Australia Election Live Updates: A ‘Small Target’ Campaign From the Political Left

With the conservative Liberal-National coalition government in power for 19 of the past 25 years and voters appearing primed for change, this election could have been Labor’s to lose.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a relative unknown in the last election, has proved to be deeply unpopular, especially with female voters. And Anthony Albanese, the opposition Labor leader, has tried to cast himself as a “reasonable person” to whom many voters can relate.

But the polls have been closer than might have been expected. In response, and perhaps fearing another surprise loss, Labor has kept the focus off policy as much as possible, a strategy known as a “small target” approach intended to minimize the potential for attacks and appeal to a broader base of voters.

The party’s few policy pronouncements have been thoroughly planned but hardly headline grabbing, including a promise to rewire the national electricity grid to better integrate renewable energy and a billion-dollar pledge to support manufacturing.

Only its child care policy, which would significantly increase subsidies, has made a ripple. In response, the governing coalition said it, too, would increase spending on child care, creating a spiral of competing policies.

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“The coalition in many ways is being pulled to the right on a number of issues, and there is an increased effort by Labor to move to the center to try to pick up some of those moderate Liberal voters,” said Natasha Kassam, director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think tank.

As a result, she said, Labor has shifted away from some of the more progressive issues that once formed the backbone of its policies.

Chris Wallace, a researcher at the University of Canberra, said that Labor’s strategy of shielding itself from scare tactics by its opponents “was just practicing good politics,” adding that the party had fought a compelling campaign. “It’s been much more disciplined and strategic, and it’s not lumbered with an incredibly unpopular leader,” she said.

Mr. Albanese, who served as deputy prime minister under Julia Gillard, took over as opposition leader after Labor’s upset loss in 2019. He is the child of a single mother who was on a disability pension, and was the first in his family to go to college. He has sought to connect with working-class voters over his origins.

“He has perfected the projection of the ‘reasonable person’ persona,” Dr. Wallace said.

In the final weeks of a closely fought campaign, the rising cost of living and the slow growth in wages have bubbled up to the forefront of voter concerns.

Australia has seen inflation of 5.1 percent in the past year. While that figure is lower than those in the United States or Europe, it has hit people’s bottom lines, as wages have grown by less than half that rate over the same period.

Among the voters who have felt the pinch is Alessandro Mandell, a chef at an Italian restaurant who was rushing to his local polling place in the western Sydney suburbs on Friday’s rainy, muddy election eve to cast his ballot early.

In past years, Mr. Mandell, 41, voted for the right-leaning Liberal Party. Not this time. With two children to feed and his and his wife’s wages stagnant for years, he was looking for a change and planned to vote for the opposition Labor Party, which is hoping to unseat the conservative prime minister, Scott Morrison.

“The cost of living went up like crazy,” Mr. Mandell said. “You go shopping with a hundred bucks and walk out with one bag.”

The candidates for prime minister have sparred over the question of who would guide the country more effectively as the world heads into choppy economic waters with soaring inflation, an unsteady recovery from the pandemic and the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine.

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After the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, said last week that wages should “absolutely” keep pace with inflation, Mr. Morrison called his comments reckless, saying that he was a “complete loose unit” and that higher wages would only fan inflation.

Mr. Albanese has countered that Mr. Morrison’s government is “totally out of touch” when people are struggling, pulling out a dollar coin from his pocket in a television interview to say that the governing coalition was against a $1 increase in the minimum wage.

The latest inflation figures and a central bank interest rate increase announced in the lead-up to the election could hurt the coalition, which has always painted itself as stalwart caretakers of the economy, said Jim Stanford, an economist and the director of the Center for Future Work at the Australia Institute, a think tank.

“People are feeling it when they go to fill up the gas or buy groceries,” he said. “The coalition government’s traditional economic narrative — that they’re keeping wages low to keep businesses growing — that argument is backfiring as living standards are going backwards.”

Even so, Daniel Saad, 30, who was voting in the same suburban electorate as Mr. Mandell, said his vote was squarely with the prime minister’s Liberal Party because he believed it was in his interest as a business owner.

“I’m sticking with who I voted for my whole life,” said Mr. Saad, a property developer, adding that he wasn’t particularly thrilled about the slate of would-be leaders: “It’s the best of the bad bunch. Pick your poison.”

At his restaurant in a bustling shopping mall farther west in Parramatta, Steven Wong, 51, said he didn’t blame the current government for the increase in the cost of living, because it was caused by external factors including the war in Ukraine and lockdowns in China. He said he was thankful for handouts to businesses during Covid-19 closures.

“Everybody got through this pandemic,” he said.

Grill sausages and onions until they are nicely browned. Take a slice of white bread, place sausage diagonally and top with onions. Fold. Garnish to taste.

Now if only the business of democracy were that simple.

Every Election Day in Australia, the smoky aroma of sizzling sausages permeates the air near polling stations, as barbecue stands serve up a beloved tradition that acts as a fund-raiser for local schools, churches or community groups.

“Democracy sausages,” as they’ve come to be known, make the compulsory trip to the voting booth feel like less of a chore and more like a block party.

Election Day barbecues have been around for longer than most can remember, but “democracy sausages” as a phrase first emerged in 2012, and took off during the federal election in 2016, according to the Australian National Dictionary Center.

The center says the term’s popularity that year was boosted in part by an infamous faux pas — when the opposition leader, Bill Shorten of the Labor Party, bit into one from the side, like he was eating corn on the cob. (“Sausage gaffe a snag for Labor,” The Guardian wrote. “Voters across Australia were largely astounded,” The Sydney Morning Herald observed.)

“That was definitely wrong,” said Annette Tyler, a co-creator of the site democracysausage.org, which has been mapping sausage availability at thousands of polling places since 2012. “We’re very inclusive, however you like your sausage, with onions or without onions, but eating a sausage like that, from the middle of the bun, is one of the strangest things I’ve seen.”

Lest there’s any confusion, the right way is to bite into either end, Ms. Tyler said.

“It’s not a complex art,” she added. “You’re not having dinner with the queen.”

Ms. Tyler, 38, said she enjoyed the spirit of community engagement the barbecue brought out. During one by-election in her home state of Western Australia, she and other volunteers behind the website sampled five sausages in four hours, she recalled.

As the electorate has diversified, so have the offerings, with more stands providing vegetarian or halal options, even fancy ones commanding prices of up to 8 Australian dollars. (Inflation stands to be a key issue on voters’ minds this election.)

Voters on Saturday at the polling station in Bondi Beach in Sydney.

Anthony Albanese likes to talk about his modest upbringing: He grew up in public housing in Sydney’s inner suburbs, raised by a single mother on a disability pension, and was the first in his family to go to college.

Mr. Albanese, the leader of the opposition Labor Party and the man polling says is likely to become the next prime minister, has credited good government for keeping a roof over his head during his childhood.

It’s this kind of government — one that “holds no one back, and leaves no one behind,” in his words — that he has evoked as he has sought to connect with working-class voters.

The question, though, is whether this oft-told story has registered with voters. Although Mr. Albanese is one of Australia’s longest-serving politicians, many voters still say they know little about him or what he stands for.

Part of this is because Labor has run what has been called a “small target” campaign. Mr. Albanese took over as opposition leader after Labor’s upset loss in the 2019 election, which the party has attributed to a too-ambitious policy platform that left it vulnerable to a scare campaign by the conservative Liberal Party.

This time, Labor has sought to minimize differences with the government on several issues like national security and border protection, and it has proposed incremental changes on other issues like climate change.

As Mr. Albanese puts it, he is seeking “renewal, not revolution.”

“There’s a slight element of Joe Biden about Albanese — he’s an alternative which people are hoping for because they don’t like the incumbent,” said John Warhurst, an emeritus professor of politics at the Australian National University.

“There’s not an enthusiasm there,” he added.

A career politician, Mr. Albanese joined the Labor Party as a teenager. He got his start through student politics at the University of Sydney, after which he worked for Labor politicians and in party roles. He built up a status as a back-room power broker before being elected to Parliament in 1996.

When Labor won the 2007 election under the leadership of Kevin Rudd, Mr. Albanese became the minister for infrastructure. He weathered the subsequent years of internal party chaos in which Julia Gillard took over as prime minister before Mr. Rudd wrenched the post back. As one of Mr. Rudd’s key backers in the leadership fight, Mr. Albanese became deputy prime minister for two months before Labor was defeated in the 2013 election.

As a member of the Labor Party’s more progressive “socialist left” faction, Mr. Albanese spoke in favor of euthanasia, was a strong supporter of same-sex marriage and opposed his party’s support of policies that bar refugees from seeking asylum after reaching Australia by boat.

But in recent years, he has shifted to a more moderate stance, including falling in line with his party’s position on asylum seekers. During the campaign, he has sought to assure voters that he is a centrist, including with a front-page profile in a Murdoch-owned paper with the headline “I am not woke.”

When Scott Morrison first became Australia’s prime minister in 2018, he was so little known that when he went to shake the hand of a soccer fan, the confused man asked: “What’s your name, then?”

After nearly four years at the helm, Mr. Morrison’s pitch to voters this time around is that he and his conservative coalition are the known quantities in a world full of economic and geopolitical uncertainty. Australia continues to grapple with its emergence from the pandemic, fallout from the war in Ukraine and China’s encroachment in the region.

“It’s a choice between a strong future and an uncertain one. It’s a choice between a government you know and a Labor opposition that you don’t,” he said in April as he called the election. “Now is not the time to risk that.”

Mr. Morrison, who won a surprise victory in the country’s last federal election three years ago, is the only prime minister in 15 years to serve out a full term. But his tenure hasn’t always been smooth, with moments that have tested the Australian public’s faith in his leadership and scandals that rocked his administration.

The biggest and possibly most enduring of those moments came early in his term, when he and his family jetted off to Hawaii while devastating bush fires raged in Australia in late 2019. His ham-handed explanation during a radio interview — “I don’t hold a hose, mate” — became emblematic of what many have criticized as his government’s inadequate response and reluctance to take climate change seriously as a factor in the disaster.

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Some of that public trust was recovered with his administration’s early success curbing the Covid-19 pandemic. Swift border closures and aggressive policy measures spared Australia the levels of deaths and hospitalizations other countries suffered. But the government’s delays in procuring vaccines and Mr. Morrison’s remarks that securing jabs was “not a race,” ate away at what confidence had been restored.

In the final days of the campaign, Mr. Morrison acknowledged that his style of leadership had turned some Australians off, saying he could be “a bit of a bulldozer.” But he said his approach had been necessary in recent years, and he promised to change.

His challenger, Anthony Albanese, said Mr. Morrison shouldn’t be given another chance: “A bulldozer wrecks things, a bulldozer knocks things over. I’m a builder.”

Mr. Morrison, who is the son of a police officer and was raised in a beachy suburb of Sydney, is a devout Pentecostal, a first in largely secular Australian politics. He worked as a marketing executive on tourism campaigns promoting Australia before he was elected to Parliament in 2007.

He emerged in the broader national consciousness in 2013 as immigration minister, when he took a hard-line approach to enforcing Australia’s “Stop the Boats” policy, aimed at preventing asylum seekers from reaching the country’s shores. After stints as minister of social services and treasurer, he became what some have referred to as the “accidental” prime minister when he was the last one left standing during an internal party revolt.

In 2019, Mr. Morrison, 54, ran for his first full term as prime minister, painting himself as a relatable Everyman, a suburban dad who loves rugby — “ScoMo,” as he liked to refer to himself. He seemed as stunned as anyone when his center-right coalition won, calling it a “miracle.”

“It was a successful piece of personal marketing in 2019,” said Frank Bongiorno, a history professor at the Australian National University.

But this time, he can no longer rely on the personal branding. Mr. Morrison has to run on his record, and there’s brewing disillusionment around his government’s handling of pressing issues such as climate change, the treatment of women and corruption, Mr. Bongiorno said.

“There is a sense it may be time for change, and that’s reflected in the polling at the moment,” he said.

Victoria Kim, a Times reporter, interviews voters on the streets of Grayndler, home district of opposition candidate Anthony Albanese, and western Sydney, a diverse, fast-growing area where several seats could swing to either Liberal or Labor candidates.

Roslyn Blake, 73

Food pantry volunteer, retired C.E.O. and one-time industrial chemist

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison “is like a bad boyfriend — he says if you elect me again, I’ll change.” People complain that Anthony Albanese doesn’t have charisma, but “I don’t believe a prime minister needs to have charisma.”

Adam Seeney, 27

Wedding officiant and M.C.

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Splitting his vote between Labor and Greens. “They’re two old white men who are out of touch. It’s boring. Every time, it’s the same sort of choice,” he said of Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese. Even though he’s voting for Mr. Albanese, he is not enthusiastic about it. “I know what he’s putting out there, his persona. I know that story: He’s working class; he’s come from nothing. But he’s churned through that system, and he’s a figurehead politician.”

Alessandro Mandell, 41

Chef

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Voting for Labor. On the current prime minister, “I’m pretty disappointed, like with the rollout of the vaccine. He says, ‘It’s not my responsibility.’ I hold a position of management at work, and if something goes wrong, I take the blame. It’s my job to fix it.”

Steven Wong, 51

Owner of a restaurant and a sporting goods store

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Has always been a Liberal Party voter but is torn this time, only because of Australia’s deteriorating relations with China, which have hurt his business. Otherwise, he has been happy with the prime minister. “He’s running the country well, he’s done a good job, like the support payments. Everybody got through this pandemic.”

Australians go to the polls on Saturday to choose a government as the country, emerging from two years of Covid-fueled isolation, faces rising inflation, persistent anxiety about climate change and growing foreign policy challenges.

After nine years in power, the conservative coalition — now led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison — is locked in a tight race with the Labor Party and its leader, Anthony Albanese.

With few major policy differences or dramatic proposals, the election has come to be seen as a referendum on Mr. Morrison’s conduct and performance in office. He has sought to emphasize his steady management of the economy and Australia’s rapid response to Covid, while his opponent has pointed to his failure to keep housing affordable, his absence during the 2020 bush fires and avoidance on climate change policy, and his aggressive, partisan approach to politics, which has alienated many women.

Rising support for minor parties and a new wave of independent candidates, most of them women who are campaigning for stronger action on climate change and a federal anti-corruption commission, could lead to a minority government that might take several days of negotiating to form. But Labor has been building momentum, and is increasingly confident about a clear victory.

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What’s at Stake

Australia has managed the pandemic relatively well, keeping its per capita death toll low by shutting its international and state borders while funneling public money to workers, businesses and the health care system. Now that the country is highly vaccinated and open again, the government’s job for the next few years will involve shaping the recovery.

Mr. Morrison, 54, has argued that now is not the time to shift to a Labor government. “It’s not just about who will make things better, and I believe we will,” he said last week. “But it’s also who can make them worse.”

To bolster its chances, the conservative coalition has made about $2 billion worth of pledges for infrastructure and energy projects, along with smaller local projects like sports facilities.

Mr. Albanese, 59, has promised investment in roads and transportation while emphasizing that Labor will do more for “the caring economy,” which includes child care workers, educators and nursing home workers. Facilities for the aged have been struggling with reports of treatment lapses and miserable conditions.

Labor has also promised to increase funding for universities, which were left out of the coalition’s Covid-assistance plans. And though it has not ruled out investment in coal, Labor has said it will move more quickly to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change.

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Australia’s emissions reduction target for 2030 — 26 percent from 2005 levels — has been described by other world leaders as a disappointment. It’s half what the United States and Britain have promised.

But whoever wins the election will not just have to manage domestic concerns and international pressure on climate change. Australia also faces an increasingly tricky security environment.

The country’s relations with China have been on ice since at least 2017, when Australia passed foreign interference legislation and China responded with import bans on wine, beef and other Australian products. Beijing has also made inroads in the Pacific islands, Australia’s traditional sphere of influence, with the Solomon Islands signing a secretive security agreement with China last month.

These will be among the issues discussed at the next meeting of the Quad — Japan, the United States, India and Australia — which is scheduled to take place in Tokyo on May 24, three days after Australia’s election.

There is not much distance between the two parties on the challenge China represents or on Australia’s push toward a stronger alliance with the United States.

Who’s Running?

Mr. Albanese took over as Labor leader after the party’s 2019 election loss, and he is known for being a quieter, more collaborative brand of boss than his predecessor, Bill Shorten.

He was raised by a single mother in public housing and often says she instilled in him a passion for three great faiths: the Catholic Church, the Australian Labor Party and the South Sydney Rabbitohs, his local rugby team.

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He was elected to Parliament in 1996, rising to become deputy prime minister in 2013 with the Labor government led by Kevin Rudd.

Despite all his time in government, Mr. Albanese was relatively unknown to most Australians until recently. As opposition leader and as a candidate, he has constructed a “small target” approach, making few bold policy pronouncements and seeking to minimize Labor’s differences with the coalition on traditional hot-button issues like taxes.

Mr. Albanese’s effort to make voters focus on Mr. Morrison hit obstacles at first, as the Labor leader made a few gaffes near the official start of the campaign. But he found his footing during a pair of debates during which he focused on wage increases and other traditional Labor issues while standing up to the more combative prime minister.

Mr. Morrison has led Australia’s government — a coalition of the Liberal and National parties — since 2018. An energetic campaigner who has presented himself as the leader for “quiet Australians” who want a steady hand on the economic tiller, he had a reputation for being a moderate earlier in his career. But as prime minister, he has often lined up with the more conservative wing of Australian politics, especially on climate change.

Like Mr. Albanese, he is a devoted rugby fan who grew up in Sydney — in his case in the wealthier eastern suburbs, where his father was a police officer and municipal council member.

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After working as a marketing executive for Tourism Australia, he reached Parliament in 2007, representing a handful of suburbs in the southeastern corner of Sydney.

He rose quickly, becoming the minister for immigration and border protection in the government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, where he oversaw a hard-line approach to asylum seekers — with boats turned back by the Australian military and refugees placed in offshore detention.

He served as treasurer under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, until he took power in 2018 after an intraparty coup initiated by members who resisted Mr. Turnbull’s moderate stance on climate change and other issues.

What Are the Major Issues?

On a national level, voter surveys show that Australians are most concerned about inflation and the cost of living, especially the exorbitant price of housing in Sydney, Melbourne and other major cities.

In most of the country’s middle-class districts, economic issues are dominant, but in a number of the electorates that could define which party wins, there are two other election dynamics playing out.

In wealthier districts around Sydney and Melbourne, several independent candidates — mostly professional women — are challenging Liberal incumbents with campaigns focused on climate change solutions, gender equity and a return to civility to politics.

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And in less urban areas, the election is being fought more on culture war and identity issues. Mr. Morrison handpicked a candidate who has lobbied against allowing transgender women to play women’s sports, and he has at times made the issue a focus of his campaign.

“There are three campaigns being fought,” said Peter Lewis, a seasoned pollster and executive director of Essential, a progressive communications and research company. “You’ve got a cultural election, an economic election and a post-materialist election” — focusing on quality of life — “and they’re all playing out in different parts of Australia.”

Who’s Leading?

The latest voter surveys show Labor leading by a few points. Mr. Morrison’s approval ratings have been falling for months, and neither he nor Mr. Albanese is drawing enthusiastic support. Voters have signaled they are more dissatisfied than satisfied with both of them.

Election projections in Australia are notoriously hard to trust. The country has compulsory voting and preferential voting, letting people rank their choices, and a large swath of the electorate decides at the last second. By some counts, a quarter of all voters remain uncertain or not confident about their ultimate choice.

In 2019, polls showed Labor with a slight edge — but Mr. Morrison and the coalition won an upset victory.

This time around, analysts are suggesting a high probability of a hung Parliament, with neither the coalition nor Labor winning the 76 seats needed to form a government.

If that happens, minor parties like the Greens on the left or One Nation on the right — or some of the independents, if they win — could be the kingmakers who decide which way Australia’s next government goes.