High Road to the Political Wilderness
A Post-Mortem of Labor’s 2019 Defeat
In the past 26 years there has been 10 federal elections. Just two of these elections resulted in Labor winning a majority of seats, and a third saw Labor win government with a minority of seats. This is a dismal electoral record, which makes the recent 2019 election defeat all the more crushing. To understand why Labor lost, it may help to compare this election with one they did win: the 2007 election. Why did Kevin Rudd and Labor win big in 2007 while Shorten Labor lost the ‘unlosable’ election of 2019?
There are two types of differences between elections in a historical comparison such as this. Firstly, there are the unchangeable differences; the ones that simply reflect the fact that political circumstances in 2007 were different to 2019. Secondly, there are the changeable differences that reflect the conscious decisions of Kevin Rudd and his leadership team, such as how they campaigned and what they offered to the public. Understanding both differences matter; if we are to take 2007 as a benchmark for political success, it is important to understand which winning factors can be replicated, and those that can’t.
The most obvious unchangeable differences between elections are what your opponents do. A clear advantage the Howard government gifted Labor in 2007 was Work Choices. Howard’s labour market reforms were electoral poison, and they made Industrial Relations, traditionally a policy strength for Labor, a major issue in the lead-up to the election. In contrast, the Morrison government sought to totally neutralise IR as an issue in the 2019 election; Scott Morrison proposed no labour market reforms, and his IR minister Michaelia Cash kept such a low profile during the campaign that the media suggested she was in witness protection.
Despite this, Labor and the union movement did try to make IR an issue in 2019, as they did in 2007. The justification was that because real wages hadn’t been rising for the duration of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, voters felt as if the IR system was not working for them. This sentiment within the electorate was arguably comparable to that in 2007. But the crucial (and unchangeable) difference from 2007 was that voters could explicitly link their grievance with the IR system to the actions of the Howard government. In 2019, it was far harder for Labor to convince voters that any explicit policies of the Liberal government were to blame for stagnant wages.
It is unclear whether voters ultimately saw stagnant wages as a sign that the IR system was flawed. The unions certainly did (for the obvious reason that they want IR reform), but the ACTU’s ‘Change the Rules’ campaign was impaired by its inherent ambiguity: what was it really about? A better understanding by Labor about the differences of IR as a political issue in 2007 and 2019, would have illustrated why the 2019 election was not a referendum on wages. Labor’s emphasis on IR was ultimately misplaced.
Labor and Bill Shorten were also misplaced in their confidence of winning. They judged that their electoral position was strong enough that they could propose unpopular policies (such as abolishing negative gearing and cash refunds on franking credits), and still comfortably win the election.
This defied the old truism of Australian politics, that opposition parties with extensive policy platforms do not win elections.
Of course, Labor could easily argue they were justified in believing they could afford to propose tough reforms; after all, the party was consistently ahead in the opinion polls in the three year lead up to the 2019 election. But in the two years leading up to the 2007 election, Labor was also ahead in the polls more often then not. Nevertheless, Rudd did not seek a broad policy mandate like Shorten did. Instead, he confined his pitch for ‘change’ to a few key issues, such as the NBN, Workchoices, health and education. Crucially, Labor mostly provided minimal policy details on these issues.
In contrast, Labor in 2019 had an extensive, detailed policy platform. People criticise the party for its negative gearing or capital gains tax reforms, but it was these reforms that funded Labor’s significant commitments on health and education spending. The unpopular revenue-raising policies funded the popular spending ones. Was this a sensible tradeoff? Probably not. Labor’s areas of natural strength are already health and education; proposing new spending in those areas is unlikely to sway many votes, particularly if people can’t nominate concrete changes the new funding is meant to deliver. As former NSW premier Bob Carr observed: ‘If the party had promised to put 3000 teachers a year through intensive upskilling in classroom techniques, there would have been more (electoral) impact — for a fraction of the cost’.
Rudd recognised these insights; on climate change, he made a symbolic but easily identifiable (and costless in the short term) promise: to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. And in education, he promised free laptops for school kids. Where Rudd did promise big (such as an ‘education revolution’) he was deliberately vague on details.
Ultimately, Labor in 2019 forgot that voters are far more responsive to what they lose (cash refunds, tax deductions on investment properties) than what they gain.
This is compounded when they can easily identify what they lose (retiree tax, housing tax etc) and struggle to identify what they can gain. Labor had most of their unpopular revenue raising policies announced a year or more before the election, and so voters were firmly aware of them. But popular spending policies (on subsidised dental care and cancer treatment funding) weren’t announced until the election campaign.
Substantive spending and revenue raising policies aren’t the only things that decide elections though. Social and cultural issues also play a role. On religion, Labor faces a division within its support base; the party membership is relatively secular and strongly socially progressive. But the party’s blue-collar voter base is more likely to be religious and socially conservative. More research needs to be done, but there is possibly a perception amongst the blue-collar base (and ethnic communities) that Labor is indifferent or even hostile to religious freedom.
Scott Morrison exploited this perception by deliberately courting religious voters, and it appears this paid off; some of the largest swings in the recent election corresponded with electorates with a high proportion of Pentecostal voters (the Prime Minister’s faith). Rudd in 2007 had similarly sought to appeal to religious voters; he wrote an essay on his favourite theologian and frequently held doorstop interviews in front of his church. As distasteful as it may seem for politicians to showcase their religiosity, many voters (even non-religious ones) see religious belief as a marker for ‘values’. And values matter to voters.
It is unclear the extent to which Rudd’s religiosity contributed to his appeal, but it is clear he was a deeply popular leader, and this was an essential component of Labor’s success in 2007. Bill Shorten not only did not have Rudd’s popularity, he was also likely a drag on the Labor vote, so unpalatable did some voters find him. It is sometimes a strange thing to comprehend why the public adore some politicians and dislike some, and it is never the only criterion for leadership of this country. But it does matter, because voters need to view a leader as credible and trustworthy if they are to be convinced on policy reform. Even if Shorten had somehow scraped into office, how effective would he really have been in selling tough policy reforms? The link between the electorate’s mistrust of Julia Gillard and their dislike of the Carbon tax is instructive.
Despite Shorten’s failure to appeal to voters, his extensive policy platform demonstrated his and Labor’s preparedness for government. Moreover, his frontbench team was more united, competent and experienced than that of most incoming governments. On both of these counts, Labor in 2019 was more prepared for government than in 2007. And yet the lessons mentioned here suggest this very preparedness may have lost them the election. If that is the case, then it is indicative of the deficiencies, or at least absurdities, within contemporary democracy. However, Labor can’t fully blame their policy agenda for their defeat. Their misplaced focus on IR and wages; their failure to appeal to religious voters; and the unpopularity of Bill Shorten should all weigh heavily on the minds of Labor strategists. Above all, the comparison to 2007 should be remembered for a long time to come.
This article has a published reply, written by Brodie Fennell, which can be found here.
Connor Harvey is deputy-editor of this publication, and a member of the Australian Labor Party. Don’t worry Albo, we question his loyalties too…
Photo Credit: Matt Roberts & Mick Tsikas/AAP
