Election Day in Australia: A choice between ‘builder’ and ‘bulldozer’
His opponent, Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese, has described himself as a “builder” who will boost wages and broaden opportunity. But after early stumbles, it was unclear whether he’d built enough momentum to oust his sharp-elbowed rival.
“I don’t think there is an enthusiastic embrace of Albanese,” said Paul Strangio, a political historian at Monash University. “But he’s been able to convince the electorate that he’s not a threat, that he represents safe, cautious change, and therefore is a tolerable alternative.”
The election will probably be close, analysts say, and could end in a hung Parliament, in which neither major party achieves a majority and must court independent or minor party candidates to form a government.
Up for grabs are all 151 seats in the House of Representatives. The coalition currently holds a one-seat majority in Parliament’s lower chamber. Labor needs to pick up seven seats to form a government. Forty of the 76 seats in the upper chamber, the Senate, are also up for election.
The contest comes at a tense time Down Under. The land of “no worries” has become, well, worried. Australians, normally among the most optimistic people on the planet, have grown increasingly dissatisfied with their lives and concerned about their future, recent polling shows.
The world’s 13th biggest economy is going strong, as exemplified by Morrison’s gleeful announcement this week that unemployment had dropped to the lowest level in half a century. But inflation, equally strong, means many Australians are effectively earning less by the day.
Australia has one of the highest rates of coronavirus infection per capita in the world. So many people are getting sick that the government decided on the eve of the election to extend phone voting for those in isolation. But the pandemic has hardly featured in the campaign.
Mark Kenny, a professor of politics at Australian National University, described the prevailing mood as “fatigue, uncertainty, a little bit of fear.”
”Things like an increasingly assertive China, the war in Ukraine, the cost of living crisis,” he said. Morrison “has tried to leverage these things and package them all up into an overall atmosphere of uncertainty that will only be added to if you change government.”
But those warnings against change don’t appear to be gaining traction. Polls have consistently shown Labor with a lead going into the election.
If the prime minister does lose, he might be the prime reason.
A year ago, Morrison, 54, appeared to be cruising toward reelection thanks to Australia’s early success in keeping out the coronavirus. But a slow vaccine rollout and outbreaks of the delta and omicron variants renewed criticism over his crisis management — a subject that first flared when Morrison went on holiday during devastating bush fires in 2019 and 2020.
When questioned about his absence, his reply — “I don’t hold a hose, mate” — fed into criticism that Morrison is slow to act but quick to dodge blame. Those complaints resurfaced in March, when the prime minister waited more than a week to declare a national emergency over historic floods. When he did visit one hard-hit town, the trip was brief, belated and stage-managed to avoid protesters.
The prime minister has also faced credibility issues. Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron accused Morrison of lying over a scrapped submarine deal. Then came a flurry of attacks from within the coalition, including leaked text messages describing him as a “horrible person” and “complete psycho.” The friendly fire appears to have punctured his persona as a straight-shooting suburban dad, analysts said.
“Distrust of Morrison has become a palpable theme of this election campaign,” Strangio said.
Morrison’s deputy, Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, tried to defend the prime minister this month by likening him to a dentist.
“You don’t have to like your dentist,” Joyce said. “You just have to believe they are competent. Because when they have got that drill in your mouth, you want to make sure they hit the right tooth. You don’t want it through your tongue or cheek.”
Yet Joyce’s own leaked texts showed him calling Morrison “a hypocrite and a liar.”
ScoMo, as the prime minister is known here, is a former marketing executive who defied the polls three years ago by stoking fear over Labor’s then-ambitious agenda.
“He’s incredibly good at creating images and using words to achieve his political aims,” said Sean Kelly, a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and former Labor adviser who wrote a book about Morrison. “What’s happened over the last three years is that people have begun to see through that.”
Like Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. election, Albanese, 59, appears happy for the election to be a referendum on his divisive opponent, Strangio said. And like Biden, he has emphasized empathy and unity.
“He’s an appropriate foil to Morrison,” Strangio said. “Albanese presents himself as someone who is dogged, who will act, who will take responsibility.”
The Labor leader has run a small-target campaign, paring back some of his party’s more divisive policies — such as cuts to carbon emissions — and eschewing others to avoid a repeat of Labor’s shock loss in 2019. That has led to accusations that Albo, as he is called, lacks ambition. But it’s also left Morrison with little to aim at.
“Morrison always defines himself against his opponent,” Kelly said. Albanese’s strategy left the prime minister with “nothing to oppose, nothing to run a scare campaign against.”
But the approached also posed a risk for Albanese, who started the race as the far lesser known candidate and struggled to introduce himself to voters.
Like Morrison, Albanese spent most of the six-week campaign talking about the economy. He tripped over an early question on unemployment but appeared to slowly find his feet — and his voice. In recent weeks, Albanese has called for a one-dollar hike to the minimum wage — a move Morrison says would hurt small business owners.
The election is unlikely to alter Australia’s close relationship with the United States, said Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University. Washington sees Canberra as a key ally in pushing back against China. Last year’s AUKUS agreement — a landmark deal for the United States and the United Kingdom to provide Australia with nuclear propelled submarines — underscored the alliance. Albanese supports the agreement. When U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Australia in February, he made a point of visiting both Morrison and the opposition leader.
After suggesting he would alter his “bulldozer” ways a few weeks ago, Morrison appeared to backtrack on the eve of the election. When asked what he would change, the prime minister refused to answer, then chided the reporter.
“You’re sounding like a bit of a bulldozer,” he said.
Frances Vinall in Melbourne contributed to this report.