PC

The end of the Menzies project. Our Financial Review MRP projects a new political future for this country. In 1944, Robert Menzies founded the Liberal Party. Two years earlier he had named its base, the “forgotten people”, the suburban middle class, the small businessman, the owner-occupier. With the Country Party, the Coalition that emerged would govern Australia for two-thirds of the next eight decades. Our latest RedBridge | Accent Research MRP, modelling all 150 seats, suggests that project is ending. If an election were held now: • Labor - 31% primary, 76 seats. A majority government. • One Nation - 28% primary, 53 seats. The Official Opposition. • Coalition - 21% primary, 12 seats. A rump. • Independents - 8 seats. • Greens, KAP, Centre Alliance - one seat. 62 seats change hands. The Coalition loses 37 to One Nation. Labor loses 16 to One Nation. The Coalition wins zero seats in Queensland, WA, SA or Tasmania. Who votes for whom now: Labor has become a bimodal coalition (two distinct voter populations rather than one). University-educated, professional inner-metro voters in Grayndler, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide. Plus the multicultural outer suburbs, Watson, Blaxland, Chifley, Calwell, Bruce, Fowler. Renters and mortgage-holders. Younger. Non-religious in the inner city, Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist/Orthodox/Catholic in the outer suburbs. Two populations, one vote. One Nation is now the party of the Anglo working class. Regional Queensland, regional NSW, regional Victoria, regional WA. Plus the outer-suburban mortgage belts of every capital, Lindsay, Hawke, Latrobe, Forde, Longman, Canning, Pearce. No university degree. Trades and blue-collar work. Protestant or no religion. English-only households. Mortgage stress and government payments. This is the Coalition’s old base, voting somewhere else. The Liberal Party is left with a small bucket of seats. Bradfield, Mitchell, Berowra, Cook. Menzies, Deakin, Aston, Goldstein, Flinders. Wannon. High-income, university-educated, Anglo, owner-occupier, 45+. The seats the teals didn’t take in 2022. And even there, the Liberals are surviving on preferences, not primaries. A caveat on the Melbourne eastern seats, Menzies, Deakin, Aston, Chisholm. The model may not fully capture the impact of the Chinese diaspora vote. Those seats are too close to call. The LNP wins zero seats in Queensland. The Nationals are projected to nearly be wiped out. This is what a decade of choices looks like. A decade of not representing people economically. A decade of finding new ways to offend the multicultural communities that used to be persuadable. A decade of assuming the regional and outer-suburban base would stay home no matter what. The base didn’t stick around for the self indulgence and it found another home. The Menzies project rested on a “forgotten people” who could see themselves represented by the Liberal Party. They no longer can. They’re voting One Nation. Labor wins this scenario. But the structural story is on the right of politics. The Coalition is no longer the Opposition. One Nation is. More details on the MRP can be accessed via the link below.