The newspaper did not endorse the Labor Party for federal office in the first six decades of Federation, but did endorse the party in 1961, 1984, and 1987. During the 2004 Australian federal election, the "Herald" announced it would "no longer endorse one party or another at election time" but that this policy might yet be revised in the future: "A truly awful government of any colour, for example, would bring reappraisal." In fact, astonishingly, on the eve of the 2016 federal election the paper's editor Darren Goodsir endorsed the broad policy platform of Labor leader Bill Shorten but the reelection of the Turnbull LNP government to deliver Labor's agenda.