“That was fatal,” he says. This is the essential, shocking trend that threatens Labor’s future. For all the arguments about election tactics and weak strategy – and the verdict that voters simply did not like Bill Shorten – the real story is about a dangerous and lasting decline. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Labor is now digesting a review of its election failure that includes a sobering chart on the party’s fate. The chart shows the party’s fall to a 33.3 per cent primary vote, the lowest in 85 years, as a trend over 10 federal elections. Kevin Rudd’s victory in 2007 and Paul Keating’s in 1993 stand out like rare peaks above a rock slide. The message from Anthony Albanese is jettison the policy baggage and focus on what matters to workers. “History shows that Labor only wins from opposition when our vision is positive, aspirational and modernising,” the Opposition Leader said on Friday, in a speech to the National Press Club that talked of the historic mission of the party to break the chains that shackled people to their class status.

Asked about workers who have turned their backs on Labor, Albanese made it clear that a growth agenda would come first and everything else would come second. “Strong economy. Jobs at the forefront. You have to get that right,” he said. “And then – and only then – will you get a mandate to do the sort of social justice provisions, environmental reform and other reforms that are needed.” Labor deputy leader Richard Marles saw backlash from workers on low incomes in his seat of Corio around Geelong. Some of the Australians who could suffer most from an insecure economy, and who stood to gain from Labor’s redistributive agenda, decided to trust the other side instead. Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen “These workers are exposed to a fragile economy, and they’re our people,” says Marles. “And we don’t get to govern unless we get their licence on the economy.” This is a bizarre phenomenon for Labor believers who saw the 2019 campaign as a crusade for fairness, redistribution and a progressive agenda. It means some Australians rejected tax hikes that did them no harm and hurt others instead. Academics still pore over the results to determine what went on. Yet Labor’s new report is conclusive.

“Economically insecure, low-income voters who were not directly affected by Labor’s tax policies swung strongly against Labor in response to fears about the effect of Labor’s expensive agenda on the economy, fuelled by the Coalition and its allies,” it says. The report, produced by a team chaired by former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill and former federal cabinet minister Craig Emerson, is an experiment in party transparency and reform. No national party has delivered 92 pages of public self-reflection like this. Labor suppressed its review of the 2016 election and released just 25 pages on its 2013 defeat, full of technical findings on campaign tactics. Some of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s ministers have never seen their party’s 2016 review. “This being released in full, immediately, is one of the best things that could be done in putting us in the best position for the next election,” says Tony Burke, Labor's industrial relations spokesman and leader of opposition business in the House of Representatives. “The fact that it’s all out publicly really matters.” The report relied on multiple regression analysis of election results to identify the groups Labor neglected at its peril. The groups associated with a swing against Labor were Christians, Chinese Australians, Queenslanders, coal-mining communities and voters aged 25 to 34 living in outer-urban and regional areas. These voters did not reject Labor as a group but showed a tendency to swing against it. Workers on low incomes tended to vote for Labor compared to the Coalition, as usual, but enough of them swung away to cause danger. The party’s conservative media critics will exaggerate this to claim Christians deserted Labor or workers gave up on the party. The exaggeration is false, but Labor has to consider the scale of the swing and how it can stop it recurring.

The shift by younger Australians shows how easy it could be for this defeat to be followed by another. “When all other variables are controlled for, voters in the 25-to-34-year age group swung strongly against Labor, with an estimated swing of 4 per cent,” says the report. This is a monumental challenge for Albanese. Confronting these threats requires a complete rethink that guarantees disputes that destabilise the party. What does Labor stand for? How can it win back workers on lower incomes without losing progressive, wealthier voters? The Opposition Leader has kept the party together since May but the big fights are yet to come. A voter casts a ballot in the federal election. Credit:AAP In theory, Labor can be the party of the worker and the party of progressive politics. In practice, it cannot fully satisfy both sides when it has to decide whether to allow a coal mine or defend Christian values. The electorate is also more fluid than in years past, with a greater proportion of swinging voters. “You can’t automatically assume political allegiances,” former prime minister John Howard said in May. “And as the Labor Party found in the recent election, you can have an awful political catastrophe if you try to combine the blue collar and the green sleeve. That has been a real difficulty.”

On climate politics, the voices against ambition remain a minority within Labor. While frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon believes the 45 per cent target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 is too great, the report says Labor cannot weaken on climate. But it also criticises the way the party tried to walk both sides of the street on the Adani coal mine. Penny Wong acknowledges the cost of the Adani furore during the campaign – and blames the Greens for handing the Coalition its victory. But on the ABC on Thursday, she warned of the “trap” set by Morrison with a choice between progressive and working class voters. Senator Penny Wong and MP Stephen Jones during Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese's address to the National Press Club on Friday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen “I would say at times, some of the Greens’ messages make it very challenging for Labor,” Wong said. “I think the review does touch upon this. I think Bob Brown’s Adani convoy helped keep Scott Morrison in power. And perhaps some of the so-called progressive voters who thought that was a great idea should consider that.” While the Adani issue may be decided by the time of the next election, there is sure to be a similar test in the form of another coal mine in central Queensland. Could Labor under Albanese cheer the mining trucks?

Clare O’Neil, a member of the Victorian Right who considered running for deputy leader this year, is one of those worried about the message to traditional voters. “One of the most upsetting things I have heard in speaking with people after the election, especially in the regions, was how we sounded on the doorstep,” she said in a recent speech. “The impression of many was that progressives were talking down to them. I know this is not what was intended. But if our voters hear sanctimony, that is what matters.” What O’Neil calls “sanctimony” others might call an appeal to the “grievance” of some parts of the electorate. Albanese repeated that word in his address on Friday. “We have to respond to these changes, update our approach and ensure Labor is seen as the party of the future, not a party of grievances,” he said. This is a warning to progressive supporters to cool their hopes. Loading The Weatherill and Emerson review warned against turning Labor into a “grievance-focused” party that tried to deliver on every issue for every interest group. Their message was to get back to basics to look after workers in an insecure economy. There is a message to Labor supporters, too. If they want a Labor government, they will have to stop complaining about Labor and start fighting for it instead. Albanese made his frustration clear on Friday when recounting stories of interest groups which simply assumed Labor would win. “I think too many of the interest groups were concerned with influencing the future Labor government rather than getting one,” he said. “They assumed that it would happen and they took it for granted.”

For good measure, he noted that GetUp! seemed to be busier during the election in his own (safe) electorate of Grayndler rather than the neighbouring seat of Reid – a marginal seat that can decide which party forms government, and a seat the Coalition held. This frustration with activists and interest groups is certain to cause grief for Labor over the next two years. The Albanese timetable sets up several flashpoints. First, he will revise general policy “vision” over the months to the next federal budget. Then he wants to scale back the Labor policy platform at the national conference to be held in Canberra in December 2020. The subsequent stage will be the formulation of specific policies during 2021 to be ready for the next election. Can Albanese afford to say no to every union or activist or special interest group? Every rejection will breed discontent, and the complaints will spread through the caucus, and the caucus will hear the usual noises about whether their leader is the right leader for the times. But what is Labor’s future if it bows to every interest group and loses sight of the economy? Permanent opposition.