Where Is the political centre?

The notion of 'governing for the centre' was popular under the government of Malcolm Turnbull and it suited Turnbull, positioning his socially liberal and economically conservative views against Bill Shorten on the perceived Left and Tony Abbott on the perceived Right. It also suited the ABC and other perceived left-wing media outlets as it allowed them to manufacture a narrative against personally popular Turnbull by claiming that he was hostage to the right-wing of the Liberal Party.

Yet when you break it down this characterisation appears tenuous and self-serving.

The 'centre', is a nebulous concept but implicit in the notion of a political 'centre' is being able to connect with the mainstream voter. Although Turnbull personally polled well (at least before becoming Prime Minister and in the first few months of assuming office), it is fair to say that he did not have the same common touch as say Bob Hawke or John Howard.

Turnbull was educated at Sydney Grammar School and, although he was on a partial scholarship, Turnbull's tales of hardship were cringed at by most Australians during the 2016 election campaign.

Hawke and Howard both had a decent upbringing and education at selective public schools, but neither of them felt the need to over-emphasize their hardship and when Hawke and Howard claimed to be in touch with voters, it felt authentic. Turnbull, on the other hand, never looked comfortable when talking to voters and his presence at sporting events felt like forced photo opportunities whereas with Hawke and Howard it felt like they genuinely would be there if they were without public office.

Personalities aside, I would like to focus on the macro question of just what is the 'middle' voter?

Conventional political wisdom would have it that the middle voter is the person who swings between the major parties and is not wedded to either one. They vote for parties based on policy and their perceived competence. It is 'middle' voters that parties traditionally focused their resources into as they were the ones who decide elections. The same is presumably true today although phenomena such as focus-groups, triangulation and the rise of minor parties, means that the middle ground is less tangible.

In that case, is the 'middle' voter concerned with the same issues as Malcolm Turnbull – i e company tax cuts, the Paris Agreement, gay marriage and an Australian Republic?

Turnbull may argue that they are but if we are to understand who these fabled 'middle' voters are, then the best thing would be to look at marginal seats.

The top 10 marginal seats are Herbert (0.02%), Hindmarsh (0.58%), Capricornia (0.63%), Forde (0.63%), Cowan (0.68%), Gilmore (0.73%), Flynn (1.04%), Lindsay (1.11%) Robertson (1.14%) and Chisholm (1.24%).

Of these seats, four are in Queensland (Capricornia, Flynn, Forde and Herbert), three are in New South Wales (Lindsay, Gilmore, Robertson) and there is one each in South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia (Hindmarsh, Chisholm and Cowan, respectively).

The fact that a plurality of the marginal seats are in Queensland puts Peter Dutton's leadership bid into context. Queensland is considered to be Australia's most conservative state and it is unlikely that the Coalition could retain government without holding onto its marginal seats in Queensland (and also possibly winning Herbert from Labor).

So, it has to be asked, where do these electorates stand on key policy issues?

To an outsider, it might be assumed that these electorates are 'moderate', neither Labor or Liberal and in agreement with what the general public is purported to believe on gay marriage, renewable energy and immigration.

Although all these seats voted yes on gay marriage, all of them are classed as definitively conservative by the ABC vote compass and typically conservative policies such as strong border protection and energy security are likely to resonate with them.

I should add that, at the time of publication of this article, Scott Morrison is the new leader of the Liberal Party, not Peter Dutton. However, I consider the prospect of a Peter Dutton Prime Ministership to be an interesting case-study of the Liberal Party forgoing the previous orthodoxy of pursuing votes in the inner-city and instead focusing on shoring up socially conservative votes in the regions and outer suburbs.

Pro-Labor academic, Nicholas Reece recently described Peter Dutton as the Jeremy Corbyn of the Liberal Party. The inference here is that in the same way Jeremy Corbyn is from the radical Left of the UK Labour Party, Peter Dutton is from the Right of the Liberal Party and both figures have ideals that resonate primarily with their party's base.

Yet ideals like energy security and border protection resonate far more with marginal seats than in blue-ribbons seats such as Higgins and Kooyong in Melbourne or North Sydney and Wentworth in Sydney.

So what about the marginal seats outside Queensland? Griffith University's Dr. Paul Williams said that irrespective of the votes won in Queensland by installing Peter Dutton, he would lose votes in Victoria and New South Wales. That is likely to be true, but the question is whether this would result in an overall negative or positive outcome in an election.

Of the 28 Coalition seats that are considered marginal, only six of them are in Victoria (Chisholm, Dunkley, La Trobe, Corangamite, Murray and Deakin). It is worth noting that these seats are less conservative than the marginal seats in Queensland though more conservative than most other seats in Victoria.

Similarly, the six marginal Coalition seats in New South Wales (Gilmore, Robertson, Banks, Page, Cowper, and Reid) typically lean rightwards in comparison to the rest of New South Wales and are predominantly in either the regions or the Western suburbs of Sydney (

It is generally not in the socially-liberal, inner-city that elections are won. Liberal seats in the inner-city (with the division of Brisbane being a notable exception) are usually safe whereas non-Liberal seats in the inner-city are often unwinnable. In other words, a conservative government favourable to the ideology of the likes of Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott could gain votes in the outer-suburbs and regions while losing votes in the inner-city. As for which is preferable, consider that many regional and outer suburban seats are marginal while the Coalition barely registers a pulse in seats like Grayndler in New South Wales or Batman in Victoria. Gaining five percent more votes in Capricornia for instance could mean the difference between retaining and losing government while a five percent loss in Batman would be negligible when the Liberals polled just 28% after preferences last election. With that in mind, the choice is obvious. The Coalition is better at focusing on pursuing winnable ground rather than placating critics in areas that would never vote for them.

When you reconsider this electoral demography, the implications are considerable. For one thing, it shows that issues such as border protection and energy security are not preoccupations of the Far Right, but mainstream issues.

Moreover, if the Morrison government is able to recover or retain ground in a general election by pursuing a textbook, conservative agenda then it may vindicate Turnbulls detractors. It could prove that the path to victory (or at least avoiding annihilation) is not in chasing unattainable votes in the inner-city but by being steadfast in defending a socially conservative agenda that resonates with key seats the regions and outer suburbs.

Another possible conclusion is that the centre is not in fact the socially liberal and economically conservative inner-city, but the socially conservative and economically interventionist voters in the regions and outer suburbs. This would explain why a number of the seats needed for either side to win government align with the Coalition on social issues and Labor on economic issues.