EDITORIAL –
“The gods may throw a dice
ABBA
Their minds as cold as ice
And someone way down here
Loses someone dear
The winner takes it all
The loser has to fall
It’s simple and it’s plain
Why should I complain”
The Winner Takes It All (1980)
90 minutes will decide the A-League champions, Europe (and awkwardly Australia too) will crown a new Eurovision winner, and Australia may have a new government. 151 members of the House of Representatives and 40 of Senators will be elected to form the 46th Parliament. Although we must wait to see the results, there is one simple fact – THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL… THE LOSER STANDING SMALL.
With a decent cross-section of the population already having voted, all polls indicate a Labor victory and Bill Shorten to enter the Lodge as the 31st Prime Minister of Australia. Scott Morrison will be the sixth PM to leave office since John Howard’s departure in 2007.
But as Keating’s re-election in 1993 taught us, don’t speak too soon. The recent weeks have seen polls narrowing while the PM has remained more popular than his long-term opponent. If the opinions polls and political pundits are correct, Labor will win 77 seats, just scrapping in with a majority. However, anything can happen on election day. Just ask Donald Trump!
DON’T FORGET THE STATES
Polls are often wrong due to one reason – failing to account for state variations. While Labor is far more popular in Victoria, its position in other states is not so cheery.
Newspoll gives the Coalition leads in New South Wales (including ACT) and Western Australia, while Labor leads decisively in Victoria and South Australia. The Liberal-National Party still leads in Queensland, although there is a swing of 3% to Labor if polls are correct.
You’re probably sick of these numbers but what does it mean. If the swing is the same nationally, Newspoll predicts Labor will only hold 77 seats, much less than the 90 seats Tony Abbott’s government held in 2013 but more than Turnbull’s 76 seats in 2016.
Polls predict a small 1.5% swing to Labor from the Liberals. On a uniform swing, eight seats would fall from the Coalition to Labor. Unlike the results in 2016, this would provide for a stable majority. Even when factoring in state variations, this does not change.
Although a majority of one can be dangerous to parliamentary stability, it is nevertheless a majority.
SENATE – WHERE THE WINNER DOESN’T TAKE IT ALL
Yes, a majority of one in the House of Representatives means you can form a government, but the Senate is a completely different story. Don’t expect the government to control the Senate because history is against them.
The Howard Government was the last government to command a majority in the Senate from 2005 until it lost government in 2007. While only 12 years ago, Malcolm Fraser was the last PM to have a Senate majority, in 1975 after the Constitutional Crisis.
Besides the historical analysis which points to no Senate majority, the current makeup of the Upper House doesn’t help any party attain a majority. The Government holds 31 seats while Labor holds 26. Then nine parties sit on the cross-bench with 19 Senators.
Due to the Double Dissolution election in 2016, only 40 members have served three-year terms. The Coalition has 15 Senators up for re-election, Labor 13, Greens 6 (of their 9), and 6 from other minor parties. Even if Labor gains a senator in each state, it still won’t have enough to control the chamber without the Greens.
LEADERSHIP
For many young Australians, they do not remember a period of governance without stable leadership, with John Howard being the last PM to last a full term. The Rudd/Gillard/Rudd/Abbott/Turnbull era marks an identity crisis for Australian politics in which factions and ideological tensions came to a head, with no leader strong enough to maintain party unity.
Morrison has sought to rebuild party unity in a face of much scrutiny. Labor is banking on the team it has built and relied upon since their loss in 2013. Although the Liberals have had much instability within their ranks, Shorten still remains greatly unpopular, with ScoMo leading 45% to 38%. Leader of the Labor longer than Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, Shorten is a seasoned politician and it is arguable in the last week he has enjoyed an emphatic reception he has not seen in his whole leadership. Yet, he has still failed to galvanise the populous. If more popular, it is easy to say that Labor would be assured their majority. Nevertheless, Labor only leads the Coalition by 2% in two-party-preferred polls and many pundits blame this on Shorten’s unpopularity.
Scott Morrison has appealed to the public with a more down-to-earth and family-centric approach. Yet, the ghosts of the Liberal Party are still haunting him. Turnbull and Abbott remain shadows upon stability while the departures of high-ranking officials such as Julie Bishop and Christopher Pyne can be analogised to first-class passengers on the life boats escaping the Titanic.
FUTURE OF THE PARTIES
What will come next for party leaders will be the next point of speculation. This all depends on who will form government and the personal decisions of the leaders and parties themselves.
Whichever party wins will see their leader enter the Lodge and form a government. If that is Bill Shorten, we will see him finally take the job after nearly six years as Opposition Leader. But his stability in the job will depend on the size of his victory. If he only gains a small majority, with Labor winning less than 80 seats, then he will have a weaker mandate and this may put him at odds with key parts of his parliamentary party. If he wins with a large mandate of more than 80 seats, he will be comfortable. But also remember, the Coalition under Abbott won 90 seats and he lost the leadership to Turnbull.
Any victory for Morrison would be a success, with the odds against the embattled PM who has been in the shadow of party instability with leadership challenges and the departures of high-profile. Even the formation of a minority government with minor party support would be a triumph, although the government would be more vulnerable to instability.
Traditionally, if leaders lose elections they resign their party leaderships. In 2016, Bill Shorten continued as Labor leader as Labor gained 14 seats. Yet, another loss, especially in what has been dubbed an unlosable election for Labor, would likely lead to calls for Shorten to resign.
However, there hasn’t been many predictions regarding the Liberal Party. If the party does not lose more than 10 seats, it would be tenable for Scott Morrison to remain as Opposition Leader. Only leader since late August, Scott Morrison’s personal popularity has led to a narrowing of the polls and this may be decisive in mitigating the bloodbath that was expected at the end of 2018.
But going back to the words of ABBA’s well-known song – ‘THE LOSER HAS TO FALL.’
THE MARK OF A GENERATION
The political landscape is shifting and in 50 years blue ribbon and true red electorates may be marginal or even lost to other parties. This election stands to be one of the greatest shakeups in a generation. Anything is possible and with Western democracy still in awe of threats to globalisation and more pronounced divisiveness in state institutions, we are in for a pivotal parliament.
Tony Abbott in his safe seat of Warringah looks vulnerable, Clive Palmer is acting as another unknown variable, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in the Liberal heartland of Kooyong is being challenged by the Greens, and Victoria looks like a potential bloodbath for the Coalition. We are seeing major shifts in ideology and traditional seats are falling.
One thing is known for certain. The winner will take it all. They will control the House of Representatives, government departments, parliamentary business and will control the budget. The loser will be reduced to the status of refuting and rebutting the government’s every move. It was Winston Churchill in 1945 who said after his loss:
“Worse… I have to be Leader of the Opposition”
Sir Winston Churchill
Leader of the Opposition (1945)
We will learn the result on Saturday night, with a slew of marginals trickling through during next week. It will be then when we see who will take it all and who will be standing small.
