandemic response, including a slow vaccine “strollout” and delays in accessing rapid antigen tests. He has also been criticised for his response to Australia’s devastating floods and, before them, deadly bushfires.
Despite attempts by the Coalition to paint Labor as “soft” on national security, it is traditionally a bipartisan area. The historic defence deal struck by Morrison with the US and the UK, Aukus, has been welcomed by Labor.
Morrison is also facing claims – which he strongly denies – that he used a competitor’s Lebanese heritage to undermine him and win preselection for his seat in the south of Sydney 15 years ago. He has also been accused of being an “autocrat” and a “bully” by an outgoing senator and last year it emerged that his own deputy prime minister had called him “a hypocrite and a liar”.
Recent opinion polls suggest Labor is ahead of the Coalition. The latest Guardian Essential poll puts Labor on 50% and the Coalition on 45% – with 5% undecided. But the path to victory is never straightforward.
To form a majority government, a party must secure 76 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives. Heading into the election, the Coalition holds 76 seats, Labor holds 69, and the remainder are held by independents and minor parties. To win government, Labor needs to pick up seven seats while not losing any.
Independents promise climate of change
If neither party wins a majority, a pact would have to be made with the Greens or independents to form government.
Because voting is compulsory in Australia, parties do not have to worry about whether people will vote, only whom they will vote for – and how preferences will flow under the preferential voting system, where voters number the box of each candidate on their ballot paper in order of preference. This allows for a form of “instant run-off” if no candidate wins 50% plus one vote in the first round of ballot paper counting.
Action, or the lack of it, on climate change has caused division within both the Coalition and Labor. Enter the “teals”, a group of independents appealing to blue-blood Liberal voters who want climate change action more in line with that proposed by the Greens.
These predominantly female candidates – many backed by the Climate 200 pressure group – are mostly targeting Coalition-held seats. The latest Essential poll shows the teals (and others) on about 5% of the primary vote. But Dr Jill Sheppard, from the Australian National University’s School of Politics and International Relations, says their impact will not necessarily come from winning seats.
“They’re talking about issues the main parties aren’t – like climate change,” she says.
“The most important material effect of these independents, apart from setting the agenda, is that they’ll drag resources from the major parties. That’s where it’ll hurt. It opens up another front.”
