When an election is held, powerful explanations for victory and defeat form quickly. They will direct political behaviour for years. Some explanations will be well-founded. Others will be myths.

What explains last week’s election results? Why was the Coalition defeated? Why did Labor win? What’s the meaning of the “teal wave”, the female climate change independents who captured the Liberal Party’s traditional heartland? And the others – Greens, Pauline Hanson, Clive Palmer?

There’s been an immediate effort to claim an overarching ideological shift. Some progressives argue that Australia has moved to the left. And if you put together the gains made by Labor, the teal independents and the Greens, you can see their point.

It’s true that Labor made a net gain of at least seven seats, the teals six, the Greens two. That’s a total of 15 seats in a House of Representatives with 151 seats. But is it true that this represents a shift to the left?

The first problem with this claim is that the teal independents are not “left wing” in the traditional sense. Yes, they all put a priority on climate action. They all want an integrity commission and they all want justice for women.

But the teal independents do not advocate for a redistribution of income. They don’t like unions. They are “business-focused” in the words of Allegra Spender, the woman who took Sydney’s eastern suburbs seat of Wentworth, formerly Malcolm Turnbull’s, from the Liberal Party.

Or, as one of the two incumbent teal MPs, Zali Steggall, put it recently, her northern beaches electorate of Warringah, formerly Tony Abbott’s, is “aspirational – people of all income levels work hard to get ahead, they don’t want the traditional socialist way of viewing the economy”.

Her supporters “like competition, free trade, small government, opportunity”. She increased her share of the vote last week by 3.5 percentage points to 60 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, so presumably she knows what she’s talking about. She voted 51 per cent of the time with the Morrison government on legislation. The other incumbent teal, Helen Haines, says she voted 90 per cent with the government on legislation.

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https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-didn-t-turn-left-it-wised-up-20220527-p5ap3z.html

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A week after Australia unceremoniously tossed the Coalition onto the opposition benches, an alternative vision for the party has emerged on the Liberal-National TV channel of choice, Sky News.

Its cast of “after dark” shock jocks, fresh from supporting Scott Morrison, have quickly turned carnivorous as the Coalition’s post-election bloodletting hits fever pitch.

Moderates such as NSW Treasurer Matt Kean and Senator Andrew Bragg – a “fool” in the view of host Andrew Bolt – are now nightly targets for derision as a stream of conservative leaders and party apparatchiks appear on the channel for polling post-mortems.

In the world curated by these Fox-News inspired talk shows, last week’s election drubbing (the worst result for the Liberals in 70 years) wasn’t a sign that the Coalition must finally get serious about climate policies.

Rather, despite being thrown out of every seat with a view of Sydney Harbour, conservatives like Mr Bolt, Peta Credlin and Paul Murray argue the Coalition must actually swing to the right and chase regional voters.

It’s a challenge to incoming Liberal leader Peter Dutton, who wants to reignite the “broad church” philosophy killed off in multiple leadership spills under the old government, despite Sky regulars such as Nationals Senator Matt Canavan and Liberal Alex Antic trying to scrap net zero.

Such a move, which Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce says is up for debate in the next Coalition agreement, would seemingly ignore the fast-growing climate vote across the national electorate.

But disdain for these voters in seats like Wentworth, Northern Sydney and Kooyong – where not even Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was spared – has been persistent on Sky After Dark all week.

Those who turned to independents were called “socially smug doctors’ wives” in a breakdown of conservative commentator Lillian Andrews’ election analysis on Peta Credlin’s Tuesday show.

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https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/federal-election-2022/2022/05/27/sky-news-dutton/

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