In the mid-1960s, Pam and I had a 'political' courtship. As members of the Young Liberals, we found ourselves at the 1966 federal election, handing out how to vote cards in Mascot, Sydney - election 'tiger' territory. So romantic.
A middle-aged voter walked up the path to the election booth, smiled at Pam, but refused her how-to-vote card. But there was a connection. Spotting him returning from voting, Pam joked: "I bet you voted Labor, you rat". She didn't realise what the emotive word 'rat' meant in the labor movement. The worst possible insult.
The man spun on his heel, shirt-fronted me (not her), with his fist raised: "who are you calling a rat," he barked, "do you want a bunch of fives?"
My first self-preservation instinct was to say: "Pam said it, not me". But that would hardly be chivalrous to the one I was courting. Before I could say anything, he was gone.
The Liberals went on to win that election, not in Mascot, but nationally in a landslide under Harold Holt. There was a considerable drop in the usual ALP federal vote. In the 1966 election, for the first time, this dipped to just under 40 per cent.
This was the start of a long-term decline in the ALP primary vote. Over the past 60 years, it has moved from the high 40s to the low 30s. The change of government to the ALP in the 1972, 1983 and 2007 federal elections were exceptions to this trend, but the long-term decline of the centre-left vote in Australia has been relentless.
This is part of a worldwide trend of voter realignment moving from the centre-left to the centre-right. Why?
Respected French economist Thomas Piketty has examined this trend in 50 Western democracies since WWII. The central finding of his research is that income and education rather than 'class' are more accurate indications of voter ideology.
In Australia, the effect has been quite dramatic. Between 1963 and 2019, ALP support from those on lower incomes dropped steeply from 62 per cent to 31 per cent.
Also, over the same time, Liberal Party support from those with a university degree decreased precipitously from 63 per cent to 24 per cent.
However, with three-quarters of the population not having a university education, these trends have favoured centre-right parties, such as the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation.
The tide is going out for the centre-left in Australia. In 1983 the Hawke-Keating government won majorities in four elections over 13 years.
But in the quarter of a century since, they have only managed a majority once, in 2007, at the start of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, which lasted for only six years. So even if the centre-left party wins, it may have difficulty maintaining government in the longer term.
The ALP should have won in 2019, ending the six-year Coalition 'glitch', but they didn't. Held nine months after the Liberal Party's "Night of the long knives", which brought down PM Turnbull, that should have been the end of the Coalition government.
Three years earlier, the Liberals had done the same thing to Tony Abbott, the first prime minister in the 2013-21 ATM government (Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison). With its revolving door of PMs, this eight-year Liberal political circus should have ended at the 2019 election.
It didn't happen. Why?
Apart from going to the election with some very 'courageous' policies, which they announced early, the ALP was a victim of their long-term decline, managing only 33 per cent of the primary vote.
The long-term voter realignment based on education and income was on full display in May 2019.
The ALP was trying to bridge the awkward gap between the issues concerning their traditional blue-collar worker base in regional and suburban Australia and the educated inner-city elites, particularly on issues such as climate change.
Here the ALP is also bleeding votes to the Greens on its left flank and One Nation and the Coalition on the right.
The federal seat of Hunter held by Joel Fitzgibbon is a microcosm at the heart of the ALP's dilemma. Hunter, once blue-ribbon ALP, has become very marginal in recent elections, with many workers switching their support to right-wing parties such as the Nationals and One Nation.
Since the election, Joel has campaigned hard within his party to return the ALP focus onto what is worrying its traditional blue-collar base. He even resigned from his shadow ministry in protest at the intransigence of his colleagues.
However, the ALP is caught between two conflicting constituencies with many opposing policy views. Satisfying both simultaneously seems to be a bridge too far.
This is bad news for Fitzgibbon and Albanese and the long-term future of a centre-left party such as the ALP.
