Even without the rise of One Nation’s vote, Labor has been moving inexorably to a position as the natural party of government in Australia, at least at the federal level, although it has taken 125 years since Federation to achieve that goal.

For the first 50 years after 1901, Labor struggled to win elections and form governments, spending only 15 years of that 50 in office. Then came more than two decades in the wilderness between 1949 and 1972. This period was largely a product of Labor’s split in 1955 but it meant that 70 years after Federation, Labor had still spent only 15 years in government and the non-Labor parties 55 years.

The Whitlam government was famously short-lived after its election in 1972, but the next Labor administration under Hawke and Keating lasted for 13 years following its election in 1983. Since 1972 – another period of just over 50 years – Labor and the Coalition have shared this period equally between them in terms of time in government.

On the surface these figures suggest that the Coalition is in a position to regain office at some stage in the immediate future. But there are several factors that make this far from likely. One obvious reality is that the Albanese government still has two years in normal circumstances before the next election and then almost certainly another three years in office, given the magnitude of its victory at the last election and the consequent difficulty of the Coalition returning to government in one electoral bound.

Perhaps the most important of the factors favouring Labor is the dependability of preferences from Green voters. As the primary vote of the two major parties continues to decline, the reliability of Green preferences in favour of Labor makes it very difficult for the Coalition to match this combined vote, given the unreliability of preferences from most independents and, as it has turned out, One Nation. This unstated alliance between Labor and the Greens is also important for Labor in government. It is now impossible for either of the major parties to gain a majority in the Senate but this is a much bigger problem for a Coalition government than a Labor administration. Although the Greens complain constantly of Labor’s deficiencies, they support much of its legislative program in a way that they would never do for the Coalition. The same problem affects the Coalition at the state level – except in Queensland which has no upper house – given the almost insuperable difficulty of obtaining a majority in the various legislative councils.

Another significant impediment to the Coalition’s achieving office is its standing – or lack of it – with young voters. Naturally polls vary but support for the Coalition amongst voters in the 18-to-34 age range has fallen significantly over the last five years. It is true that the Greens have strong support amongst this group of voters but, as already noted, these votes will eventually benefit Labor in almost all electoral contests. There was a time when voters became more conservative as they grew older but there is no reason to assume that this will be so in the case of the younger voters reflected in these surveys.

One reason for the Coalition’s difficulty with younger voters – and to some extent with voters generally – is that economic management has largely ceased to be an electoral issue in Australia. This was traditionally one of the Coalition’s areas of expertise but increased government expenditure is now seen as the solution to all community problems and there is no evidence that the electorate is concerned with budget deficits or inflation. The so-called cost of living crisis certainly did no damage to the government at the last federal election.

The image of the Coalition has also been seriously affected by the hostility of a range of public and private institutions that once provided much of their support, including: most of the mainstream media; almost all academics in universities; literary festivals and other cultural bodies; various legal professional bodies; and the boards of many private sector corporations. Although these bodies are not representative of the electorate as a whole, their relentless hostility to the Coalition has had an impact on the community generally. There can be some speculation as to how great this impact has been but it is impossible to deny the fact that, whatever the broader importance of the so-called culture wars, the Coalition has been comprehensively defeated in that contest.

None of this means that the Coalition may not win elections at the federal or state level in the future. It is, of course, in office in Queensland, although after having been in opposition for almost 30 of the preceding 35 years. It also holds government in the Northern Territory and presides over a minority government in Tasmania. On the other hand, its numbers in the parliament in South Australia, Western Australia and the ACT mean that it almost certainly cannot win government at even the next election in those jurisdictions. In Victoria, the Coalition faces a Labor government that is almost dead on its feet but there is still no certainty that it would be able to take office at the election scheduled for November of this year.

It is rare for major parties to disappear from the political landscape but it might be recalled that for the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th century Britain had essentially a two-party system in the form of the Conservatives and the Liberals. The Liberals won the 1906 election with a huge majority in the House of Commons but their last election victory was 1910 and they never formed government again. From winning 400 seats at the 1906 election they went to winning 40 at the general election of 1924. There are many differences between the Britain of the early-20th century and the Australia of 2026 but there is certainly a danger for the Liberals in this country that they will lose their long-standing role in our political system over the next decade.