Poor pandemic management pummels Coalition at the polls

Former prime minister Scott Morrison. Photo: Tracey Nearmy/ANU - The Coalition government was severely punished at the polls for perceived poor performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, paving the way for Labor's win, Australia's leading study on elections and democratic trends has found. The 2022 Australian Election Study (AES), released in full today, also found voters had the most pessimistic view of a government's economic management, including the cost of living, in 30 years. Taken together, the findings represent "a serious existential crisis for the Liberal Party", the study authors argue. Study co-author Professor Ian McAllister, from The Australian National University (ANU), said perceptions of poor performance by the government "played a key role in the Coalition's defeat". "In 2022 there were three performance explanations for the Coalition's defeat - the economy, the pandemic and Scott Morrison's leadership," Professor McAllister said. "Only 30 per cent of Australians thought that the federal government had handled the pandemic well.