The Roy Morgan Research Centre has suggested that the Coalition should concentrate on “soft Labor voters” in its campaign strategy. The implication is that these voters are more likely than others to be won or won back to the Coalition.

Soft Labor voters are defined as people who would vote Labor if an election were held today and who say that Australia is “heading in the right direction”. This is based on the further assumption that “experience and a successful track record in managing the economy are the two main reasons electors vote for the LNP”.

Morgan might be right. But there are a number of other possible stories that could be written.

The first is the “doctors wives” story – which could also be called the doctor’s husbands’ story or just the story about those who are offended by the Government’s morals. To these people the economy may be travelling well and heading in the right direction. But at the same time they may be offended at the Government’s moral fibre, as exemplified by its treatment of David Hicks, its refugee policy and its apparent disregard for civil liberties. Thus their decision to vote Labor. It is possible that many of these people could be hard to move from their present resolve.

Another story might be written about those voters who are so pleased with the way the economy is travelling that they feel that to vote Labor does not involve them in risk. Some of these people may be the young voters who have never experienced difficult economic times and who cannot envisage them. Other may be people who have, but who do not expect to do so again in the foreseeable future. For each of these groups to vote Labor would not represent a risk because the economic future remains bright and beautiful.

Finally, on the criterion of “experience”, a further story might be written about the present government’s experience in taking us to war in Iraq, and its stated reasons for doing so. It is just conceivable that this experience is not the experience which endears itself to potential voters, and that the stated reason – weapons of mass destruction – has become an object of ridicule in their minds.