Everything had to go right for Scott Morrison and it did. Undecided voters broke his way while Labor was measuring the curtains.
The Conservative Party wanted the Coalition to win government, because the alternative would have seen the further destruction of the Australian economy and civil society.
The Australian reports, the image of Bill Shorten sharing beers with Labor mates Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and former Premier Steve Bracks on the final day of the campaign will haunt his colleagues for years to come.
It was hubris writ large. And it was based on a fatal misunderstanding of Australia and the aspirations and expectations of working families.
Morrison now leads a renewed Coalition government in his own right, unencumbered by past divisions and polarising personalities.
And the Coalition, unquestioningly, has a mandate for its personal income tax agenda to deliver tax relief across the board.
In the end, Australians rejected the politics of class envy, big government and policy fanaticism.
The result was a disavowal of Bill Shorten, a denial of extreme Leftism and a repudiation of identity politics.
In the end he picked too many fights on too many fronts.
He offended retirees, told those of modest means they were too rich and sucked the aspiration out of the economy.
There was no “mood for change”. This was a folly and one that Shorten appeared to be trying to convince himself of as much as he was the electorate.
But Morrison’s triumph is one that Malcolm Turnbull could not have delivered.
It was a victory made possible only because Morrison decided to take Shorten on. He exploited the opportunities he was given and intuitively spoke to aspiration.
Labor’s campaign machine was also caught napping in the belief that it was an unassailable outfit. This was exposed with a ground campaign run by the young Liberal Party federal director, Andrew Hirst, who effectively shredded Labor’s message.
The danger now for the Labor Party is its propensity for delusion.
It now needs new leadership, a new story, a new policy agenda and above all else it needs a new purpose. Its class-war philosophy and its tax agenda were rejected and its spending promises were not believed.
Bill Shorten misread the mood of the nation.
Shorten abandoned the middle ground and went with a hard-left agenda.
Despite the message, Labor is unlikely to give up this agenda.
The two leading contenders to replace Shorten, Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek, are both from the NSW Left.
Labor’s primary vote went backwards as it contorted itself in inner-city seats with an agenda designed to make not-so-rich people poor.
