A year ago, things were looking so bad for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s prospects that he splashed out on a multimillion-dollar seaside property for his retirement. There was even speculation he would be toppled as Labor leader.

The scene was set for the conservative-led Coalition to win big. First, ultra-harsh lockdowns had smashed the country’s economy along with its reputation as an island paradise of resilient larrikins. Then, after decades of steadily climbing up the global prosperity league tables, Australians endured the sharpest fall in living standards in the OECD, as prices raced ahead of wages just as the China-powered resource boom began to abate. Real household disposable income per capita has collapsed by almost 10% since the end of 2021, and the Australian dollar by an even bigger margin against the US dollar, the pound and the euro. Per capita GDP has shrunk for seven quarters since 2022.

On returning to government in 2022 Labor eschewed any major reforms, instead launching a divisive referendum to insert an indigenous advisory body in the constitution to be called The Voice, a vote which failed spectacularly at the ballot box.

Yet, despite all these missteps, Albanese’s party decisively won re-election in Saturday’s federal contest. Most commentators have focused on the Trump factor, and there’s no doubt it played a significant role. Labor’s relentless attempts to paint Opposition leader Peter Dutton as a MAGA acolyte worked well, and the comparison proved poisonous. A YouGov poll issued a week before the election found two thirds of Australians no longer trust the US, up from 39% a year earlier.

The bulk of the blame for the Coalition’s historic loss, however, must lie with Dutton’s own uninspiring leadership. His campaign was timid and clumsy, filled with policy proposals which embarrassed many of the party’s traditional supporters.

Dutton failed to challenge the Albanese government on its rapid hike in public spending, the fastest such rise in half a century. Economically, the supposed party of smaller government opted for a small-target strategy, matching Labour’s spending promises while offering a slew of temporary political bribes in answer to the “cost of living crisis” which animated much of the campaign.

Some first-home buyers would be able to deduct their home loan repayments against their income for five years. Meanwhile, petrol tax would be cut for 12 months, and middle-income taxpayers would enjoy a one-off $1,200 tax rebate. The Coalition promised to reverse a modest Labor tax cut to help finance an increase in defence spending, and Dutton would only “aspire” towards indexing Australia’s income tax bracket to inflation. The global surge in inflation had been handing Canberra billions in extra revenue.

On energy, at a time when even Tony Blair is questioning the wisdom of Net Zero in the UK, Australia’s Coalition contented itself with promising to follow in the footsteps of other G20 nations in setting an emissions target for 2050. While the party made some positive noises about winding down Labor’s climate programme, as well as introducing nuclear energy to the domestic electricity grid, specific policy proposals were often in short supply during the campaign.

Culturally, Dutton was unable to mobilise the widespread irritation with progressive self-flagellation which saw the Voice referendum defeated by a 60:40 margin in 2023. Only in the very last week of the campaign did the Liberal leader push back on the growing ubiquity of “welcome to country” ceremonies at public events, during which Aboriginal elders perform a welcome to their land and permit the event to take place. Notably, during his victory speech this weekend Albanese made a point of saying: “I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land, and I pay my respect to elders past, present and emerging today and every day.”

Comparisons with Trump will no doubt have undermined Dutton’s offering to Australians, but the Coalition’s problems go much deeper. The party could have run on a platform of fiscal prudence and a more robust style of cultural conservatism. In the end, however, the match-up amounted to Labor versus Labor-lite. Is it any wonder voters ultimately opted for the real thing?

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