Grumbling mastheads make their election endorsements

BY Nathan Jolly

May 2, 2025 11:32

Grumbling mastheads make their election endorsements

Tomorrow is election day, and the nation’s news mastheads have made their editorial endorsements — without much enthusiasm for either side.

The News Corp papers have all suggested you vote for Peter Dutton, perhaps unsurprisingly for the historically right-leaning organisation.

“Vote in hope or we’ll cop more Labor torment” the Daily Telegraph’s headline runs.

After curiously dedicating the entire first half of the editorial to tearing down Penny Wong, the paper concedes “the Coalition ran limp”, noting “if [they] landed any punches at all, it landed them softly.” Nevertheless, the DT says “a vote for the Coalition would be made in hope for a better performance” while a vote for Labor would guarantee “the miserable, economy-belting, morale-sapping same.”

The Herald Sun is also cautiously backing Dutton, arguing, “Labor hasn’t delivered anywhere near enough to deserve another term”, and concluding “the Coalition has a better plan to supercharge productivity and get the economy thriving again.”

The Australian is disappointed in both parties. “The campaign, regrettably, has fallen way short of the contest of ideas that circumstances demand,” the paper’s editorial reads, slamming the “short-term thinking and a paucity of vision from both sides.”

Eventually, the paper decides that “in the key areas of defence, energy and the economy, the Coalition provides the best option for managing the demands of challenging and uncertain times.”

Seven West Media’s The West Australian had a similar approach to the Australian. It said “as a nation we have been gaslit by the Albanese Government on so many levels” but didn’t spare the rod for Dutton either, criticising its toothless campaigning, and posing the question, “If you can’t run a good campaign, can you run a good government.” (Albeit, one without a question mark.)

The conclusion? “The Opposition have been disappointing during this campaign, but when we vote on Saturday it’s a judgment on the past three years of compounding failure. And Anthony Albanese should be punished for it.”

Curiously, the leader was bylined “The Nightly”, Seven’s evening east-coast news play.

The Sydney Morning Herald seems to be making a two-way bet. “Dutton should not be our PM. But the Albanese government needs to be so much better” says the headline, and the opening gambit doesn’t get any more decisive.

“Australians are faced with the dispiriting choice of a government that has struggled to define its purpose and an opposition that has failed to prove it is anywhere near ready to take over. Who deserves to win on Saturday? The truth is neither Labor nor the Coalition have done much to inspire.” Inspiring!

The paper concludes “While the Herald believes Albanese and Labor are the best option to form government, we do so with qualifications,” before unleashing ten paragraphs of caveats. It’s unconvincing stuff.

“Labor would be wise to consider it a lucky second shot at government rather than a glowing endorsement of the previous three years.”

The SMH’s Nine stablemate the Australian Financial Review backed Dutton as the “least bad bet of worst election campaign ever”, while saying “Labor’s economic record does not deserve another three-year term, but the Coalition has not made the case to change the government.”

“It is traditional for this masthead to endorse one of the major parties in the pre-election editorial,” the AFR notes (since 1984, the paper has backed Labor just twice), admitting “it is tempting to sit this one out, given 2025 will go down as one of the worst campaigns on record for the damage it will do to Australian prosperity and the abject failure of both protagonists to confront difficult truths.”

The paper concludes that, since “compulsory voting means sitting on the fence is not an option for Australians”, this means “a Dutton government that has offered up slightly more in the way of budget responsibility might be our least worst bet, as unconvincing as he has been.”

Even the left-leaning Guardian isn’t over the moon at the prospect of a Labor government, using its editorial to convince voters to war-game a minority government, in the hopes it may prompt action from our country’s leader.

“Progressive Australians are left with strategic choices,” the editorial reads. “If they think the country is best served continuing along the path of gradual change they should vote Labor. If they want to vote strategically, understanding the risk of not knowing the ultimate makeup of the parliament, they may choose the Greens, teals or other alternative candidates in the hope of electing a minority Labor government with a progressive crossbench pushing it to move faster.”

With seven million votes already cast, and the campaigning all but over, the paper’s endorsements won’t move the dial. In the first ‘social media’ election we’ve had, both parties spent record amounts of money on digital advertising.

The Labor party, plus the state branches, have spent $7.44 million on Google and Youtube ads, since the election was called on March 29, with a further $1.54 million being spent by the Australian Labor Party on Facebook and Instagram ads.

The Liberal party plus state branches has spent a more modest $3.67 million on Google and Youtube during the same period, with a further $678,357 on the Meta platforms spent by the Australian Libs.

With all this digital spend, Free TV, the body representing the free-to-air channels, has rallied against the outdated election blackout that prohibits commercial and national broadcasters from airing political advertising from midnight on the Wednesday before election day.

These rules don’t apply to online platforms, social media, or print, which Free TV argues means advertising dollars move from Australian broadcasters to global digital platforms.

But, as Albanese is aptly showing over on Tiktok, if you play your social media cards right, you don’t even need to splash out money to make an impact with your potential voter base.

According to data crunched by Fabulate, throughout the campaign period, Albanese has enjoyed cumulative Tiktok views of 4.97 million, millions ahead of Dutton, who reached 1.23 million views in the same time, and Greens leader Adam Bandt, whose videos were viewed 957,000 times.

Source: Fabulate

Key to Labor’s success on the TikTok platform has been consistency of their posting, which has also helped Albanese increase his follower count by more than 25%, well above the growth seen by Dutton on his TikTok account.

Albanese also posted a lot more content on the platform, and more consistently, too. He posted 72 videos during the campaign, compared to Dutton’s 29, and Bandt’s 25.

Source: Fabulate

As such, Albanese saw his follower count increase by more than 25% during the campaign, to hit 42,100 followers, ahead of Dutton’s 34,100 followers, and Bandt’s 22,700.

Whether Tiktok manages to impact the election will remain to be seen, but the importance of online platforms, and the irrelevance of masthead editorials will only amplify as time marches on.