It's well known that politics is the art of compromise. Commentators and voters alike are arguing that Labor must move "back to the centre" if it's to have any prospect of forming government in 2022.

Under Bill Shorten, Labor pitched steadily toward the left, with the class-envy rhetoric, the redistributionist tax policies and the mantra that this was the "climate change election". After campaigning so hard on these issues and falling so dismally, it's time to retreat.

To set Labor free from its shackles, its new leader Anthony Albanese would need to dispel the perception that Labor is a paler shade of the Australian Greens.

Swinging voters more valuable than Greens'

It is sobering for political "insiders" to be reminded that most voters do not follow politics or election campaigns closely.

But they do form perceptions about how the parties accord with their needs and, in varying degrees, their ideological and/or religious values.

Labor's problem today is that too many voters recoil from its overreach on climate change policy, its nascent doubts about coal mining and its earnest commitment to a host of "identity politics" causes.

To quickly alert voters that Labor is marching back to the political centre, Mr Albanese might remove the certainty that Labor will always direct its preferences to The Greens.

Why not offer voters open-ended how-to-vote directions or occasionally preference a Liberal ahead of a Greens candidate?

The point is, about 40 per cent of voters are no longer "rusted on" to the Coalition or Labor, and The Greens' "rusted on vote" is about 6-8 per cent. That leaves the mass of swingers at around a third of all voters.

The swinging voter, particularly those who have occasionally voted Labor, must become Mr Albanese's central focus.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 6 minutes 20 seconds 6 m Anthony Albanese discusses why he thinks he should be opposition leader

Appeal to the 'quiet Australians'

Just as Mr Morrison sought to reassure the Liberal-inclined swinging voters that he was a recognisable and inoffensive Liberal leader, Mr Albanese must do the same for Labor swingers.

Mr Albanese would do well to ponder what the notion of the "quiet Australian" implies.

It may seem risible to refer to voters as "quiet Australians", or as was in vogue back in 2001, "battlers", "aspirationals" and "doctor's wives". But such phrases may offer an insight into the mindset of swinging voters on polling day.

To this list, I'd also add the disillusioned traditional blue-collar Labor voter, whose interests contrast so sharply with the inner-city voter.

While Mr Albanese's electorate of Grayndler is inner-metropolitan, he should begin to forge policy and a pitch that reassures blue-collar voters that Labor is not just the party for inner-city electorates.

In doing so, Mr Albanese risks losing some of Labor's primary vote support in the inner-city to the Greens. But ultimately, where will Green voters' preferences go but reluctantly back to Labor?

There is nothing new in observing that elections are won, and lost, in outer suburbia and the regional towns and cities.

Here, we find Mr Morrison's "quiet Australians", whose political barometer takes little to no reference from so-called "identity politics" but is guided by how their local economy is travelling.

They recognise that the essential services are all underpinned by strong investment flowing into the economy — local, state and national.

Anthony Albanese must distance himself from the failed policy agenda pushed by Bill Shorten. ( ABC News: Marco Catalano )

Climate change overreach

The facts are grim for Labor, with its vote plummeting in so many regional cities, by no means solely in Queensland. Labor also suffered significant swings against it in many lower socio-economic outer-metropolitan seats. Results from the NSW seat of Hunter reveal just how cranky Labor's blue-collar base has become.

However, the problem is wider than those locations and points to Mr Albanese needing to reassure working-class households that Labor's climate change policy will never again be perceived as a grave risk to their jobs.

Given many Australians recognise that we contribute only about 1 per cent of global emissions, Labor must develop policy less threatening to those voters exposed in private sector jobs.

Considering the demonstrable failure to make this "the climate change election", a buoyed Mr Morrison will endeavour to embarrass Mr Albanese for Labor's proximity to The Greens on climate change.

Mr Morrison will likely seek to paint Labor as guilty by association with The Greens policy of phasing out all coal exports by 2030. Guilt by association worked with "death duties", so why not on coal?

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 47 seconds 47 s Anthony Albanese takes aim at the Coalition as he prepares to take over as Labor leader

It could cost Albanese his own voters

To arrest the ebbing electoral tide, Mr Albanese needs to risk offending voters in his own electorate for the cause of Labor's greater good. That may well be, ultimately, his leadership's Achilles heel.

The Labor leader has the opportunity to differentiate himself from his predecessor by being prepared to robustly critique The Greens' more radical policies.

Lay down that foundation and the middle and working classes — the quiet Australians — may tune into the new Labor leader's narrative.

"Albo" must be perceived as a Labor leader in the mould of Bob Hawke's realism, as opposed to Gough Whitlam's idealism. Mr Hawke understood well the art of the possible and how to make a case for it.

Haydon Manning is adjunct professor, politics and international relations at the Flinders University College of Business, Government and Law.