A big shake-up down under
Australia’s PM and his party are kicked out of office. Matthew Partridge reports
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison may have been hoping for another “miracle” along the lines of his unexpected victory three years ago, but he now looks more likely to have led his party “into the wilderness” following an emphatic election defeat, says Nick Bryant on the BBC. His right-ofcentre Liberal party was voted out of office and “conservative citadels” in upscale parts of cities such as Sydney and Melbourne “now look like barren lands”. The desertion of “Tesla-driving professionals in blueribbon seats” meant that even Josh Frydenberg, seen as a potential successor as Liberal leader, ended up being voted out of parliament.
Spectacular fall from grace
Morrison’s defeat is a “spectacular fall from grace” for a politician who earned a reputation as a “campaign winner”, says James Crisp in The Daily Telegraph. It also flies in the face of assumptions that “Australia’s bounceback from Covid and robust economy would be enough to prevent a Labor victory”. One of the main factors in the defeat seems to have been anger at Morrison, with the “drip-drip effect of repeated fibs and gaffes” taking their toll, as voters made it clear that “they simply did not trust Morrison any more and opted for Labor’s comparatively sleazefree Anthony Albanese” instead.
The election result was no vote of confidence for Albanese – his party won around only one-third of first preference votes, says Terry Barnes in The Spectator. The decisive factor seems to have been the defection of large number of Liberal voters to third parties, with those angry at Morrison’s complicity in “crushing lockdowns and other authoritarian Covid measures” moving to populist and libertarian parties, while suburban moderates switched to economically conservative but socially liberal “teal” independents. Of the two, the latter group seem to have played the biggest part, picking up voters disillusioned with Morrison’s opposition to climate action and involvement in sex scandals.
Lessons for the Tories
The lessons from these results “should not be lost on Boris Johnson’s senior election strategists”, says Stefan Boscia in The Times. Recent local election results and parliamentary by-elections have shown a “dire loss of support for Johnson in Tory shires across the Home Counties”, as many voters in these are “resentful of Johnson for his role as Brexiteer-in-chief and are uneasy about his expansive economic policies”. If nothing is done to mollify the southern Tory base, Johnson “could be in serious trouble” come the 2024 general election.
The Tories are unlikely to take the election as a signal to tone down the rhetoric on Brexit, says Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Still, Keir Starmer’s Labour will take heart from the fact that his Australian counterpart’s victory was based on a promise of “safe change”, designed to avoid repeating previous mistakes. This victory, along with Le Pen’s loss in France and Trump’s defeat 18 months ago, suggests the pendulum may be “swinging away from a polarising and ultimately grubby era back towards a politics at least vaguely connected to truth and reality”.