Policies and performance in the 2019 Australian federal election

ABSTRACT

The Liberal–National Coalition success in the 2019 Australian federal election surprised many observers, with the opinion polls consistently predicting a Labor victory. The election was notable for Labor’s proposals for wide-ranging tax changes, a historically unpopular Labor leader, and the fourth change of prime minister outside an election since 2010. Using the 2019 Australian Election Study, we test the influence of two models of voting, the first based on ideology together with an emphasis on policy, and the second on performance. The results show that performance was the dominant explanation for the result, with evaluations of party competence and leader popularity playing a major role in explaining voting behaviour in the election, both of which benefitted the Coalition.

自由-国民联盟2019年赢得联邦选举令许多观察家吃惊，因为民调一直预测工党将获胜。这次选举有几点引人注目：工党范围广泛的税收变革计划、史上最没人缘的工党领袖、2010年以来第四次选举之外的总理职务变化。笔者采用澳大利亚选举研究的资料测验了两种投票模式的影响，一个基于意识形态并强调政策，另一个强调表现。测验结果显示，表现是解释结果的主要因素，政党能力以及领导人受欢迎程度主要影响选举中的投票行为。这两条都对联盟有利。

KEYWORDS:

• Australian elections
• voting
• political parties
• political leaders

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Australian Society for Quantitative Political Science Annual Conference, University of Melbourne, 9–10 December 2019. We thank participants and also two anonymous reviewers from this journal for their constructive feedback and suggestions. The 2019 Australian Election Study data used in this paper is available from www.australianelectionstudy.org. Many thanks to all contributors to the AES, in particular Jill Sheppard, the Social Research Centre, the Australian Data Archive, and the ANU School of Politics and International Relations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Sarah Cameron is a Lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney and a contributor to the Australian Election Study. Her research focuses on elections, comparative political behaviour, and Australian politics.

Ian McAllister is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University. He has directed the Australian Election Study since 1987 and was Chair of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems from 2003 until 2009.

Notes

1 Bishop had been deputy Liberal leader since 2007 under four separate Liberal leaders. She was the foreign affairs minister in the Turnbull government. She had stood unsuccessfully for the Liberal leadership in August 2018 when Malcolm Turnbull was deposed and came third, with 11 votes out of 85. She declined to serve in the Morrison government.

2 The 2019 survey was based on a random sample from the Geo-Coded National Address File (G-NAF). The survey had 2179 responses, with a response rate of 42 per cent (Cameron and McAllister 2019b, 150). Further information on the AES methodology, including technical reports, are available from www.australianelectionstudy.org.

3 Quoted in Stubbs and Webster (2018, 6).

4 Newspoll surveys conducted in August 2017 and May 2018 for The Australian (https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/support-plunges-for-mps-holding-dual-citizenship-says-newspoll/news-story/b4acaacb6028a627686941687396425a) found that most of those interviewed wanted parliamentarians who were found to have breached section 44 to be disqualified. Most also were opposed to a referendum to change the constitution. The CSES Australian module found that 49 per cent wanted a change in the constitution while 51 per cent were opposed; just 1 per cent said that they did not know.

5 Pamela Williams, ‘Dirty Tricks and the Dark Side of the Campaign.’ Australian Financial Review, 22 May 2019.

6 The candidates who were viewed as most likely to replace Turnbull were Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop.

7 ‘After a Privileged Life, Bill Shorten Wants to get Rid of Class.’ Australian Financial Review, 7 October 2018.

8 The correlations between left-right and the economic issues scale was 0.384 (p = <.000), with the social issues scale −0.418 (p = <.000) and with the refugees and immigration scale −0.033 (p = .184).

9 As a result of the criticisms of the policy Labor announced that if they were elected, they would modify the policy exempting those on state pensions or benefits from the change.

10 John Kehoe, ‘Labor Channels Gen X, Y Discontent.’ Australian Financial Review, 18 April 2019. Shorten commented that the measures were necessary to create ‘a fighting fund.’ Pamela Williams, ‘Dirty Tricks and the Dark Side of the Campaign.’ Australian Financial Review, 22 May 2019.

11 ‘I say to your listeners, if they feel very strongly about this, if they feel that this is something which should impact on their vote, they are of course perfectly entitled to vote against us.’ Phillip Coorey, ‘Retirees Angry About Franking Refunds are “Perfectly Entitled to Vote Against Us”’ Australian Financial Review, 30 January 2019.

12 Phillip Corey, ‘Shorten Digs in Over Franking “Gifts”’. Australian Financial Review, 14 April 2019.

13 The correlation between the two items was 0.59 (p < .000).

14 Among investment property owners, 34 per cent strongly opposed the negative gearing policy compared to 10 per cent among those who did not own such a property. Among share owners, 27 per cent strongly opposed Labor’s franking credits proposal compared to 9 per cent for those who did not own shares.

15 Phillip Corey, ‘Shorten Digs in Over Franking “Gifts”’, Australian Financial Review, 14 April 2019.

16 When Labor announced its policy that half of all new cars should be electric by 2030, the Liberals produced flyers denouncing it as ‘Labor’s car tax’, and promoted this among car enthusiast groups on social media. Latika Bourke, ‘How the Liberals Beat Labor at its Own Game.’ Sydney Morning Herald, 26 May 2019.

17 Elections were held much sooner after the 2010 and 2013 leadership changes compared to the 2019 election. Morrison may also have avoided some of the blame for the leadership change since it was instigated by Peter Dutton.

18 This draws upon the results of a factor analysis, although it splits the environment from other social issues as the environment is of particular importance for Greens voters, whereas health and education is of greater importance for Labor voters (Cameron and McAllister 2019a, 8).

19 A range of other controls were used (such as birthplace, occupation, urbanisation and so on) but they did not substantially change the findings presented here and were therefore excluded. Early models also included measures of the campaign, but they had little impact and were excluded from the final model. Partisanship is not included because of its very strong correlation with vote (see, for example, Dalton and Weldon [2007]) as well as with many of the other independent variables, such as party polarisation.

20 Annabel Crabb, ‘With a “Miracle” Election Result, Scott Morrison has the mandate to do Whatever he likes – so What will it be?’ ABC News, 19 May 2019.

21 Ross Gittins, ‘Morrison’s Miracle Election May Turn Out to be the Easy Bit’, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 2019.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DP160101501].