A week, as they say, is a long time in politics. Little more than a week ago the Australian federal government was at the mercy of state premiers. Now, PM Scott Morrison is seizing the initiative and demanding that premiers abide by Canberra’s roadmap to end lockdowns and restrictions.
And the public is finally swinging behind him.
Federal and state leaders must take heed of the latest YouGov survey results that show Australians are ready to get vaccinated, want kids back in schools and are more concerned about the financial and mental health impact of lockdowns on others than the prospect of getting Covid-19 themselves.
The shift is not exactly seismic, of course. A never-ending deluge of fear-porn from the media clearly still holds too many in its sway. But it’s still significant.
The detailed research contains a warning for politicians that support for lockdowns is waning and that what is wanted is a clear pathway back to normality. The detail of the comprehensive YouGov survey, the first part of which is published on Tuesday, provides a context to the headline Newspoll figures on Monday that showed voters were sticking with Scott Morrison but turning away from the Coalition government.
Australia’s state premiers, most of them Labor, have enjoyed unprecedented power during the pandemic, thanks to our federal system of government. The federal government has been metaphorically and almost literally held hostage: border closures have meant that the PM is confined to Canberra.
Scott Morrison’s political fortunes have also been hostage to the premiers. As happened during the 2020 bushfire crisis, Morrison has borne the brunt of public blame for the failures of the states.
Morrison is striking back and his “open up and learn to live with Covid” message is winning more and more support from a lockdown-exhausted public.
But he still has a long way to go to win back, not disaffected Labor voters, but the Coalition’s conservative base, who’ve deserted the party as the “Wet” faction apes the green-left on everything from climate to gender.
On a two-party-preferred split Labor now leads the Coalition 54 per cent to 46 per cent, which marks a two-point turnaround on the previous poll and the largest lead Labor has enjoyed over the government since before the last federal election. The results put Labor in its strongest position since the 2019 election but Coalition losses have gone predominantly to independents and protest parties rather than the ALP, Greens or Pauline Hanson.
As Simon Benson wrote on Monday, the Newspoll results reflect a shift not from right to left but from right to further right or elsewhere. The question is whether the shift is a transient one, as is more likely, rather than a transitional one, which would be dire. The challenge for the Morrison government is to build on the momentum of the vaccine rollout that is now gathering pace. To do so, it must focus on the issues exposed in depth in the YouGov results.
The Australian
Morrison will likely win that battle, but is still in dire danger of losing the wider war – the Culture War.
The Coalition seems divided between “Dries” who apparently regard the Culture War as a frivolous sideshow, and Wets who are just Greens with blue ties.
This is a recipe for electoral oblivion. As Rupert Murdoch said when he founded Fox News, he had a “hunch there was room for another point of view”. This was the secret to Donald Trump’s success.
The Coalition’s Wets might be terrified of losing their places at the tables of the “smart set” in their green-left inner-city terraces, but they ought to be more terrified of losing their seats in Parliament.
Which is what will almost certainly happen if they can’t grow a spine, stand up to the green-left and offer Australia “another point of view”.
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