Beyond the sliding doors election

But as noted earlier, emotions were not really that strongly engaged on policies. Decisions were as likely to be made on the basis of who they didn't want as prime minister. In this situation the hate economy was more or less equal.

However, Coalition voters were twice as likely to cite Peter Dutton as a positive reason for their vote than Labor voters were to cite Anthony Albanese as the positive one for theirs. That is not good for Albanese, no matter that his voters think he is "decent", because their support is not strong.

The most startling figure from our polling was that while having voted Labor in with a landslide, fully 40% wanted a Coalition win, versus 42% who wanted Labor, while 19% favoured a hung parliament. You get what you vote for, not what you want, but the difference between the fact and the desire is striking.

Issues that stayed with their tribes were "climate change", strongly correlated with Greens and Cosmopolitans, but not so much Labor; the "economy" and "immigration", strongly correlated with Coalition and Nationalists, along with "security" and "defence".

In the end, this result might be neither sliding doors, nor Kokoda, but a tribute to electoral volatility. The minor party votes are at more or less record highs, and this masks the underlying strength of each major party's votes. Take renewables out of the mix, and the Teals seats could look quite different, for example.

The victors need to be humble in victory, and the vanquished are beaten, not terminated.