Labor won the final parliamentary weeks. Does that even matter?

During the final parliamentary sitting days of the year, the strategy from Labor was simple: sit back and let the government self-combust. That hasn’t been particularly hard.

The Coalition will be breathing sighs of relief after sputtering to the finish line of a fortnight that began with deep internal division and policy stagnation and ended with a flurry of resignations and a senior minister stepping aside over allegations of abusive behaviour.

But both Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Labor Leader Anthony Albanese know none of this really matters. In the final sitting days of 2018, a bitterly divided government with no clear agenda lost votes on the House floor and saw ministers scramble for the exits. They were reelected with an increased majority. 

The point is, most of the voters in the marginal seats that will decide the election pay little attention to what goes on in Parliament. So while the government might have “lost” the final sitting fortnight, Labor now faces the challenge of turning Morrison’s deceitfulness into an election-winning narrative that plays well in the living rooms of middle Australia rather than the bearpit of question time.

Labor’s strategy: cut out lines of attack for the government, focus on divisions within the government and Morrison’s character while leaving the policy powder dry until the last is working insofar as they head to summer in a strong position.

Calling the prime minister a liar might be enough to stay ahead in the polls, and flip enough seats to form a minority government (although Albanese has repeatedly ruled out a coalition with the Greens). But whether it’s enough to find the momentum needed to win back seven seats and govern in its own right is the cause of some angst, internal and external.

Within Labor, there is a range of views on the party’s election chances, from cautious optimism to jaded fatalism. Some see an electoral map where the gains are far clearer than at this stage in 2018. Others see losses awaiting in NSW, and Queensland and Tasmania remaining wildly unpredictable.

The source of some frustration boils down to a lack of policy detail from the opposition, and a feeling heading into summer that the electorate still doesn’t really know what it’s about. It’s telling that in recent weeks, the Coalition has accused Labor of having no policies, and trying to “sneak” into government. Coming from the most policy-indifferent government in living memory, that’s gotta hurt. 

In fairness, Labor has slowly been dropping more policies in the past few weeks — plans for a family violence commissioner and to deliver better internet access for low-income families. They’re just relatively safe, small-ticket ideas that haven’t gotten a heap of attention. More scrutiny will fall on the opposition’s climate plan, quietly dropped today. By offering a 43% target — weaker than its 2019 offering — Labor is once again hoping to avoid getting dragged into the kind of scare campaigns that sank it in 2019.

If Labor does succeed in neutralising the climate wars, though, what then? A big part of Morrison’s pitch will focus on management of the pandemic. He’ll hope that despite lockdowns and outbreaks that stemmed from his government’s own failures on the vaccine rollout, the high vaccination rates and low deaths compared with the rest of the world is enough for voters to hold their noses and trust the devil they know.

The pandemic has always been uneasy ground for Labor, as it has been for opposition parties around the world. This week, amid fears about the Omicron variant, Labor returned relentlessly to the government’s failure to develop purpose-built quarantine camps to house foreigners — a burn which might excite the “pro-restrictions, lock the gate” elements of their base, but seems less of a clear vote-winner among people craving a return to normal. Other attacks over hip-pocket issues like high petrol prices and wage stagnation are yet to really cut through. 

Still, despite all that uncertainty on policy and narrative, Labor’s position is strong. The polling is good and the government is tired. An energised Albanese will hold his first campaign rally this weekend before hitting the road. And as Morrison proved last time around, sometimes it really is only the campaign that matters.