Labor’s election victory defied expectations, with the Albanese government increasing its majority in the lower house and on track to have the highest number of seats since Bob Hawke’s 1987 win.
The ALP’s two-party preferred vote, sitting at 54.59 per cent as Solidarity went to press, was also a shock—the party’s highest winning margin since 1946.
But these figures hide an underlying weakness. Labor’s primary vote bounced back to 34.8 per cent. However, this is only a recovery to its 2016 result, when it lost the election to Malcolm Turnbull.
And factoring in the Liberals’ disastrous performance, the combined primary vote for the major parties has dropped again to 66.9 per cent, lower than 2022’s 68.28 per cent. This means a third of the population voted for independent and minor party candidates.
Most of the teals consolidated their hold on their seats but the Liberals ousted Zoe Daniel in the affluent Melbourne bayside seat of Goldstein. High-profile independent campaigns by the likes of Alex Dyson in the Victorian seat of Wannon fell short.
Labor’s big majority will make the teals even more irrelevant than before.
Meanwhile, in a warning against complacency for the left, the minor party vote was polarised between progressive and far-right candidates.
The Greens, who faced a vicious negative campaign led by Advance Australia and financed by fossil fuel companies, dropped 0.5 per cent in the lower house and 0.25 per cent in the senate, losing at least three seats but maintaining their senate spots.
Independents and Greens made the two-party preferred count in a total of 32 seats, five more than at the last election.
But the combined vote for One Nation, Trumpet of Patriots, Family First and other similar far-right groups was only 36,000 below the total for The Greens.
It’s a warning that anger with Labor’s failures does not automatically flow to the left.
Where candidates campaigned strongly in support of Palestine, they made some impact. In Western Sydney, Ahmed Ouf won 20.6 per cent in Blaxland and Ziad Basyouny gained 15.6 per cent in Watson—both very safe Labor seats.
In Wills, in Melbourne, a pro-Palestine campaign saw a 7.5 per cent swing to The Greens in two-party preferred terms, helped by an increase of 5.27 per cent for Socialist Alliance’s Sue Bolton.
In three other Melbourne seats Victorian Socialists candidates polled between 6.5 and 8.9 per cent.
Labor’s vote
Voters overwhelmingly rejected Dutton and the Liberals. But Labor’s primary vote is still well below historic levels. Albanese’s centre-right policies failed to win back much of Labor’s traditional working-class base.
Until the 1980s, Labor would win elections with close to 50 per cent of the primary vote. Even when they lost, their primary vote never fell below 39 per cent. As recently as 2007, Labor came to power with 43.38 per cent of the primary vote, 8.5 percentage points higher than this year’s result.
The decline in support for the Labor party reflects a weakening hold on its working-class base. In 1987, 32 per cent of the voting population described themselves as lifetime Labor voters, according to the Australian Election Study. By 2022, this had fallen to just 12 per cent.
Over the same period, the percentage of those voting for Labor who identified as working class fell from 60 to 38 per cent. This reflects a broad sense of working-class disillusionment with the Labor Party, going back decades.
The Albanese Government’s inaction on the cost of living and attacks on the CFMEU are just the tip of the iceberg.
Since the Hawke-Keating Labor government of 1983-1996, Labor has been veering further and further away from its traditionally social-democratic commitment, embracing neoliberalism and attacking their own supporters.
Labor’s change in direction reflects its nature as a capitalist workers’ party. When the economy is growing, profits are big enough to be shared with the working class without too much complaint from the capitalists.
However, in times of economic crisis, Labor has never hesitated to attack workers and defend the interests of capitalism. Even Gough Whitlam, whose reforms went far beyond anything Albanese has offered, changed tack after the 1974 economic crisis, cutting government spending and trying to restrain the unions.
Despite Labor’s thumping victory, Albanese has no intention of moving away from the cautious, right-wing approach that has defined his time in power.
As the global economy looks more and more shaky, we should not expect Albanese to protect workers from the fallout. We will need to defend our rights in our workplaces and on the streets.
By Jacob Starling
