One of the #funnotfun things about elections is the endless examination of opinion polls. Margin of error be damned, a one percentage point move fills column inches.
The truth of it is that both major parties have been sitting on the knife edge of a 50/50 split for the last couple of months. That analysis however, doesn’t include undecided voters (around 20%, and even higher for women and people under 25). It’s also based on preferences as they were at the last election, and there’s been some significant changes since then. And it assumes uniform swings across the country, rather than localised blips which could throw up unexpected results, like one of the safest Liberal seats in the country possibly falling to the Greens.
Essentially, all the polls tell us is that no one really knows who is going to win yet.
When you get past the breathless speculation about meaningless numbers, some of the other polling information shows a pretty clear explanation for this. Around 65% of people think both the major parties “will promise anything to win votes” and only about 30% believe they will keep their promises.
So, no matter what the government or Labor have promised, two thirds of the country doesn’t believe them.
Additionally, less than half of us think either party has good policies, are clear about what they stand for, have a clear vision for the future or has a good team of leaders, and there’s almost no difference in how we see either of the major parties on these points.
The biggest differences in perceptions was in “too close to the big corporate and financial interests” (65 % Liberal/35% Labor), “out of touch with ordinary people” (63% Liberal/46% Labor) and “looks after the interests of working people” (31 % Liberal/56 % Labor).
So in the race to beat the runner up, the Labor party is looking pretty good right now. That is, until you factor in the personalities.
Policy versus personality
Despite all the claims that Australian politics runs under the Westminster system (so we vote for parties, not for leaders) the personalities do matter. Most of us don’t have an in-depth understanding of macroeconomics, educational theory or medical practices. Nor do we all study the fine print of each party policy on employment, education and health. We vote on a general sense of what we think is important and who we think is the least worst option. Too often, those perceptions are centred on the party leader and how we think they will manage government.
Turnbull’s leadership initially had a huge impact on voting intentions, the Liberals jumping back to an election winning position within a week of his coup. But they’ve been on a slow, steady slide ever since. Turnbull was supposed to fix all the problems everyone other than the IPA and the conservative Christian lobby had with the government. We expected him to bring them back to the rational centre. He didn’t. The schism within his own party runs too deep. Right wing religious conservatives and the Coalition's moderate progressives are further apart than the government and the Labor party.
WHO'S WHO
Leader profile: Bill Shorten
Turnbull either didn’t have the power or didn’t have the will to overcome the hard right, so he appeased them by continuing attacks against the arts, women, queers, marriage equality, the environment, the poor, the sick, the elderly, and pretty much anyone else who isn’t a rich, straight, white man. And there’s just not enough rich straight white men around to win a general election. Bye bye Malcom’s approval ratings.
Shorten, on the other hand, who never had charisma or sexy jackets, had to find something else. Weirdly enough, he chose policy. And even more weirdly, it seems to be working for him. As Turnbull’s approval ratings plummeted, Shorten’s slowly crept upwards, with the largest growth in women and young people. Given those two groups are still the highest undecideds, this might just be enough to win Labor the election. But another possible scenario, if the deep distrust of the major parties translates into votes for Greens or independents, is a hung parliament. It’s a prospect that probably frightens both parties equally, but their response to minor parties under the beds is tellingly different.
The government got the work experience kid to create a farcical attack ad, preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens and ran crying to the Murdoch minions about Shorten letting all the brown people in. Labor announced more policies, and made stern noises about the NBN and childcare.
Both the major parties are their own worst enemy in this election, and the protest vote from an utterly fed up electorate might serve up a loss to both of them. But until they deal with the fundamental causes of our lack of trust, shouty noises about Bad Things On The Other Side is only going to drive more people away from partisan politics and into the welcoming arms of smaller parties and independents. It’s difficult to see how they can do that less than three weeks to go, but, for the sake of the entire country, we can hope they’ll at least make an effort.
Jane Gilmore is a writer from Melbourne. She writes about politics and feminist issues, and her work has appeared in Fairfax, The Drum, The Guardian, and more.
