There have been many commentaries, including Ben Eltham’s insightful article on Sunday, on why the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government lost the election.
Looking over the last 70 years, Labor’s vote has been on a downward trend, as shown in the graph below. (I have chosen 1940 because before that there were different groupings of what now constitute the Coalition parties.) The trend in Labor’s primary vote has gone from 50 per cent to 38 per cent.
Labor’s vote on Saturday was 34 per cent, 4 per cent below trend. Had Labor been on trend, at best it would have had a very small majority.
We would really like to hear from some of the more politically informed Australians – namely New Matilda readers – telling us what, in their opinion, explains this trend. Please log in to give your contributions.
Over the next week I will collate and summarise your responses. If you would rather not be identified, please e-mail me at mcau (at) netspeed.com.au.
If you would like the spreadsheet, you can see my figures here. You will find the Coalition trend is flat at around 45 per cent, and support for other parties (DLP, Democrats, Greens and all the recent entrants) complements Labor’s decline.
How do you explain the slow decline in Labor's primary vote? Leave your comments and analysis below.