With a record number of Australians having already cast their vote, the ABC discusses how the political messages over the last 35 days have been perceived and received by voters. Marketing strategist Toby Ralph and former Labor advisor Ryan Liddell both say this might be the last time we see a majority government.
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00:00What I'm doing is an exit poll of people who voted and it's 2,000 people but so far there's
00:081,071 that we've got and we're not looking at who's going to win because it's a national
00:14campaign and to work out who's going to win you have to go by marginal seat although there
00:19are indications there. What we're looking at specifically is the issues and why people
00:25are not voting for particular parties. What are the issues they're concerned about and
00:30why are they not voting? There are two reasons why people are not. The first is Donald Trump
00:39and the chaos that he's causing and people are very nervous about that but that tends to
00:43net out a bit between each major party. The big reason, the thing that will dominate voting
00:49in this election is nuclear. Nuclear is an astonishing, frankly, act of self-harm by
00:58the coalition. It's going to cost them somewhere between 2% and 3% of the vote. There's a nuclear
01:07swing there. The difficulty they have is that not all Liberals like it and many, many other
01:19people don't. In fact, 12% of people are saying it will significantly affect their vote. Even
01:24of Liberals, of those people who say they support it strongly, if you take off the people who say
01:30they don't support it, there's a negative of minus 17% of Liberals who are very concerned about it.
01:37It's a politically dreadful problem. And just finishing on that point without laboring it too
01:44much, it's not just because of the cost. People give all sorts of reasons. It's cost. It's having
01:51larger government. It's safety. It's earthquakes. It's waste disposal. There's a smorgasbord of reasons
01:58why people hate this policy and it's going to be very damaging. Yeah, it's interesting that nuclear has
02:03become a prominent position. I would have thought it would have been housing or cost of living, Toby.
02:11Well, cost of living is interesting because everyone out there is very concerned about not
02:16everyone. Most people out there are very concerned about cost of living. And there is a strong
02:20sentiment that Labour have been pretty hopeless with it. But there's an equal offsetting sentiment
02:27that the coalition wouldn't make any difference. So people aren't actually voting on that.
02:32Right. The opinion polls, if I could bring you into this conversation, the opinion polls
02:38are saying there's possibility a Labour win or perhaps Labour in a minority government. We've seen
02:45opinion polls be wrong before, though. You know, Peter Dunton points to the fact that in 2019
02:52there was that Morrison mystery and the Liberal Party, the coalition came back in again.
02:58Does he have a right to be hopeful?
03:01Oh, look, you know, you will only know the result of the election tonight or maybe it might take a
03:06little bit longer. It's a two-horse race about who's going to form government. But there are a number
03:11of factors that are different this time, Farsi, than they were in 2019. One, in 2019, the polls were
03:18getting worse for the Labor Party as the party got closer to Election Day. And so they were sort of
03:23holding on day by day. Whereas the opposite is obviously happening this time. The polls are
03:27getting much better for Anthony Albanese. And two, this time we've got an extraordinarily
03:32strong dissatisfaction rating for Peter Dutton. I think it's lowest for an opposition leader
03:40heading into an election since Andrew Peacock. And that's before many of our time in politics.
03:45So that's a long time ago. But I think that really is, the polling really does tell a story
03:49about this campaign. You know, in February, you know, Peter Dutton had an election winning
03:54lead. He was running sort of sky high. His primary, the primary for the Liberals was well north
04:00of 40. 2BP was, had a commanding lead and his approvals were well above, you know, all above
04:08the Prime Minister's. And since then, you know, you've seen a 16 point increase in news poll for
04:13the preferred Prime Minister for Anthony Albanese. The, the, the, the, the coalition sort of primary
04:19vote has, has collapsed. And I think that, that'll sort of, that'll tell a story about
04:25what happens on election tonight as the votes sort of come in. To Toby's point, he's right,
04:31you know, obviously the overall trend across the country matters to a certain degree, but
04:36it really matters where it falls in these marginal seas. You know, Ryan, the primary votes for
04:40both major parties have been on the decline in recent years. We've seen the surge of the
04:45independents, the teals as well. Is this a reflection of voter dissatisfaction and apathy
04:52towards the two major parties? Or is it a reflection of the change in demographics? You know, given
04:57that it's going to be Gen Zs and millennials that will be outnumbering baby boomers in this election.
05:03I think it's, I think it's all that fuzzy. And I think it's, you know, also the fact that
05:08politics around the world is fragmenting. You know, there are some very smart political
05:14strategists in Australia who say that we may never see a majority government again, which
05:18I find kind of hard to believe, but you know, that's what they say. And you see the success
05:22of minority governments in various other sort of democracies comparable around the world,
05:26and they, they function effectively. So, but I think you're right. I think this election
05:30seems like a little bit different insofar as both major parties to different degrees
05:35of success, I'd argue probably the Labor Party has been very successful insofar as looking
05:40at different ways to reach younger voters, particularly with its policy offerings, but
05:43also by the, the PN spent a lot of time on podcasts, you know, talking to influencers,
05:50being able to sort of communicate to, to younger voters who don't usually have a strong interest
05:55in politics on their terms and on platforms that they sort of absorb is a really effective
06:00way. It was proving an effective way of campaigning.
06:02Toby, would you agree that perhaps the time of the majority government is over? We're now
06:08starting to see the minority parties, the independents, the teals start to creep in more
06:13into a more prominent political position.
06:16There's a Bruce Willis movie where there's a little kid at the end who says, I see dead
06:22people. And, um, one of my favorites, Sixth Sense. Yes.
06:27At the end that Bruce has been dead the entire time. Um, the two party system is Bruce Willis.
06:33It just hasn't worked out. It's dead yet. Um, it's been collapsing for decades. It's, there
06:39might be a majority this time, but that's probably the last one we'll see. I think, um, and it's
06:45happening, it's happening for a, there are some simple reasons and there are some complex
06:48reasons. If you want me to explain, I'm happy to, but, uh, um, the, yeah, it's, I, I think
06:54it's on its knees near death.