Scott Morrison begins a third term unlike any of his recent predecessors. He has won an election by turning a minority of seats into a majority. He has a fresh mandate. The cabinet and backbench have been renewed. And he has an opportunity to set the Coalition up for further election victories.The government’s re-election was more an endorsement of brand ScoMo than brand Liberal. The Prime Minister ran a presidential-style campaign. His personal story — as rugby league-loving daggy dad from the suburbs — was front and centre. Jenny Morrison and their two girls were campaign assets. The election victory has increased Morrison’s authority within the government.Josh Frydenberg also played a key role. Together, the Liberal leader and deputy presented a new face to a government that has spent years divided over policy and philosophy, and torn apart by an explosive cycle of ambition and revenge that led to the felling of two prime ministers.Morrison excels where Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull often fell short: managing a team. Morrison has united the Liberals — admittedly helped by their departures — and has a good working relationship with his deputy, Frydenberg, Senate leader Mathias Cormann and Nationals leader Michael McCormack.
While many at the senior levels of the government doubted they would be re-elected, Morrison’s optimism, hope and self-belief never wavered. These are essential traits in a political leader. Morrison’s skills as a tactician and strategist, drawing on his experience as state director of the NSW Liberal Party, were also important. He saw the pathway to victory that many did not.
The election victory gives Morrison a clean slate for a third term. The new cabinet and outer ministry sworn in this week has many new faces and senior ministers have had portfolios rearranged. The Coalition has 28 new MPs and senators in parliament — another sign of rejuvenation.
Labor, meanwhile, shows little sign of learning the lessons of defeat or the need to revitalise its shadow ministry.Bill Shorten, in his speech to caucus, blamed “corporate leviathans”, “powerful vested interests” and “a financial behemoth” for Labor’s election loss. Anthony Albanese, nonsensically, agreed with him. “There is no doubt that vested interests did play a role,” he said yesterday.It has been a shambolic week for Albanese. His “listening tour” of Queensland was a disaster. He could not bring himself to say, unequivocally, that Labor supported coalmining, including Adani. Labor is, by definition, the party of working people. It should always be on the side of workers and it should offer strong support to the mining sector. Albanese did neither.Albanese’s authority was further undermined by a sloppy frontbench reshuffle. Many in caucus are dismayed at his poor judgment in promoting Kristina Keneally by dumping Ed Husic from the frontbench and Don Farrell from the Senate leadership. Many Labor MPs are not convinced Keneally deserved such rapid promotion at the expense of others. Only five new MPs joined Labor’s shadow ministry. This is not renewal.More broadly, Labor needs to accept that it was rejected by swaths of blue-collar and middle-class aspirational voters across Australia. Labor’s primary vote was a dismal 33.3 per cent. The party also was spurned by many voters in seats it managed to hold in the outer suburbs and regions. Labor did best in inner-city seats.Many marginal seats that Labor thought it could win are now safely held by the Coalition. Even worse, as The Australian national affairs editor Simon Benson wrote this week, Labor will face a difficult challenge to hold its own seats at the next election. It is likely to hold seven of the top 10 marginal seats around Australia, all on margins of 1.5 per cent or less. Defending these seats will soak up considerable campaign resources.That is why comparisons with Labor’s defeat in 2004 or the Coalition’s defeat in 1993, which saw both return to office at the following election after a bout of soul-searching and leadership churn, are flawed historical analogies. It won’t be that easy for Labor. This kind of thinking is a trap. Labor, as the paper’s editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, has argued, is the party of competitive losses. Losing is what Labor does best.In 2004 the Coalition won a comfortable victory with a majority of seats in the house and Senate. But it overreached with its Work Choices legislation. By 2007 Labor had changed leaders twice, from Mark Latham to Kim Beazley and again to Kevin Rudd. John Howard was a respected long-term prime minister but many voters felt he had stayed too long. Rudd offered non-threatening generational change with the promise of “new leadership”.In 1993, Labor won a surprise victory and increased its vote and seat tally. While Paul Keating’s prime ministership was a productive one — enterprise bargaining, superannuation, competition policy, trade liberalisation, native title, welfare reform, the arts and the republic — he retreated from politics by ignoring much of the media and reducing his question time appearances. Yet Keating still demolished John Hewson and Alexander Downer before the Liberals turned to Howard, who proved to be a much tougher opponent.None of these scenarios apply today. Morrison is not a long-term prime minister leading a government in its fourth term similar to Howard. Nor is he like Keating, who was tired, had expended a lot of political capital and was seeking to do what Labor had never done before: win a sixth term.For those reaching for a historical analogy that helps understand the 2019 election, perhaps the 1963 election is a better comparison. Labor, led by Arthur Calwell, was supremely confident of winning the 1963 election. Labor had come within a whisker of victory in 1961. Winning the next election seemed assured. Sound familiar? But the Coalition won the 1963 election easily.Robert Menzies, the master politician, had consolidated his position and shifted course on policy, notably state aid for non-government schools, and seized the chance to go to an early election in 1963. He also cleverly exploited Labor’s “faceless men” scandal. Guess what happened when Menzies’ successor as Liberal Party leader, Harold Holt, went to the polls at the next election in 1966? Labor got smashed. Will 2022 be 1966?While it is far too early to predict the next election, Morrison has every reason to feel confident. He has a shrewd political mind and is a good party manager. He has increased his authority. The cabinet has been refreshed. The electoral map favours the Coalition. And he will be helped further by a Labor Party still in denial about its defeat and saddled with lacklustre leadership.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/scomo-set-to-go-extra-mile-while-labor-unfit-to-lead/news-story/7d61f859c4e41ef25d8886cc9e7d7184
