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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media I’m Ruby Jones this is 7am.

It’s been two years since former Opposition leader Bill Shorten lost the federal election, and then the Labor leadership.

Now, as the major parties gear up for an impending federal election, which could be held this year, questions are being asked about whether Shorten’s replacement Anthony Albanese is capable of securing Labor victory.

Today, writer for The Saturday Paper Chris Wallace on Labor’s election chances, and what they’ve learnt from the last two years.

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RUBY:

Chris, this month marks two years since the last federal election when Scott Morrison defied most of the predictions and won, just how much of a shock was that loss for Labor?

CHRIS:

It was a tremendous shock, Ruby. Really. People are still reeling from it. The reason that there was such a widespread expectation that Labor would win is that Newspoll, which is of course, the dominant, most influential political polling in Australian contemporary politics, had predicted systematically that Shorten, in fact, would become prime minister.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“If opinion polls are right, the man in the middle of this crowd will, on Saturday, be elected as Australia's Prime Minister. Bill Shorten, left of center...”

CHRIS:

I mean, Shorten and his office were pretty much measuring up the drapes. So confident were they. And let's remember, it wasn't just Labor people who thought that Bill Shorten was going to become prime minister. People like Sportsbet, the very big betting agency, actually paid out on a labor win two days before Election Day. That's how confident they were that labor was going to win.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“Labor has long been this election’s favorite. A Scott Morrison win improbable. It still is.”

CHRIS:

So labor supporters, they weren't dreaming. They had an objective reason supporting the idea that labor was a definite winner.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“I have always believed in miracles.”

CHRIS:

But, of course, on the day Scott Morrison led the LNP to one of the remarkable shock victories of contemporary politics.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“I said I was going to burn for you and I am, every single day.”

CHRIS:

So people are still in shock and there's still a lot of raking over the the ashes of that loss to work out what the lessons exactly are.

RUBY:

Mm. And after that loss, Bill Shorten stepped down and Anthony Albanese took over as Labor leader. What were people in the party hopeful that they could get under Albanese, that they felt that Bill Shorten just couldn't deliver?

CHRIS:

There's a kind of a it's my turn mentality that's gripped the Labor Party room since the Rudd Gillard Rudd wars. And I think when Anthony Albanese was elected leader, there was a sense of squaring up a righting in a way of a slight injustice in that I think Anthony Albanese would have won the 2016 election had he come to the leadership after labor's 2013 loss. He still had his looks. He still had a bit more vim about him. Instead, Bill Shorten won. And I think there was a sense that Albanese was owed this chance to become leader.

Archival Tape -- Anthony Albanese

“I’m honoured and very proud to be elected the 21st leader of the Australian Labor party…”

CHRIS:

And, boy, he really shone during the horrific 20, 19, 20, 20 summer bushfire season in that terrible conflagration on the East Coast where the prime minister just showed himself to have a total empathy bypass.

Archival Tape -- Anthony Albanese

“But Mr Morrison is not listening. He is not listening to the fire chiefs. He is not listening to the science when it comes to climate change. He’s not even listening to his own deputy PM…”

CHRIS:

He just struck the right note, did the right things, looked prime ministerial.

Archival Tape -- Anthony Albanese

“We’ve seen lives lost, we’ve seen hundreds of homes lost - record numbers. We’ve seen many people displaced. And yet we are only at the entry of what would be the bushfire season. Clearly this is not business as usual…”

CHRIS:

Then he seemed to kind of slide into a bit of a trough. And this is, you know, perhaps partly because Scott Morrison did appear to learn a few lessons from his appalling I don't hold a hose, mate, period. But then Albanese seemed to actually even physically slide a bit.

And of course, when it comes down to basic things like the television pictures, which are incredibly influential, the LNP has this bustling, bullish kind of leader with enormous physical energy about him

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“What we’re securing is a recovery through this covid 19 pandemic which will ensure there’s an economy and services that will be supporting not just this gen but generations to come…”

CHRIS:

always making sure he's photographed doing something, being active versus an opposition leader who just looks a bit tired and a bit old and a bit past it.

Archival Tape -- Anthony Albanese:

“Kristy McBain told me this is your hood!”

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“It is my hood. I grew up just down the road. Just down the road.”

CHRIS:

And you can't fault him for things like the professionalism of his presentation in terms of how he dresses and grooms, for example, we have not had to go through any horrific Anthony Albanese jogging pictures.

He's smart enough and caring enough to have a treadmill in his office and do the necessary there, rather than subject those to baggy t-shirt and jogging pictures, as the previous leader did. And his suits fit, he’s much better presented than Bill Shorten was. However, he just does look a little bit tired and, you know, like the nice old bloke that you like to have a chat to, but not necessarily an alternative Prime Minister.

RUBY:

Mm. And there's a strong feeling in Canberra, Chris, that a federal election will be called later this year. It's a time when parties really start gearing up for their election campaign. So when you compare where Bill Shorten was at at a similar stage in the cycle before the last election to where Anthony Albanese is at now, how do you think that labor is positioned?

CHRIS:

Labor's really in a similar position at this stage of the cycle that it was under Shorten. In fact, there's an enormous and important and very worrying similarity between the two, and that is that the lack of cut through is a real problem.

Right, so pretty much you've got this top down operation with a disengaged rank and file membership who really want a labor victory. They're desperate for a labor victory. But the leader, just like last time, is not giving them a crisp, compelling message they can use to try and convert on the ground votes to labor. And that's really necessary.

And while Anthony Albanese is doing a few things better than Bill Shorten, for example, he's not falling for the blizzard of policies problem. He's also got some of his better frontbenchers in better portfolios than Bill Shorten had. And so that definitely helps.

But you're not seeing the fervent drive to win. The fact is, if the leader is not a vote magnet, him or herself, and if they can't craft a sharp, compelling, easily communicable reason for people to switch their votes, then that is a big load of lead in the saddlebag come election time, particularly when you're up against someone so cunning and so skilled as Scott Morrison in his political operation.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Chris, what is going to decide who wins the next federal election, where will the campaign be fought?

CHRIS:

Now, about one third of Australian elections over the last 50 years have been so close that whoever forms government only does so with a majority of a handful of seats. So every election is winnable. Morrison just reminded us, you know, every election is winnable, but to win, you've got to maximise across every area of your political operation and craft.

And if Labor is to win, it's got to do something dramatic about its vote in Queensland and Western Australia while holding all of its other seats. And of course, we've just had the upper hunter bi-election on the weekend, the classic coal seat, and Labor ran a dedicated coal kind of candidate, a CFMEU member, good bloke, Jeff Drayton. But the primary vote was 20 per cent. And, of course, the local federal member there, Joel Fitzgibbon, spends a lot of his time bagging Labor for not being sufficiently coal-ey enough. Well, we've just had a very close look about what 100 percent coal loving Labor candidate gets in terms of primary vote - 20 per cent. And of course, you know, this is a very stark reminder of just how bad the primary vote was in Queensland and Western Australia. You know, around 25 per cent. You cannot win with primary votes in states with so many seats as 25 per cent in Queensland as Bill Shorten got last time.

And Ruby, you know, the cold, hard truth is I think Labor has never formed a majority government with less than a thirty nine point four per cent primary vote overall. The latest Newspoll has Anthony Albanese on 36 per cent. So not in a winning position, despite the two party preferred being 51-49.

So when you look at 51-49, two party preferred, and the fact that federal Labor is apparently on thirty six per cent primary, you'd have to say that's not a good position to be going into an election.

And I think people really like Anthony Albanese. But you see, to win elections, you've got to keep your own people and you've got to attract people from the middle. And that is not happening to the extent that suggests that Anthony Albanese is about to become Prime Minister. And that is the problem.

RUBY:

Mm. And I mean, how important is popularity in a leader at this stage in an opposition leader?

CHRIS:

Well, the ANU has this longitudinal study called the Australian Election Study. And if you look at the last dozen federal elections, it shows that it's true that the most popular leader doesn't always win the election. But it also shows that the last three times government actually changed hands, the more popular leader always won. So right now, again, going back to Newspoll, if you look at the net approval ratings, Scott Morrison is on a positive 20 percent approval rating, Anthony Albanese is on a minus seven per cent net approval rating.

So if the Australian election study is anything to go by, that's another pointer that Anthony Albanese, as good a labor bloke as he is, as well liked as he is internally, that he's probably going to Shorten, like, not be the one to drag in those additional votes that Labor needs to win the centre and form government.

RUBY:

Bearing that in mind, then, do you think that there is space here for an alternative Labor leader?

CHRIS:

Well, Labor's got to really, really want a win to change leaders. You know, there's an enormous reserve of loyalty to the idea now that the party ought to stay with the leader it elects immediately after the prior election. And that was for really good reasons. When you look back at the Rudd Gillard Rudd wars, it was really terrible.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“They’ve traded insults across continents, brought a government to a standstill and shed tears.”

Archival Tape -- Kevin Rudd:

“Rightly or wrongly Julia has lost the trust of the Australian people.”

Archival Tape -- Julie Gillard:

“Kevin Rudd spoke about trust today but did not deny while challenged that he has spent time behind closed doors in secret conversations with people undermining the govt.”

CHRIS:

But it could be that Labor has overlearned that lesson to its detriment. And meanwhile, you know, the Darwinian bloodshed on the other side has delivered this incredibly cunning competitor while on the labor side delivering, you know, the Kumbaya Rule observer every time.

And, you know, if this goes on, it could well be that Labor always has a leader who would have been fantastic earlier, but comes to the leadership too late to win. Now, you know, what the Labor Party does is it’s business.

But meanwhile, there’s these huge policy challenges that many Australians desperately want action on climate change, for example, fairness in the workplace, an anti-corruption commission. I could go on and on and on. So people who actually care about quality government are desperate for a change of government, some of whom were even LNP voters. But they can't quite bring themselves to vote for the party under its current leadership. So how often does the learning costs of this have to be externalised upon an electorate that desperately wants a better standard of government.

RUBY:

And so is what you're saying then, that there is basically no chance of anyone within Labor contesting the leadership before this coming election? Instead, they'll wait and see. And if Albanese loses, that's when there would potentially be a shift. So it's maybe a bit of a defeatist attitude.

CHRIS:

The thing is, Ruby, whatever your politics is, whether it rusted on LNP person a swing vote on the middle or a rusted on labor person, it is very unhealthy in a democracy when you have long periods of rule by one side. Right. There's no stimulus for whoever's in government to perform better when one side keeps flubbing it and handing them unnecessary election victories.

So I think Labor really has to front up to what does it need to do in order to win? Not Steven Bradbury style, just hoping that the party in front of you falls over, but with a big surge of focussed, effective politicking built around someone who can really bring the votes in. So, you know, it's a very difficult situation. But if labor really wants to win, it's really got to rethink what it's doing now and change it before the election.

RUBY:

Chris, thank you so much for your time today.

CHRIS:

Pleasure.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today

Victorian health authorities have reintroduced some COVID-19 restrictions in Melbourne, after the cluster of cases linked to an outbreak in the city's north grew to nine.

Masks are now mandatory indoors in Melbourne. Households are limited to five visitors per day, and private outdoor gatherings are capped at 30 people.

The stricter rules will stay in place until at least the 4th of June.

And the NSW government has announced major reforms to state sexual assault laws.

Under the changes, defendants may need to prove they took active steps to obtain consent for sex.

I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am, see you tomorrow.

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