SHARE
With the major parties level-pegging, a defeat for the Coalition isn’t out of the question. So what would a Labor government look like?
THE conventional wisdom is that there won’t be a Shorten Labor government. The opinion polls say it, the commentators say it, and the bookies are saying it. In the past fortnight, Labor’s odds have slipped backwards, despite its campaign having been the less troubled.
Indeed, the odds quoted on Sportsbet late this week suggest the bookies think Donald Trump has a better chance of becoming US president than Bill Shorten has of becoming prime minister. The seat-by-seat odds imply that Labor would pick up only five to eight seats in net terms, far short of the nineteen it needs for a majority.
And yet the polls are still 50–50, plus or minus 1 per cent in either direction. On Friday a ReachTEL–7 News poll even reported Labor with a 52–48 lead. In two-thirds of the state and federal elections held here since 2010, the government of the day has been thrown out. The conventional wisdom could be right, but it could also be wrong…
