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David Crowe from SMH and The Age: On reflection, were there moments in the campaign where you thought, “Sorry, look, we just got that wrong you had to pick yourself up and the team and press forward? What are your reflections on the mistakes, if any, in that campaign?

Erikson:

No campaign is perfect. The experience of every campaign is the challenges are constantly thrown at you and things go wrong. The test is not whether you can run a mistake-free campaign.The test is how do you respond when new challenges emerge, when events throw unexpected dynamics at you, or when mistakes happen.

It was even more so the case in this campaign because of COVID. We were constantly having people get sick, I missed a week, the leader missed a week, the President, the assistant national secretary, like the – I think around half of the Cabinet.

So it was just constantly coming at us. And so the way I think to deal with that is as a campaigner is just to maintain that focus on what is your strategy, what are you trying to do? And that’s how we dealt with and grappled with challenges as they came along.

Greg Brown from The Australian asks if the days of 40% primary votes are over?

Erikson:

No,no, I think there are lots of examples around the world and through Australia’s history of a government like this one coming into office in circumstances like this and then building its support and building its support through good government and by delivering on what it promised.

I think we have seen, you know, the Ardern Government in New Zealand is a good example in terms of looking at their result in 2017, and then their re-election, there have been examples at a state level here in Australia in the recent history of state Labor Governments. And that’s the challenge that’s in front of us.

‘We did win in our right’: Labor national secretary

Phil Coorey from the AFR: “What is it in your view that Labor needs to do over the next three years to get that primary vote up and to win it in your own right without the factors that helped you last time?”

Erickson:

We did win in our own right.

And don’t agree with the proposition that my speech or my remarks have made an argument that we didn’t win it and they lost it.

I think in my remarks I set out how we thought about the election and that we felt that we had two arguments we had to make. First, how would Australia be different under a Labor government led by Anthony Albanese? And we set that case out.

We set it out in principle in terms of Anthony’s leadership style and we set it out in detail on issues like climate, childcare, health and wages and the cost of living.

Erickson denies misleading voters on cashless debit card

Labor national secretary Paul Erickson is now taking questions at the National Press Club.

Anna Henderson from SBS: “Labor was accused during the election campaign of misleading voters in relation to the cashless debit card and paid advertising suggests it was going to be expanded to all age pensioners. On reflection, was that a lie?”

Erickson:

Absolutely it was not a lie. We campaigned against the cashless debit card and pointed to the Liberal government and Anne Ruston the former minister’s own words and we have now taken steps as we committed to abolish the cashless debit card.

And with that, I will hand the blog over to the wonderful Cait Kelly for the rest of the day. Thanks for reading.

Paul Erickson has summarised why the Coalition lost in eight key points:

One, a pathological refusal to take responsibility for anything which comes from their small government mindset.

Two, incompetent management of the Federal Government’s responsibilities during the pandemic.

Three, cabinet-wide partisan attacks on state and territory governments throughout Covid which particularly alienated voters in Victoria and Western Australia.

Four, incompetent budget management.

Five, an incompetent and incoherent response to the cost of living crisis.

Six, incoherent engagement with our allies in our region.

Seven, a lack of awareness or interest in women’s experiences across the economy and society.

Eight, a decades long failure to take climate change seriously.

Scott Morrison may have come to personify these failures but they are institutional and collective, not individual. They’re actively prosecuted by senior cabinet ministers and all Coalition leaders, including the two men then seen as the only likely successors to Scott Morrison – Josh Frydenberg and Peter Dutton.

Paul Erickson says Coalition’s ‘all out assault’ on states amid Covid was ‘galling’

Paul Erickson makes particular point of discussing the gendered approach the Morrison government often took to particular issues, including the response to Covid.

Erickson first pointed out the Coalition’s “galling” choice to engaging in an “all out assault” on state and territory Labor governments:

It was odd and then galling to watch the Liberals commence an all out assault on state and territory Labor governments in the second half of 2020 over the Covid response.

This began with the passive cynicism of Morrison reducing his daily media appearances as second wave outbreaks in New South Wales and Victoria took off, leaving it to the premiers to front the bad news. It started at the top, but this strategy was pursued with enthusiasm by the entire Coalition led not just by Morrison but by the whole of the cabinet.

This was followed by Morrison’s recklessly partisan [criticism] of the Andrew’s government roadmap back to normal, which the media establishment outside of Melbourne misunderstood in my judgement. Morrison’s cynical criticism of the Palaszczuk’s government border closure in the lead-up of the state election was beneath any prime minister. And of course the Liberals backed Clive Palmer’s failed high court challenge to the WA border closure.

Morrison showed he had a ‘failure to understand women’, Erikson says

Erickson then points out two interesting points: the first, that the Morrison government put forward its network of cabinet ministers and advisors “shaping government policy”, and 13 of the 14 were men.

Next, Erickson points out the Morrison government ended free childcare, as well as going back over his response to Australia reckoning with “workplace culture and bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault in parliamentary and political workplaces”.

Women suffered the most during the pandemic, yet the Liberal response demonstrated either a lack of awareness or a lack of interest. Scott Morrison’s strange inability to comprehend life outside his own experiences had already been on display. .

I’m not here to offer any partisan conclusions about the culture of Parliament House, but in the context of this year’s federal election I would make this observation: two of Scott Morrison’s comments from that period continued to come up in our research right up until the election day as indicative of his failure to understand women.

First, that it wasn’t until he considered these issues as a husband and a father that he was able to reflect and listen.

And secondly, that women who marched outside Parliament House were lucky not to be met with bullets.

Labor national secretary says voters rejected Coalition and ‘more of the same’

Labor’s national secretary and election campaign director, Paul Erickson, is addressing the National Press Club now, discussing the context behind Labor’s victory at the federal election.

Erickson credits Anthony Albanese’s offering of a “better future” as opposed to three more years of Scott Morrison as the “powerful argument” that secured the party victory.

Labor won the election because we talked about the future and we offered the country an alternative to more of the same. After two years of Covid … and nearly a decade of Coalition neglect, Labor offered Australians the chance to elect a prime minister who would show up, who would take responsibility and would work with people to solve problems – an opportunity that Australians took.

The biggest barrier Labor had to overcome was not voters’ evaluation of our proposition or a counter offer from the Coalition. It was a widespread and deep sense of fatigue, anxiety and aversion to risk after some of the most difficult years that we have endured.

Normally these sentiments would drive fence sitters decisively back to the government of the day and weigh heavily against an effort to build a majority for change.

Yet we had a powerful argument – we assert that the alternatives of this election were not the devil you know or a leap into the unknown, instead it was a clear choice between a better future under Anthony Albanese or three more years of a Morrison government.

In the 18 months leading up to polling day, the Coalition refused to talk about the future and refused to put forward anything resembling a positive case for their own re-election.

Victorian government confident it has enough power supply

Senior Victorian minister Jacinta Allan told reporters earlier today the state was not in danger of any blackouts, saying it has sufficient energy supply and that it has no plans to change its position on the permanent ban on coal seam gas exploration.

There is undoubtedly pressure on our energy supply but the advice from Aemo is that Victoria has adequate power supply.

Bowen is followed by the minister for employment and workplace relations, Tony Burke, who takes credit for the increase to the minimum wage, and blasts the former government for not pushing for an increase earlier:

The era of wages being kept deliberately low by the Liberal and National parties effectively came to an end today. It came to an end for people on the minimum wage. It came to an end for cleaners, for shop assistants, for people in the care economy. A wage increase that the Liberal and National Party never would have advocated for.

People will be seeing in their bank accounts what the change of government means. People will be seeing in their bank accounts a wage increase that never would have happened back when we had a government committed and determined to keep wages deliberately low. For the first time in nearly a decade, we’ve had a government argue for a real wage increase and now it’ll be delivered.

Chris Bowen says energy system ‘under pressure’

Next up is the energy minister, Chris Bowen, who says he is so far pleased that the country has avoided blackouts, but says the system is under “pressure” and that the government supports Aemo to manage the situation:

I’m very pleased that we have been able to avoid so far any significant load shedding events or of course blackouts. I am also pleased that Aemo advises me that that will likely continue to be the case, that we will be able to avoid any load shedding events or any blackouts. Of course that is subjected to any unexpected outages in the system.

As I’ve said repeatedly this week, the system is under pressure. We have administered pricing (controls) in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria and that is leading to market outcomes which are requiring Aemo to intervene very heavily into the market.

And yesterday, Aemo directed more than 5,000 megawatts into the market using their powers. They directed generators to bid into the market and to generate more than 5,000 megawatts across the national energy market.

As I said, Aemo advises that the situation continues to remain that load shedding and blackouts are unlikely, but continues under very active management.

I’ve made clear to Aemo that the government supports any action they choose to take to effectively manage the situation in the best interests of Australian consumers, whether they be big industrial consumers or residential consumers.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has welcomed the Fair Work Commission’s increase to the minimum wage, and referenced a key moment from the election campaign:

At the heart of the election campaign, I was asked whether I would welcome a decision by the Fair Work Commission to increase the minimum wage by just $1. And today, they have done just that. And when I was asked, Would I welcome a decision? I said, Absolutely.

And I absolutely welcome today’s decision of a 5.2% increase granted by the Fair Work Commission to all those who are on the minimum wage. That lifts the minimum wage up by just $1.05 an hour or $40 a week. It makes a difference to people who are struggling with the cost of living.

The Fair Work Commission, having assessed the impact on the economy, having made an assessment based upon all the submissions, has chosen 5.2% – which is why we didn’t put a precise figure on it. We just said we didn’t want people to go backwards, and I welcome that.

The truth is that many of those people who are on the minimum wage are the heroes who saw us through the pandemic. These workers deserve more than our thanks, they deserve a pay rise and today they’ve got it.