Pushing Paper Uphill Gets Political!!

So far with this blog, I’ve kept the tone light and the topics to what is generally referred to as popular culture.  I’ve only gone down the political route once with this post.

But things change, readers!  First a warning:  if you are of a conservative bent, you probably won't like this.

There was an election in Queensland recently, the result of which was that the lunatics LNP (Liberal National Party) took over the asylum treasury benches, in a win so decisive and overwhelming that the Labor Party only held onto seven seats and is still crouching behind furniture, wondering if it is safe to come out yet.  For those of us who identify as lefties (that means me), it is the beginning of a long three years.

As I said, it was a walloping and many lefties in Queensland are still shell-shocked but as I’ve been tuning into much of the commentary, as well as watching the new conservative government in action, I think I’ll spend much of the next few years giving voice to my inner-bolshie.  This means forays into political commentary.  This one could be titled “The Death of the Labor Party Has Been Greatly Exaggerated”

So far, much of the commentary on the loss is focussing on the fact that Queensland election resulted in the  fourth state Labor government to fall since 2008, as well as pointing to the near-death experience that was the 2010 Federal election result (a hung parliament requiring the formation of a minority government - both sides were given an equal crack at it and Labor, under the leadership of Julia Gillard, managed to get the numbers necessary to form government).

This points to, apparently, the “Labor brand” being on the nose everywhere in the entire universe, according to the commentariat, who also insist on using the term “Labor brand” as often as possible.  This summation seems to be based on the premise of “somebody said it, so it must be true”.  They have also decided the outcome of the next election will be a win to the Liberal Party, lead by the Tony Abbott (who I like to describe as Gareth Keenan from The Office if he’d managed to score a Rhodes Scholarship).

It is said occasionally that there is something of a right-wing bias in the media and this analysis of the current Australian political scene might back this up.  Why?  Well, look into it a bit deeper and you find out the analysis is rubbish and I’m going to explain why.

There was a time in 2007 when the Federal government and the all the state governments were all held by Labor.    This was an anomaly in Australian history.  That the highest public office in Australia held by the Liberal Party at that time was that of Lord Mayor of Brisbane (which was Campbell Newman who is now the Queensland Premier) was also unusual.  The analysis of this situation was reasoned and considered, with little talk of the Liberals being on the nose, or in terminal decline.  It was put down to Australian voters’ preference of balance so the Libs’ record run of state election losses (20 to be exact) was put down to the 12 years John Howard was in power federally and the cyclical nature of politics.

Now I’m going to get all nerdy with facts about the last few state election results.  No wait, come back!!

After that anomalous situation of Labor Governments as far as the eye could see, which briefly occurred after the 2007 Federal Election, Western Australia went to the polls in 2008 and the Liberal Party managed to form government.  I can’t say they won the election because they had to form a minority government as they failed to win sufficient seats to govern in their own right.  The most recent Newspoll (the poll with the most credible reputation) shows that with the election due in less than a year, support for Colin Barnett’s government is exactly where it was at that last election.  This is a big problem for him.  The Libs had made some gains but this seems to have been due to a decent but dull Labor leader, Eric Ripper, who has been since replaced with Mark McGowan.  And this is a state where apparently the Labor Party is most unpopular.

The next Labor government to fall was in Victoria.  The result was close and both parties had to wait a few days for the outcome of a couple of seats before they knew who had won.  In the end the Liberal Party won by two seats.  A win yes, but not a ringing endorsement.  It was generally considered a surprise result and my observation from up north is that the Baillieu government is showing classic signs of being an “accidental” government.  What both WA and Victoria have in common is that two popular Labor leaders, Geoff Gallop and Steve Bracks respectively had stood down (Gallop for health reasons and Bracks for family reasons) and been succeeded by less charismatic replacements (Alan Carpenter and John Brumby).

The next Labor government to face voters was the NSW government and no one was expecting anything other than a landslide against Labor.  It was a long time coming and part of the problem, which I’ve not seen discussed, is that NSW has fixed terms.  This meant the Labor government, which was falling apart, wasn’t able to call an early election.  Had they been able to call an election, there still would have been a change of government but possibly not the annihilation that eventuated.  Instead the voters had to wait and watch as scandals emerged and government services and infrastructure crumbled, not to mention the revolving door on the leadership.  By the time they went to the polls, voters had had an absolute gut-full.

There were also elections in Tasmania and South Australia which were both razor-thin wins to incumbent and long-term Labor governments.  In Tasmania’s case, it is a minority government and in South Australia, the once amazingly popular Mike Rann held on by just a couple of seats.  The most recent Newspoll in South Australia shows the vote hasn’t moved much since that election and the new Premier Jay Weatherall, is well ahead of the Opposition Leader, Isobel Redmond.

Then there was the Queensland result, which was not so much a car crash as a multi-vehicle pile-up for Labor but the polls had been pointing to a hiding for a while.  That the loss was so extensive I would put down to an almost completely negative campaign from the Labor Party.  Campbell Newman’s actually-quite-mediocre-when-you-think-about-it record as Brisbane’s Lord Mayor should have been enough for Labor to work with, along with spruiking their own policies for the future.  They were never going to win and probably shouldn’t have tried to, but they could campaigned towards minimising the loss and remaining in the game.  Epic Fail.

At a state level, with the exception of Queensland and New South Wales, the state of things between the two main political parties is completely normal and none of the next elections are foregone conclusions for either side.  Labor is competitive in all states which is surprising considering they are, according to opinion makers, "on the nose".  (As for Queensland and New South Wales, huge wins may put a smile on the faces of party supporters but the realists in the party rooms know that massive majorities are more trouble than they are worth and such wins are in fact bad for government.  Just ask former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie - he had 66 seats in 2001.  But barring catastrophe, they’ll both be out for three terms).

So how does this bode for the Federal government?  Well it doesn’t say anything really, except that enough voters can and do differentiate between state and federal issues.   Prime Minister Julia Gillard's government is currently behind in the polls but governments have been in similar positions and recovered to win elections.  That said, Gillard will need to recover big time as she doesn’t have a buffer to protect the Government against any swing away from them whatsoever.  The Queensland election result might just be the wake-up call the Labor Party needed to get their act together.  A week is a long time in politics, goes the saying, and the next election is over 12 months away.

So the death of the Labor Party has been greatly exaggerated and the Canberra Press Gallery might want to do Australia’s democracy a favour and start discussing the parties' policy directions, rather than gossiping about Parliament as if it was a favourite soap opera or sudden death sporting competition.

Yours politically