FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2025 – TWO VIEWS – MARY EASSON

As the federal election campaign for 2025 came to an end, polls showed Labor comfortably ahead but predictions still uncertain about a minority government outcome given the slim majority Labor won in 2022. To evaluate the various party and independent candidates and the possible outcome, The Sydney Institute invited Mary Easson – former Labor MP for the seat of Lowe – and Michael Kroger – former president of the Liberal Party of Victoria – to address members on Thursday 24 April 2025. As endless polls pointed to a range of outcomes, seat by seat, the overall assessment seemed to be that it was a most unpredictable election.

FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2025 – TWO VIEWS

MARY EASSON

This election, everyone tells me, is boring. I am in two minds about what that means.

On the one hand, I like the fact that Australia is not wracked with distrustful and terrible divisions, even hatreds, as we see in some countries. The lack of bipartisanship and friendships across the aisle as we increasingly see in the United States worries many of us about that country.

I used to think that the test of a nation’s maturity is whether its politics is relatively uninteresting, untrammelled by ideological extremes. This thought brings me to my second point about this campaign. I wonder if the lack of mention shown by both parties on key strategic issues, including defence and foreign policy, and the stagnation in productivity growth, calls attention to a wider political malaise. We are a long way from the Hawke-Keating-Howard years.

I’ll come back to this point in a moment but there, undoubtedly, is one interesting aspect of the election. Three months ago, it looked as if it could be in the bag for the Opposition. I heard about the private polling. Cost of living pressures had the government on the nose. Trump changed the wider political environment. But before going there, let me make some general observations.

The complacency of expectations has led to many of the Opposition’s difficulties today. Right now, it looks like Labor will get there. Some internally are speculating whether Labor will win big. Of course, apart from 1929 and 1943, Labor never wins by huge margins. It would be foolish, however, to make any calls even this close, two weeks out from this election on 3 May.

The electorate is fickle, the support base for both parties is not commanding. There is almost as many “others” as committed to the majors. Labor’s possible winning card is: “better the devil you know…” This year, in the lead-up to the campaign and subsequently, there have been so many shifts and turns. Yet, at this moment I feel more confident for the Government than for the Opposition.

The Opposition was too relaxed when they should have been on high focus about their policies, their personalities, the key ministers, the main priorities. In the opening weeks of the campaign, a lot of the Liberal propaganda, their media advertising, has tried to present a more humane and interesting Opposition leader. They should have done that a year ago. It seems to me like they are introducing Peter Dutton to it sceptical electorate, mindful of an image problem. For the life of me, I do not know why they waited so long. Having met him several times he is very personable. But, please, don’t let me get carried away on that point.

Polling suggests that the Labor Party will probably win the election on the 3 May. Whether it wins outright or as a result of a hung parliament. Suddenly, we have detected a shift in the personal popularity ratings of the leaders since the campaign started Dutton’s popularity has gone down and Albanese’s has gone up. Albanese is rating as the better Prime Minister in Newspoll of yesterday 64 per cent to 36 per cent for Dutton.

Surprisingly, voting intentions haven’t changed very much from the last election. When polls are taken before an election people tend to treat them like a referendum on government. They talk about what they dislike about a government but when it comes to voting either during a campaign as pre poll voting or on Election Day it’s more a real choice “who do I like better” out of the leaders or their policies and in some cases a local member or candidate can affect a result. As a comment from a bloke in Queensland on TV said, “Three years is not enough to turn the ship of state around, so I’m going to give Albo another crack.”

The Channel 9 debate of two days ago had Dutton declaring that he wanted to “protect” people. Whereas Albanesi declared that “kindness” was in his DNA that he had been brought up to be kind and he wanted to always show “kindness”. This appears to be more appealing to female voters.

The average age for a voter at this election will be 49 years. Younger voters 18 to 34 years old are a very large cohort in all states and political parties and social media has been targeting them. An older age group is often unaware of the campaign that is being run on iPhones and computers. They tend to only observe the TV ads and the mainstream newspapers, radio and comments about how little literature people have received through the letter boxes.

In my day of campaigning over 30 years ago, we would direct mail somebody who had either signed a petition or had sent a letter showing their concern for a particular issue but these days online they are able to see and understand what issues are of interest to young individual voters and can target them more precisely.

This explains why a number of the policy directions of the major parties have been directed to the younger age group. Examples of these: Free Tafe Courses, 20 per cent deduction in HECS debts and 5 per cent deposit for housing. If you have young children and bulk billing is not available near where you live, you will appreciate the 24-hour medical centres being established. I noticed Sally Sitou, my local member in Reid, had a TV advert of her announcing one of these medical centres for Burwood. On my computer the same day there was an advertisement with my local Mayor talking about how important this is for the local area and how Sally has won this for our electorate. That’s very good local promotion for the candidate.

Fifty years ago, when I was first involved in politics, the Labor Party had a support base of 45 oper cent, the Liberals equally had a support base of 45 per cent and there was 10 per cent of swinging voters. Now, both political parties are trying to keep a base vote of 30 per cent and are far more dependent on our preferential voting system.

Peter Dutton said in the debate the other night that if Labor got in as a hung parliament it would be a Labor/ Greens government and Albanese he said no, it would not be. I know of no one in the Labor Party that wants to do a deal with the Greens, and I suspect that if Labor wins as a hung parliament it won’t have to do a deal with any one grouping to be able to secure legislation through the House of Representatives. If there are a lot of cross benchers, then deals can be done to get legislation through without having a permanent agreement in place with one specific group. There are still two weeks to go in this campaign, but voters have already started voting. Timing of events, such as Easter, ANZAC day and the death of the Pope have intersected the election campaign. Such events/occasions certainly take up the media oxygen and distract from the campaign. So, things can change and it’s dangerous to make predictions. But I believe that Labor may even win this election outright.

There are 151 seats in the House of Reps, currently the Labor Govt has 77 members, the Coalition 53, minor parties make up Greens 4, Centre Alliance 1 and Katter’s Australian Party 1, with 13 independent members including Teals. It’s important to remember that there are 151 individual fights for seats. One side needs 76 seats to win out right.

So, what is it about this campaign that makes it unique? Well, I think that it is the elephant in the room that no one is talking about. This campaign has appeared boring in many ways all focused on domestic issues yet there is a feeling of uncertainty, anxiousness and apprehension because of Trump and his tariffs, as well as questions about loyalty from him if we were under attack.

Older Australians are worried about whether their superannuation will bounce back, will we be further economically penalised, will a war be in our future. When you feel anxious, uncertain and suffering from anxiety you tend to stick the people that you know. You stick with Albo for another three years. But while I think that Paul Ericson (National Campaign Director) has done a very good job, I believe that it’s the backdrop of Trump that is bringing this election home for Labor.

Labor isn’t perfect and there are things that in my opinion they have done wrong. For example, the decisions on the Middle East where Labor has moved away from a bipartisan position. It is regrettable that in our multicultural society we appear to have alienated both Jews and Muslims. Our handling of this issue disrupted our social harmony. The rise of antisemitic offences was horrible. This was a war that we could not influence the outcome of and now there is far less chance of a Palestine State for the Muslims. That was not brilliant tactics and all these things add to instability.

There are negatives concerning the Liberals campaig. Dutton appeared not to be campaign ready. Even the media were complaining that in giving speeches he should have been better prepared. However, in the most recent debate he acquitted himself well – I think it was very close, although I gave it as a win for Albanese.

But leaving announcements such as the Defence $21 billion extra spend, a bit too late, they also appear to want to use the tax cut (estimated at $17 billion ) to pay for it. Another point – hou haven’t see a lot of shadow ministers in the campaign; Dutton was the main show. All political parties have their faults and if you are going to support one, be prepared to compromise. They will all let you down at some stage – even Teals or individuals will let you down. Most parties are better when they are a broad church. A number of talented left-wing Liberals and former ministers of the parliament were not replaced. The teals took their spots. All parties need to replenish their talent.

As I see it from predictions in polling I have perused, in Tasmania and South Australia there will be no change and Labor will retain all existing seats. In Western Australi, Labor will hold Tangney and in the new seat of Bullwinkle it will be a three way contest. In Queensland, there is a chance of Labor taking Leichhardt where the Liberal candidate is retiring. Labor also believes all three Green seats are at risk – Ryan, Brisbane and Griffiths. In Victoria Labor appears to be coming back from the dead. Labor thinks it can hold Chislom and McEwen, and that Wills and McNamara can be retained. With the Teals Labor thinks Goldstein could be in doubt. In New South Wales, Labor believes it can hold Bennelong as well as Gilmore and Paterson.

Finally, Labor knows the big shifting factor in this year’s election is the political turmoil in the United States. It is unnerving. It has consequences for us. Better the devil you know is Labor’s subliminal message. It is effective, subtle and hard counter.

If Labor does win on 3 May, we might well say “in Trump we trust”.