A status quo result in the hotly contested Eden-Monaro by-election has simultaneously helped to strengthen Anthony Albanese’s leadership of the Labor Party while giving Scott Morrison a shot in the arm, having withstood a possible protest vote over his handling of the bushfire crisis.
Both leaders were carefully managing expectations in the lead-up to the first by-election of the 46th Parliament, conducted under the shadow of a once-in-a-100-year pandemic, in the most challenging economic conditions since the Great Depression and in a region still traumatised by the black summer of fires.
These contaminants make it even harder than usual to pick apart the result and determine which issue ultimately swayed voters.
ABC election analyst Antony Green handed the win to Labor — a huge relief for Albanese who personally picked Labor’s candidate Kristy McBain and threw everything at this seat to defend it.
He could not afford to be the first opposition leader in 100 years to lose a seat to a government in a by-election.
Labor had always said that it would lose about 3 per cent o