Show caption ‘Shorten has been the most successful politician of his generation, fast-tracking an inevitable path through the law, the union movement and politics to be the first member of Gen X to lead a political party’ Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP The Guardian essential report Bill Shorten will win on traditional Labor values. His popularity is secondary Peter Lewis As a custodian of his party’s policies, the opposition leader manages a team with a long-term plan for a fairer Australia @PeterLewisEMC Mon 30 Jul 2018 19.00 BST Share on Facebook

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The ongoing success of Bill Shorten is the cognitive dissonance at the heart of Australian politics: how could someone who appears so unpopular keep hitting it out of the park?

The clean-sweep in the weekend byelections, including a big swing in the critical seat of Longman, builds on Labor’s sustained ascendency over the Coalition in all major polls, including the Guardian Essential.

While it is true that the two-party preferred has narrowed in recent weeks, an electoral redistribution favouring the ALP means the prospect of a change of government at the next federal election is looking more and more likely.

At the same time, Malcolm Turnbull has been enjoying strong and sustained leads over Shorten as preferred prime minister and on personal approvals. The findings have fuelled a relentless and, arguably, self-perpetuating “Kill Bill” attack from the government as well as creating jitters among members of Shorten’s own team.

What the weekend results show, as I have argued previously, is that there is little evidence of any form of statistical correlation between approval for an opposition leader and support for the opposition he leads.

The big question is why. And there are a few factors that bear scrutiny.

The first is embedded in the job title. An opposition leader’s core task is to oppose, to both scrutinise and challenge the government of the day. While a prime minister leads, an opposition leader pushes back, and in an increasingly loud and noisy media being the negative one is hardly a place to showcase your positive personal attributes.

A second factor in explaining the gap between Shorten’s popularity and effectiveness goes to the very nature of Australia’s political system. Unlike America, Australians do not vest ultimate constitutional authority in a single person, but rather in their local representatives who are themselves representatives of political parties that chose an individual to lead them as a team into battle.

While it is true that the optics of our political elections are becoming more presidential, the distinction is important: the leaders are members of a political team, not an individual mobilising and running in and of themself.

This week’s Essential Report reinforces this, with only a quarter of respondents saying the leader of a party was a “very important” factor in their vote, with double nominating the parties’ policies as being significant.

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As the custodian of Labor’s policies, Shorten’s opposition to the government’s economic agenda, particularly its tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy, has been sustained and effective.

Under Shorten, Labor has also embraced a suite of policies that take on vested interests like the banks and private insurance industry, while ending tax loopholes in negative gearing, family trusts, capital gains and dividend imputations that tend to favour the well-off.

While it hasn’t necessarily made Shorten popular, it has entrenched Labor values at the centre of the political debate.

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A final factor goes to something that is probably more peculiar to Shorten. In politics, as in life, it is a truism that your greatest strength also tends to be your weakness.

Shorten has been the most successful politician of his generation, fast-tracking an inevitable path through the law, the union movement and politics to be the first member of Gen X to lead a political party. His rise and rise has been underpinned by his canny ability to establish complex alliances of support across political factions and the usual divides. Shorten is the consummate dealmaker and, as with any politician, his ambitions have been part of the transaction.

But almost by definition this creates a sense of the transaction, that rather than conviction, Shorten is driven by convenience. Any shift in position or policy revision is given surplus meaning, evidence of an absence of belief. That’s why the Coalition has put so much effort into highlighting changes in policy positions or rhetoric, because they know it strikes at this strength/weakness.

It’s also helps explain why the key driver of his low ratings are those of progressive voters, where just a bare majority of Labor voters say they prefer him to Turnbull as preferred prime minister.

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The irony is that the platform Labor is preparing for the election is among the most progressive in a generation with increased economic intervention, Indigenous treaty, a 50% renewable energy target, even a republic already announced policy. These may all be dismissed as transactions too, until the point that Shorten gets the chance to exercise power and turn his promises into a program.

So here’s my positive take on Shorten for what it’s worth. The first Gen X leader of his generation, he will win government on traditional Labor values and govern as a progressive centrist with the interpersonal skills to manage a united and ambitious team with a long-term plan for a fairer Australia.

Maybe at this point Shorten will win the personal approval of Australian voters. Or maybe not. Because, as results on the weekend proved yet again, it really doesn’t matter.