The Coalition Government has gained another term in power. They have at least seventy – seven seats in the Upper House.
Labor’s big problem: communication
I think Labor’s biggest weakness was communication. All people heard, (and what pockets of mainstream media emphasised) was taxes and cost to the economy.
In the months leading up to the election, Bill Shorten was unable or unwilling to explain his plans and be honest about costing. He didn’t even explain franking credits; something that many Australians may not have to worry about.
The fear of taxing of superannuation was probably the thing that people were most scared of. Who wants to lose more of their retirement savings? Yet, I didn’t hear much in the media (that was convincing at least), that only a small number of retirees would be affected snd by how much.
Another area that wasn’t properly explained was Labor’s climate change policy.
How was the electric car plan going to work? On average, how far should an electric car battery run for before they had to be recharged? How much would they cost? None of these were explained by Shorten. Instead, he seemed to dodge questions.
What role did the media play?
Were Shorten’s lack of clear answers all his fault? What part did the media play?
One may argue that Bill Shorten did face resistance. His role in the Julia Gillard/ Kevin Rudd saga wouldn’t have helped this.
Newscorp in particular has been accused of being overly unbalanced and anti – Labor. Some also argue that many of the questions that Shorten were asked were ‘gotcha’ questions, rather than sincere ones.
What I DON’T think this election was about
I was annoyed how sections of the media made the election about the Israel Folau saga or Safe Schools. I doubt it. At leadt I hope most of us left the culture wars in 2017.
While some in the media insisted that the Rugby Australia fallout with Folau did play a role, (i.e. Outsiders), I can’t believe that it was a major contributor. Again, I think it was more to do with Labor’s inability or unwillingness to explain their financial plans.
Final thoughts: how out of touch is the media?
Over the past five or so years, polls and commentators largely predicted a Labor victory.
This, on Saturday, this was proven to be wrong.
So how did they get it so wrong? Maybe over – sampling of certain demographics played a part. Maybe people weren’t honest when polled. Something was amiss.
Either polling methods need to change, or pre election polling should be seen as useless and discarded altogether. All the polls I saw, (and I think that were reported), indicated a landslide or narrow Labor victory.
So either polling methods should be changed or considered totally useless. The second part seemed to be the case this time round.
So, what now?
Well, Scott Morrison is Prime Minister of Australia. If I was an advisor for Labor, I’d encourage them to do the following:
1. Be clear about costings/ taxes and keep them to a minimum
2. Answer questions as honestly as possible
3. Don’t tax everyone to the back teeth or make it look like you are.
