Chris Trotter assesses the reasons for Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party's big election win in Australia

By Chris Trotter*

Was it Trump? Was it Dutton? Was it the Liberal-National Party? Or, was it yet another example of just how easy it is to underestimate Anthony Albanese? Having listened to “Albo’s” victory speech, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Australian Labor leader’s packaging is as important as the product it contains.

No one beholding Albanese for the first time is ever likely to mistake him for a politician fabricated in the same Labor factory as Gough Whitlam. Indeed, Albanese calls to mind Winston Churchill’s withering dismissal of the British Labour leader, Clement Attlee, as “a modest little man, with a lot to be modest about”.

But isn’t that the point? Albanese comes across as the most ordinary of ordinary blokes. His high-pitched voice and grating Aussie accent render him indistinguishable from millions of his fellow Australians. (John Howard, the last Australian prime minister to be re-elected to a second consecutive term, was much the same.)

There’s nothing about Albo that strobes ‘scary’, nothing suggesting he thinks himself a cut above the average voter. And that’s a good thing. Because, although larger-than-life Labor politicians, like Whitlam, can inspire love, they can also inspire fear.  Who’s afraid of Anthony Albanese?

Far fewer than there should be, clearly.

Peter Dutton – who does strobe ‘scary’ – was stitched-up by Albanese from the get-go. The Labor leader seized upon Dutton’s ‘big idea’: that nuclear power stations would be a more reliable solution to lowering greenhouse emissions than wind and solar; fashioned it into a noose, and hung him with it.

Not only did the mild-mannered Albo pin a $600 billion price-tag on Dutton’s plan, but he also raised the possibility that, to fund this folly, Dutton would eliminate Australia’s beloved Medicare.

“Lies!”, screamed the Liberal-National Coalition. To no avail. Once planted, Albo’s seed sprouted and grew in the electorate’s imagination with a speed that Dutton and his team could not counter. Already disposed to dislike and mistrust “Voldemort” – as Dutton had been wickedly christened by journalists – it was enough that Labor’s accusations might be true. Because, when Aussies thought about it, abolishing Medicare was exactly the sort of thing the Dutton-led Liberal-National Coalition would do.

Viewed objectively, Dutton’s nuclear option wasn’t all that silly. Green icons like James Lovelock, formulator of the ‘Gaia Hypothesis’, had strongly promoted nuclear power as the most effective solution to weaning the world off fossil fuels. Only recently, the Chinese Government successfully tested the world’s first Thorium reactor – which their scientists hailed as a game-changer in the global struggle against climate change.

Dutton’s problem, however, was that his nuclear plan sounded like something Donald Trump would promote. So, too, did Dutton’s announcement that the Liberals would no longer allow public servants to work from home. By the time the Opposition parties grasped that ‘sounding like Donald Trump’ was having the same effect on the Right’s chances of victory as Kryptonite on Superman’s health, it was too late.

Well-meant claims from Coalition supporters that “Peter Dutton is Australia’s Donald Trump” were repeated ad nauseum by a delighted Labor Party, whose pollsters were telling it that voters (especially women voters) were deserting the Liberals in droves. Suddenly, the idea that Dutton’s Brisbane seat of Dickson might be at risk stopped sounding far-fetched. Albanese, with his brave little smile, turned up to give Labor’s candidate, Ali France, a last-minute boost.

Mild-mannered and inoffensive though he might appear, Albanese’s powers of political analysis have always been formidable. The moment President Trump announced his decision to impose tariffs on the whole world – friends as well as foes – the Australian prime minister understood that the election was now his to lose.

Wrong-footed and confused by the sudden turn in world events, the Coalition, uncertain how to proceed, retreated into silence, or, worse still, began repudiating its own policies. Seasoned right-wing commentators judged Dutton’s campaign to be among the worst they had ever covered – right up there with John Hewson’s loss of the “unlosable” general election of 1993.

With genial ruthlessness, Albanese seized the Australian flag and wrapped it as tightly around himself and Labor as Mark Carney and his (very different) Canadian Liberals had wrapped themselves in the Maple Leaf just weeks before.

Incumbency was now Albanese’s best mate. For Australia’s voters to toss Labor out, after just one term, would be tantamount to bending the knee to Trump and his merry band of mad mercantilists. And what sort of dinky-die Aussie was going to do that?

Albanese’s instincts were spot-on. More than half of the Australian electorate cast their votes early – a sure sign that a majority of the electorate has a point to make. Labor’s candidates reported that everywhere they went people were coming up and telling them that, for the first time in their life, they had voted Labor.

Exactly what that meant soon became clear on Election Night. Not only was there a strong swing to the incumbent Labor Government, leaving it with 87 of the House of Representative’s 150 seats, but also with the comforting thought that, after factoring-in the electoral support of the Greens and the so-called “Teal” independents, Australia has, once again, declared itself to be a solidly centre-left nation.

Which leaves the now leaderless Liberals and their National allies (whose MPs held their mostly rural seats without fuss or bother) facing what Sky News commentator Chris Uhlmann described as “an existential crisis”.

He’s not kidding. The Australian Right, even with the heavyweight assistance of the Murdoch press, now seems unequal to the task of connecting with enough young Australians – whose numbers, for the first time, exceed those of the Baby Boom generation – in ways that turn them on rather than off.

Increasingly, the right-wing parties of Australia, and many more around the world, are turning themselves into havens for those who no longer feel comfortable moving among their own people, on their own soil. This sense of alienation and disconnectedness is difficult to hide from the rest of the population. What’s more, it’s getting harder and harder for the rest of the population to forgive.

Albanese’s victory speech, cleverly written and passionately delivered, was a celebration of the core values of twenty-first century Australia, and of the millions of Australians who move freely between its classes and cultures. The emphatically re-elected Labor prime minister is supremely confident that this is the Australia that’s growing.

In assessing its disastrous performance, it is probable the Australian Right will arrive at the same conclusion – that Albanese’s Australia is indeed growing, and theirs is shrinking. The key question therefore becomes: since it is now very clear that conservatives and culture warriors cannot beat the Australia that is growing, can they find the courage to join it?

*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.