Labor and the Coalition deploy traditional election weapons amid global turmoil

Labor and the Coalition have reverted to traditional policy strongholds amid unsettling fears that the long-assumed rules of the global order are rapidly being tossed on a bonfire.

Australia is being circumnavigated by Chinese warships while the leader of our chief ally is more aligned with the views of Russia’s authoritarian ruler Vladimir Putin.

US President Donald Trump’s upending of US alliances, an increasingly belligerent Beijing, and the rapidly evolving crises in Ukraine and the Middle East have triggered the question of whether national security will rise further up Australia’s election agenda and which party is best at tapping into the national mood.

While Labor and the Coalition both immediately offered unwavering support to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s courageous defence of democracy, they diverged in how to best reassure an Australian public unnerved by an uncertain world.

Labor doubled down on healthcare with a $644m cash pledge for urgent care clinics, and the Coalition promised to boost national defence by reinstating the acquisition of a fourth F-35A Lightning II squadron.

Recent global events have also set the scene for national security and defence to be an area of heated political conflict.

“I think the election will be fought on a range of issues. But what is clear is that under Labor, our defence force has been driven into the ground. Morale is at an all-time low. We have a recruiting crisis, we have a retention crisis, we have a readiness crisis,” shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie told Sky News on Sunday.

“We want a strong country, and given today’s dangerous strategic circumstances, we are investing in it so that we can secure the Australian people and our interests.”

But the notion of any Labor alarm over the Coalition leaning into a “khaki election campaign” was immediately shot down by Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy on Monday, who blasted their credibility and accused them of mismanaging the defence budget.

“We inherited the oldest Navy since World War II,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“Goldfish lasted longer than Coalition defence ministers,” he quipped. “If they want to have an election on defence, I will match our track record against theirs any day.”

Dr Zareh Ghazarian, senior lecturer in politics and international relations at Monash University, said the combat aircraft announcement was a clear sign that some within the Coalition saw national security as a “valuable strategic policy area for campaigning”.

Flagging the issue on the eve of an election campaign set to be dominated by cost-of-living issues, housing availability and social services signalled they were testing the waters on how the public might react to the prospect of defence becoming a prominent issue, he argued.

With voters expected to continue the trend of the last election by delivering less than 70 per cent of the lower house to the major parties, both had to prioritise traditional strengths to keep core supporters on side, said Dr Ghazarian.

For Labor, healthcare, education, service delivery would be natural priorities, while economic management would be a prominent feature of the Coalition’s campaign.

For the Opposition, new defence policies to meet the deteriorating global security environment may be a tempting path to go down.

But in a cost-of-living crisis, it could also be a tough sell with taxpayers, and the failure to provide firm answers on where the money for its policies would come from could be a “double-edged sword” for the Coalition that could diminish its campaign, said Dr Ghazarian.

“The challenge will always be for the Opposition to try and demonstrate that it has done its sums,” he said.

“For the government, obviously with the resources of the government, they’ll be able to do that, and they’ll be able to point to their record in office. It is a bit riskier for the opposition.

Peter Jennings, director of Strategic Analysis Australia, and a former senior defence official, said he was surprised national security had not been a more prominent election issue in recent years given the worsening strategic outlook.

“For these things to resonate at a broad voter level, you’ve got to have a few jolts and shocks,” he said.

“We’ve had two in short succession, with the Chinese navy circumnavigation and the Oval Office argument. So, both of these things should be getting Australians worried,” he said, adding the Coalition’s announcement on Joint Strike Fighters was “very well timed.”

“Then really the question is how might [national security] impact on a vote?”

With little difference in defence policy besides the latest announcement on the additional squadron, it would come down to a “perception of competence,” he said.

Global events would be expected to “contribute to the sense of uncertainty about the future,” throughout the election campaign, he said.

“Between China and Washington and Moscow, we’re going to have lots of things happen over the next couple of months, which should leave people a bit unsettled,” he said.

“So I think that that sense of uncertainty is going to be potentially a key factor in the election outcome, particularly for undecided voters.

“It comes down to which party is best able to give greater reassurance.”

Mike Pezzullo, former Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, said that national security traditionally featured in elections only if there was a “visceral concern” in the Australian community that more needs to be done.

“I think the Chinese task group last week might have been that turning point. It was so confronting, and especially once the public started to learn that we had inadequate responses,” he said.

“It’s one of those issues that’s broken through that wall of either indifference or complacency, or just lack of confidence in dealing with issues where more people are now talking about it,” he added.

But Mr Pezzullo rejected the “common trope” that defence policy was somehow discretionary, with some parties using it to their advantage and others shying from it because it was not seen as a strength.

“I don’t think that the public is going to accept that,” he said. “They’re going to say ‘whether it’s an electoral strength for you or not, I don’t care. I want you as either the leader or the aspirant leader to tell me what you’re going to do about it’.”