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Why Albo wins, and ScoMo loses, with women voters

By Graham Young - posted Wednesday, 18 May 2022


When Morrison talks over Albanese in a debate, he's monstering the more demure debater, while if Albanese talks back, he's just standing-up for himself. Watch how Morrison stands – he has a big jaw, and it is jutting aggressively out, while Albanese is smaller and more submissive. This juxtapositioning increases Albanese's vulnerability and hence appeal.

When Albanese can't remember a critical fact that's OK. It's effort more than outcome that counts, and Albo still gets a ribbon.

This is the first election campaign I can remember, apart from the one featuring Julia Gillard, definitely an alpha of her own gender, where we haven't had two alpha males against each other. Shorten lost the last election partly because he made women uneasy, so that made up for Morrison's record of toughness (bullying) over borders.

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It is also the first Australian postmodern election. At least in an emotional sense it is the poor and dispossessed who hold the strongest hand, and tradition and traditional answers are presumed to be wrong. The biggest sin is to offend someone, particularly someone less "privileged". Truth is no longer a defence against offence because we all have our own truths, particularly "lived" ones.

Your failure can be pinned on someone else's success if they come from an oppressor group.

Kevin Rudd's victory had touches of this dynamic as well, as did those of Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden.

So, when it comes to swings I'll be looking at seats where there is a higher than average proportion of women 20-50.

These are marginal seats (in order of concentration of likely affected women) like Brisbane, Reid, Swan, Bennelong, Chisholm, Pearce, Leichardt and Cowan.

This is Morrison's real women problem – not that he is a misogynist, just that the man he represents has fallen out of fashion. The Liberals are going to need to plot their way around this, or they will be in the wilderness for quite some time.

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This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review.



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About the Author

Graham Young is chief editor and the publisher of On Line Opinion. He is executive director of the Australian Institute for Progress, an Australian think tank based in Brisbane, and the publisher of On Line Opinion.

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