The Sliding Doors of election dates. Will it help or hurt Albanese?
We’re back in familiar territory with the growing speculation about when Anthony Albanese will call the 2025 election. The power to dictate election timing — within constitutional limits — is considered by journalists to be one of the most potent weapons in the arsenal of Australian prime ministers, a tool of incumbency exploitable in a way that is unavailable to the majority of political leaders in Australia, hemmed in by set terms.
The media loves it. There’s none of that boring certainty that attaches to state elections, when the timing is known years in advance. Instead, the press gallery can endlessly speculate about if and when a PM might take that fateful trip to Yarralumla, an expedition inevitably accompanied by helicopter tracking, convoys of camera operators, and breathless live coverage — all of which adds exactly zero to meaningful public discourse but fills precious columns and television minutes.
However, evidence suggests the power of dictating election timing is at best a double-edged sword, and even the most experienced prime ministers can fall prey to the opportunity cost that attaches to any decision on when to go to the polls.
The most famous election timing story is from 1983: amid mounting speculation that Bob Hawke would oust Bill Hayden as opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser decided to call a double dissolution election on February 3, more than six months early — but was delayed for a few hours by paperwork. By the time Fraser was ready to announce the election, Labor had already dumped Hayden — who made the famous declaration that a drover’s dog could beat Fraser — for Hawke. John Howard’s recession had already made reelection difficult for Fraser, but the disastrous start to the campaign set the stage for a Labor landslide.
But Hawke didn’t learn the lesson. He himself called an election 18 months early in December 1984, hoping to cement himself in power for several terms with another thumping win over the Coalition. But he opted for a monster election campaign of seven weeks (not ten weeks, as many commentators remember it, and not in winter — that was 1987). That undermined Labor’s campaign and allowed Andrew Peacock to wear Hawke down, including the first televised leaders’ debate at what sounded like a well-lubricated National Press Club, in which a charming Peacock easily outshone a grumpy Hawke. Labor easily won the election — it’s forgotten that the House of Reps expanded significantly that year — but Peacock picked up twice as many seats in net terms.
Other times, failure to call an early election has cost prime ministers. John Howard faced the dilemma of going earlier or not in 2007. Faced with a rampant Kevin Rudd — whom even Murdoch smear campaigns couldn’t damage (remember the strip club “exposé”?) — Howard decided to hang on, not merely declining to call an election but also declining to heed his colleagues’ calls for his resignation (Peter Costello being too much of a coward to challenge). Eventually, a journalist pointed out to Howard he’d gone a full three years since the 2004 election, apparently surprising the prime minister. He was, of course, hoping something would turn up; it never did. Instead, it just looked like Howard was clinging to power in defiance of both the electorate and his party. Rudd won in a landslide and Howard — something his media apologists never mention now — lost his seat.
And, like Hawke, Rudd then underwent his own election stumble. His failure to call an early 2010 election against Tony Abbott is one of the true Sliding Doors moments of recent Australian politics. The odds favoured a Rudd victory, which might have saved Australia from a decade in the wilderness on climate, but also condemned Rudd’s many enemies within Labor, including some of its most senior ministers, to enduring a leader they couldn’t abide.
Malcolm Turnbull has his version of the same story. His ousting of Tony Abbott in 2015 was welcomed everywhere except in the sewers of News Corp — even by Labor MPs, who thought Turnbull would be unbeatable (“Bad for us — but good for Australia,” one MP told Crikey at the time). Decisively moving to an early election to claim a mandate in his own right would have likely set Turnbull up for two terms. But he decided to do the right thing and attempt to change politics as usual in Australia — he would wait for an election, and try to develop worthwhile policies, especially around tax reform. An eight-week winter campaign in 2016 — by which time the gloss had worn off Turnbull, and his limitations in a coalition riddled with toxic right-wingers had become apparent — allowed Labor to conjure up a deeply deceitful scare campaign on Medicare, which left Turnbull with a one-seat majority.
And just for a variation, don’t forget that Julia Gillard decided to do the adult thing in January 2013 and surrender the power — she nominated an election date in September, in order to provide certainty. Bizarrely, this was savagely attacked by business, the media (in a foolish attempt to curry favour with News Corp, Gillard’s office had dropped the date to Murdoch grubs before the speech) and the opposition at the time.
Damned if you go early, damned if you don’t, damned if you provide certainty — that “power of incumbency” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, not by a long stretch.
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