“How parties and candidates frame their messaging and identify with voters in the first stages of the federal election will have a significant bearing on the final result,” writes political columnist ANDREW HUGHES.

The early stages of election campaigns are always about framing and identification. Leaders. Parties. Policies. Candidates. Us. 

The pattern Australian federal elections now seem to be, budget first, election campaign second, helps with this. 

Initial stages of campaigning can be sharp, focused and specific to the winners, or losers, of the budget. 

Labor has been working hard on their framing since the change in strategy in January to stop Peter Dutton’s momentum. Slowing him down was done by letting parliament sit as scheduled. 

Smart by Labor because then he was forced to sit on the Opposition benches, looking less the strong and decisive leader his framing was effective at building. 

The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could get control of the narrative back, and put Dutton in a place where he could be easily framed the way Labor wanted – negative, conservative and big on noise but not policy. 

This has worked well. The PM has clawed back precious poll numbers on leadership and party numbers.

Where the swing was really on, in Victoria most notably, the easing has even allowed the independent teals to apply pressure to the Coalition’s shrinking moderate base to the point that Wannon in Western Victoria, held by Dutton loyalist Dan Tehan, is now in play for former Triple J breakfast announcer Alex Dyson. 

But Dutton 2025 is not 2022 Morrison. He’s sharper, more astute, and with a good backroom team behind him. His budget reply demonstrated that. 

Aware of the need to put a position forward publicly, but at the same time aware how Labor had been framing him, and were about to call the election, he put enough out there for candidates to talk about in the first weekend but making it hard for Labor to pin him down on a specific policy that they themselves hadn’t supported sometime in the last few years. 

The Greens and teals have had their own framing issues. The Greens started election 2025 by stating their three (remember the Rule of Three?) big issues: housing, dental in Medicare, and climate. Wait… what happened to combative politics and identification with hard-left issues such as the Middle East? 

Election results do funny things to values in parties. The Greens, having taken lessons in the ACT, Victoria and WA, have realised that association with conflict turns most voters off and not on. Great for the base, but the teals have shown consensus politics and soft power is what gets you lower-house seats. 

So they’ve changed their framing to change their identification with voters. Green, I mean it’s nearly teal, right? They want you to see the two like you might see off-white and beige in a paint store. 

As for the teals/moderate Liberal faction, their framing took a bit of a hit during the week when footage emerged of a Liberal candidate sign being taken down by an ardent supporter without the authority to do so in Melbourne. So much for doing politics differently. 

As for identification, they seem to like being independents sometimes, teals at others. This is blurring the identification, even if you talk to the average voter they see them as teal 100 per cent of the time. 

They will likely be the group that decides who governs for the next three years based on current projections, yet what do we really know them for? That’s why framing and identification is so important in the early parts of a campaign. 

For mine, they should embrace teal. In a muddy campaign, in an information-dense environment, identification makes framing easier and messages cut through faster and more specific. They can build identification around three big issues, but allow candidates to act independently outside of that. 

So who’s ahead right now in the framing game? Labor has the edge here, for now. For most of 2024 the Coalition had the edge, but they needed to get it back. The Coalition’s biggest issue in 2025 is acting still like the opposition, and not framing themselves more as the alternative government. 

They needed to make that switch when Labor did with their own strategy. 

Neither party is doing that well with identification. Identification done well? Nod to the Nationals, always, always, great at doing that, something the other parties could look at more closely. It does frame them to a narrow context, but as their identification gets them elected nearly every single time, effective overall. 

Labor needs to work harder on their identification. Most tradies in their $100k Ford Raptors are more blue than red, and the middle white-collar workers are tired of being taxed by Labor with little escape. Saying you aren’t Dutton doesn’t work. Broad is safe, but also means identification is soft. Labor’s falling primary vote share in the last 10-15 years reflects that. 

The Coalition’s strategy has been about a more defined identification. They run the risk of replicating the 2022 result: maximising their vote in heartland seats, but seeing it fall away in the inner-city marginals. 

Either way, how parties and candidates frame their messaging and identify with voters in the first stages of the election will have a significant bearing on the final result.