Note: This post was first published in the daily Crikey email and is cross-posted at Currumbin2Cook.
It’s almost proverbial these days to assert that State government is about service delivery, not big ideological issues. The big ticket economic and social policies are the domain of Federal politics. But it’s also always been the case that Australian electors like to balance a Commonwealth government of one partisan stripe with State governments of the other.
Recently, on Crikey, I wrote that one of the key issues Graham Young and I were picking up in our online polling for The National Forum was IR. Queensland voters were deeply worried about job security. There’s no real surprise there as Queensland has the highest level of casual employment and had the State IR system with the biggest coverage in Australia. And wages in Queensland have historically been, and are still below the national average.
As I predicted, Team Beattie is campaigning on Federal issues. TV ads push both the interest rates and WorkChoices buttons, and wrap the theme together with Coalition disunity. But interestingly, Lawrence Springborg has also taken a leaf out of the Federal playbook.
The Coalition’s campaign launch on Sunday highlighted promises designed to appeal to first home buyers and motorists, as well as a twist on the private health insurance boondoggle.
The Nats obviously think that Federal issues can play their way too. It was an interesting gambit to play with Howard and Vaile in the room. Howard must have brought his campaign launch spendometer with him, as the Coalition’s promises now add up to $5.7 billion of new spending. And the figures don’t add up. But then no one imagines that Michael Catalbiano will have to start doing the sums as Treasurer on Monday. He’ll be more likely calculating what his super payout is.
One thing is undeniable. Whatever Federal pollies will say on Sunday morning, it’s impossible to claim that this Queensland election doesn’t send a message about Australian politics. Political strategists should be pondering what the election portends for the many low income regional seats the Coalition hold nationally.
He won’t be entitled to anything other than a refund of his contributions. I think.
No arguments here. It’s like a Greek tragedy except here you really really want the Liberals’ hubris to speed their downfall, the sooner the better.
Pushing federal issues at a state level or vice-versa is smart stuff. Most people get annoyed when someone fobs them off with a “this is not our jurisdiction” type response, even if it is true.
I think that those of us living in Victoria might be interested in seeing a similar analysis of politics down here as we get closer to the state election.
The silly thing is, even if Labor win federally, they won’t go back to the old unfair, unfair dismissal laws anyway, which was really all that IR was about. As for overturning AWAs for lucky miners and the like, that won’t happen either. The sky hasn’t fallen on IR and it was never going to, because it was all about keeping union leaders in their sheltered workshop, rather than singing for their supper like the rest of us. Unions are for big biz and big govt nowadays and the majority of us are not employed by them. Notice how the union’s example of the Cowra meatworkers panned out? An employer behaving badly and why? Because the enterprise was going down the gurgler. Did the union save the worker’s jobs? Not bloody likely. That was left to the new meatworks down the road already setup by former workers in competition with the Cowra meatworks and bleeding its best staff. They’re probably all on AWAs by mutual agreement, after seeing the pitfalls of the union shop down the road.
Anyone still for Rollback?
Yep, I’m still all for roll-back but it is interesting that the sacked workers have started their own shop. I can’t see how it logically follows that they’ll all be on self-imposed AWAs…
Spot on! But informed opinion suggested that the floor will rot away. It has started. And if you talk to political staffers in the Liberal Party, they are worried about the amount of venom in the community.
Don’t be surprised if the ‘rollback’ comes from JW Howard, using the excuse of ‘fine tuning’.
There was talk on Insiders last sunday about the State’s returning to deficit spending now that there are renewed demands for substantial Gov’t investment in infrastructure. If States start doing this it will no doubt put greater upward pressure on interest rates… which could well bite politically on the Federal level. Needless to say, there is no airlock between the State and Federal levels.
I’m guessing that Labor’s rollback will not be complete, in that they will retain Howard’s interpretation of the Corporations power (assuming the HC doesn’t overturn it) and use the centralised system for their own purposes. Howard won’t be so pleased by his precedent-setting legacy then… and neither will the Liberal State Governments which will no doubt arise after Labor is established Federally.
“But it’s also always been the case that Australian electors like to balance a Commonwealth government of one partisan stripe with State governments of the other.”
Not really. Between 1955 and 1999 Victoria had 8 years of having state governments on the other side from federal, and 36 years where they were the same. I haven’t done the maths but I suspect that only NSW and Tasmania have spent more time with contrasting governments than the same party in at each level.
I think that backlashes against the party in power at the other level probably only really took hold about 1970, and has been growing since then.
They must be showing different TV ads in the bush than in Brisvegas, Mark – haven’t seen one with an IR theme yet. Plenty on employment, prosperity, coalition disunity, and the general laughable mistakes of the opposition.