If history is our guide, a change of federal government at the upcoming election will come in an irresistible wave or not at all.
Since Gough Whitlam* ended more than two decades of Tory rule in 1972, every change of government has been a landslide. Malcolm Fraser picked up 30 seats in 1975, Bob Hawke snared 24 in 1983, John Howard gained 29 seats in 1996, Kevin Rudd won 23 in 2007 and even Tony Abbott acquired 18 extra seats in 2013.
Conversely there has not been a single win from a federal opposition in a close contest in the past 50 years. When it gets down to seat-by-seat combat, the advantages of incumbency in timing, logistics and budget see even beleaguered administrations cling on to power.
It is wrong to think of a federal election as a horse race. Rather it is a contest for power where the protagonists have very different objectives: one is trying to protect the shoreline from the high ground; the other is trying to get through the defences by surfing a mood for change.
When government changes the nation’s next leader senses (and sometimes shapes) the wave, gets into position from the back of the break and finds a way to remain upright. This requires a combination of policy adroitness, organisational capability and a leader’s capacity to merge their personal qualities with the zeitgeist.
For Whitlam it was simply “time” after decades of Tory rule; for Fraser it was an end to the chaos and conflict that he himself helped foment; Hawke unified a fractious nation; Howard promised to slow things down; Rudd was a safe antidote to ideological overreach; while Abbott just said “no” at a time the public had lost faith in a divided government.
Looking at pre-election polls the critical question is not “Who is ahead?”, but is there a wave for change-building? This is devilishly hard to pick, as the waves often break late as the undeclared voters (who we are recognising in our 2PP Plus model for the first time this cycle) finally make their choice.
This week’s Guardian Essential Report suggests that the tide is going out on the Morrison government, with nearly half of respondents thinking it’s time to give some else a go.
The appetite for change has been building since we first asked this question last August but appears to be peaking at the right time for Labor, although one in five voters are yet to form a definitive view.
Digging down into these figures, the sense it’s someone’s else turn is strongest among younger voters: 56% of under 35s are ready for change while only 40% of over 55s are ready to shift.
If a wave is forming the critical question becomes whether the opposition has the pose and dexterity to get to the shore. It is here where the different rules of engagement kick in.
Incumbents hold on to power by using their significant structural advantages to knock the challenger off their board and into the whitewash: think Keating’s 1993 GST scare, Howard’s border panic and more recently Morrison’s tax chimera.
This is what the prime minister has been doing since the start of this year. Sensing a wave fuelled by Covid fatigue and his own malfeasance building, he is frantically looking for ways to interrupt momentum: on religious freedom, national security fears about China, and anything to make the water choppier for the challenger.
Now the impact of what is likely to be a long and traumatic war in Ukraine, vividly brought home via traditional and social media, looms as a new wild card but, as this week’s poll shows, not at face value a winning hand.
While there appears no real partisan difference on Ukraine in the eye of the voting public, the extent to which the war fills the public spaces where elections are usually fought has a real prospect of stemming the tide or at least reducing its intensity.
This will have a real impact on Anthony Albanese who needs public focus to establish himself to the many voters who still don’t have a clear sense of him. In contrast, a protracted war provides Morrison with a guaranteed program of nationally significant set pieces to portray his carefully curated public persona from.
There is no denying the magician Morrison has begun to give up his tricks, with approval ratings now in negative territory. But do not underestimate the resilience of the “ScoMo” brand for voters looking out of the corner of their eyes. To them the PM is still the family man who loves the Sharkies and goes to church, and while he may have stuffed up a few things, it’s hardly poor old ScoMo’s fault that there was a pandemic.
In contrast, there’s a sense that Albanese remains hidden. Despite his 26 years in the federal parliament and service as deputy prime minister he still appears to many prosaic. Part of this is by design: Labor has clearly recalibrated after 2019’s ambitions while through the first phase of the pandemic the only credible course for opposition was to stay out of the way.
Albanese has a compelling story to tell: someone born into social housing who has never forgotten where he came from, someone who has shown loyalty to his local community, leading the grassroots campaign to save the Bunnies against the power of Murdoch’s Super League.
So can Albo get there? As our polling suggests the majority of us are over this chapter of national leadership and ready for a change. What currently seems missing is the drumbeat coming from the ground up.
This is where those of us who want to see a change of government come in. This is a tough election for progressives. Like someone dealing with a traumatic, life-changing accident, we need to confront our demons of certainty from 2019 and lean in behind our designated surfer.
Australians with disability are currently marshalling forces to defend the NDIS; the aged care sector has had a gutful; doctors are calling out crisis on our public hospitals; anyone in the creative industry or universities is still reeling from the calculated hit during lockdown; workers are sick of a system that turns their wages into dividends and executive bonuses; women are turning their backs; farmers and businesses have moved on from the climate wars and are waiting for government to follow.
For all these people things have gone way beyond any one policy: this is about the very essence of being collaboratively led rather than cynically played. With so much at stake surely we all need to do better than sit back and watch the political contest as if it were a spectator sport and wait for Albo to perform his own miracle on water solo.
History tells us that when governments change it is not just about the leaders, or the policies, or the field operation. It’s also about us. Are we prepared to not just vote for change but find a way to be part of it?
• Peter Lewis will discuss the findings of the week’s Guardian Essential Report at 1pm on Tuesday – free registration here
*While it’s seen as the definitive momentum election, it should be noted that Whitlam only picked up eight seats in 1972, but it did build on the 26 seats he picked up in the “Don’s Party” election of 1969 where Labor surfed the wave but discovered the shore was just too far away.
