This is my take on the current situation in regards to the election.
As a Labour supporter I have been a bit down this week. Morrison is clearly a better campaigner than Albanbese and I was starting to think "oh no, please don't let this "smile" do it again". But I have come up with an alternative narrative that gives me some hope that we will still get a change of Government despite the ALP's inability to put forward a candidate that can compete successfully with Morrison in campaign mode.
Election campaigns have historically been quite important in Auatralia because if a party leader stuffs up then that can be enough to tip the balance against them. A lot of Australian are either rusted on supporters of one party or pretty disengaged with politics in general and only pay attention during the campaign period. This is why the election campaigns carry more weight than they really should. These swinging voters/the undecided are not sophisticated in regards to politics and therefore will change their vote based on superficial events, one sentence simplistic slogans and scare campaigns in the weeks leading up to the election.
This disengagement is understandable in Australia for the last 50 years because nothing much really happens to shake people out of their political apathy. This has not been the case in the last three years. We have had the bushfires (climate change), Covid, war in Europe and the floods. I believe most Australians have been seriously engaged in all these issue due to the fact that they have materially affected people's lives. On top of that we now have inflation for the first time in decades which is the only economic indicator that affects everybody.
So most Australians have been far more engaged with politics since December 2019. Consequently I believe that they have already made up their mind on how they will vote and nothing that happens in the election campaign will make any difference. It will still run as per normal and the media will still treat it as important, but I reckon they are all just going through the motions.
Perhaps this is just wishful thinking. But if the election campaign continues on its current trajectory-that is Labour being smashed-but Labour still mange to form a majority Government, then i think I may be right.
I hope you are right as this government is woeful.
A fair number of commentators have been pushing the line that the opposition need to put up some sort of agenda in order to be elected. Apart from the fact this flies in the face of a complete absence of an agenda from the incumbents, it goes against that old saying in politics - oppositions don't get voted in, governments get voted out. I hope that old saying proves correct.
The wall to wall coverage of the stuff up by Albanese is astounding. The media are clearly, and very obviously, on one side in this election. The ABC is affected too as they would look biased in comparison just by being neutral. It was a small stuff up, in fact Adam Bandt's response was very incisive, it exposed that these are not genuine questions, just a bit of puerile clickbait entertainment.
The massive spending by Palmer and his cronies could also have an impact, although I am still trying to work out how they are going to pivot to favouring the LNP as opposed to their strategy so far of a pox on both houses. Watch where they direct preferences and you will see where their allegiances lie.
Hopefully the independents will have an impact too, very much hoping that our local member will be out of a job soon, extremists from the IPA are not my favoured local member.
As someone not on social media I do wonder how much impact will come from there. It seems most people set up their social media to be an echo chamber of their own views so presumably it would be hard to shift votes on social media.
I will also wait for ScoMo to stuff up, it will happen, everyone stuffs up. Then we will see the contrast with how the right wing media deal with this.
DS
votecompass.abc.net.au
www.theshovel.com.au
www.theguardian.com
