'Complacent' Anthony Albanese set for massive election day shock if he thinks Labor doesn't need to make preference deals with the Greens to keep power

Sky News AU

26-04-2025

The Prime Minister wants us to believe he is indifferent to preference deals.
On Wednesday, he bragged that he did not need them, having won his seat of Grayndler with more than 50 per cent of first-preference votes at the last election.
The implication was that placing an anti-Israel Greens candidate second was a mere technicality.
Anthony Albanese's attempt at nonchalance looked like arrogance to the rest of us.
His show of confidence betrays hubris.
It was as if the final week of campaigning were a mere formality since the result was already in the bag.
One of the few certainties in this election is that the result is highly unpredictable.
The result is less certain than any election Albanese has fought since first campaigning for the seat of Grayndler 29 years ago.
For one thing, there are fewer safe seats.
When Albanese won Grayndler in the 1996 election, he was one of 85 MPs elected on first-preference votes.
In 2022, he was one of just 15.
Declining party loyalty and the rise of independents and minor parties have steadily eroded historic electoral margins.
Since more seats are decided on preferences, the counting takes longer.
Fewer results can be called for certain on election night, increasing the risk of commentators and politicians getting egg on their faces.
Albanese's second-term parliamentary majority, if he gets one, will be narrow.
The winning party's parliamentary majority in four out of the last five elections could be counted on two fingers or fewer.
The fracturing of political support in the last ten years suggests that Tony Abbott's landslide in 2013 will be the last for some time.
If Albanese's apparent confidence is based on national polling, he could be surprised.
Uniform national swings have become a thing of the past.
Voting patterns are increasingly chaotic, deviations from national swings have widened, and the number of outliers is multiplying.
In 2022, the swings in 49 of Labor's 77 victories fell outside a ±2% range of the national mean, making it one of the most capricious elections on record.
Results in this election are likely to vary even more, mirroring the economic divide under Albanese between households crushed by rising mortgage rates and other cost-of-living pressures and those untouched by the per capita recession.
Since the start of the century, a profound weakening of the two-party system has shaken the stability of the Westminster system, which works best as a two-way contest between government and a loyal opposition.
When Albanese was first elected to parliament, 95 per cent of first preference votes in the lower house were cast in favour of one of the two major parties.
At the last election, the figure was 68 per cent.
Elections are no longer fought between teams red and blue, any more than the Bathurst 1000 pitches Ford versus Holden.
The challenge to two-party politics is not unique to Australia.
Across the Anglosphere and beyond, the certainties of two-party politics are giving way to political fragmentation, deal-making and voter volatility.
In Canada, the Liberal Party has spent the last six years in minority government with just a third of the popular vote.
In the United Kingdom, the Conservative and Labour parties have seen their vote shares eroded by insurgent parties from the left, right, and regions.
In Europe, governments of multi-party coalitions have become the norm rather than the exception.
Albanese's pretence that preferences are incidental or that elections remain a clash of grand party platforms ignores the granular reality of modern democratic politics.
The increasing volatility of elections corresponds with a decline in party loyalty.
In 1994, 53 per cent of voters said they had always voted for the same party.
At the last election, the percentage of loyal voters shrunk to 37 per cent, according to data from the Australian National University's long-running Australian Election Study.
Campaign progress has become harder to judge in the digital era.
In 1996, most voters got their main election news through television (31 per cent), followed by newspapers (18 per cent) and radio (15 per cent).
About six out of 10 Australians (58 per cent) watched the leaders' debates.
At the last election, digital media was the popular source of news (27 per cent), followed by TV (23 per cent).
Only a third of voters (34 per cent) watched the leader's debates.
Digital media has become increasingly sophisticated, targeting its audience with precision.
Voters' perceptions have never been more varied, and set-piece events, like election launches, have become less important.
The trend is clear: stability is out; negotiation is in.
And in that environment, the leader who appears most assured of victory may also be the one least prepared for its complexities.
In today's political environment, complacency is a luxury no leader or party can afford.
The voters leaders should fear most are the ones they take for granted.
Nick Cater is a senior fellow at Menzies Research Centre and a regular contributor to Sky News Australia