…and I’m not going to bother linking to most of the oodles of speculation in today’s papers about whether Howard will step down or be challenged in the next few days. But Howard is right about one thing - the record of state oppositions changing their leaders before recent polls is not promising. The extreme case is Queensland last year, when Bob Quinn was ousted and Beattie called the election almost immediately. The new leader, Bruce Flegg, was a campaign disaster, to put it mildly. Peter Debnam in NSW had longer, as did Ted Baillieu in Victoria, and while the latter perhaps performed better than the former, neither Iemma or Bracks was ever really in the sort of danger they should have been in.
The other thing worth noting is that the timing of the election has virtually been taken out of Howard’s hands. Forget “circuit breakers” (and Possums Pollytics’ comprehensive analysis is again worth a link on this one), Howard won’t be able to kill all the talk about switching leaders and “annihilation” unless he calls an election this week. It’s been suggested that Howard may go for a long campaign to allow voters to “focus” on Kevin07. That was a mistake when Bob Hawke did it in 84, and it would be a bigger mistake for Howard now. His government is in trouble partly because it’s not seen as having a positive agenda for the future (because it doesn’t, frankly) and 6 or 7 weeks of a hysterical fear and smear campaign would be horrendous for their chances.
The truth is that Howard’s own permanent campaigning style has almost certainly done him in. If he’d largely ignored Rudd from December last year, and projected the image of a steady and responsible government, he might be in better shape now. But his self-belief in his own “cleverness” wouldn’t allow him to do this. So we’ve had nigh on a year of increasingly shrill and hyperbolic ranting and a veritable plague of rabbits escaping from his empty Akubra. If Howard loses, there’ll be a plethora of commentary but one word will be enough to explain it: hubris.
Elsewhere: Ambit Gambit, Oz Politics, Public Opinion and Blogocracy.
Long Campaigns can be tiring; lucky he is a macho man
The most encouraging thing about Howard’s current woes it that the GP seems to finally be turned off by all those obnoxious aspects of Howard’s political persona that for so long seemed only to turn them on.
Denial and delay on climate change, back-pedalling on any previously-held position for brazen political gain, as you correctly point out Mark, no vision for the future and, at least for this observer, a refusal to countenance a moral perspective to any issue that isn’t ‘what’s in it for me’.
It’s this last aspect that I reckon (or least dearly hope!) has finally turned the country off this morality-free zone of a PM.
You can’t properly tackle climate change unless you acknowledge that the developed world is the one who has benefited from our emissions so far. You can’t impose a solution on Aboriginals if you’re not prepared to genuinely listen to them and involve them in the process. You can’t create a society which is fair while you’re busy thrashing the unemployed and single mums.
I’d like to think that Australian society can only stomach this kind of selfishness and insularity for so long. Whether Kev then chooses to carry on his ‘poor boy kicked off the farm’ narrative to its logical conclusion is, I guess, another matter…
I’m fascinated by the rats-deserting-the-sinking-ship element, not just of the timid Liberals themselves but particularly the press gallery. The switch in perception from Howard as genius one minute, fool the next has been abrupt. People inside the MSM love this kind of intellectual whiplash but it ultimately diminishes their credibility.
The Liberals who are most keen for Howard to go to the election are the moderates. They want Howard and Howardism comprehensively and inescapably defeated. Were he to go now he’d live to fight another day, or somehow claim that a defeat wasn’t really about him. For Howard, “returning were as tedious as go o’er” and they owe it to themselves to see Howard and Howardism through to the bitter end.
“I want to assure all other Australian cities that I love them too, love them dearly, but…”
The Wharf 8 Declaration. Hubris & Humbug; and just a dash of panic.
Has the whole of 2007 in Australia been devoted to proving that the ALP may be electable if it has a decent leader? Simon was voluble but unclear, Kim was lazy, Mark L seemed menacing.
In every case the electors were entitled to reject the ALP. In commerce “the customer is always right”, in electoral politics “the people are sovereign” and the voters are always correct.
So for ALP supporters and members, how do you propose to IMPROVE leader-selection processes (and candidate pre-selections) in the long term?
cheerio
Just started the latest Shane Maloney/Murray Whelan book, “Sucked In”. A federal opposition leader is described as “stout but only in the physical sense”
Yes but Ratty still apparently has a 50% popularity rating according to the Neilsen Poll in the SMH today and according to what Peter Hartcher is saying. In fact Hartcher is arguing that the problem lies with the party and not with Ratty. So if the polls are that abysmal for the Coalition, why are Ratty’s personal stocks not plummeting too?
Heh heh Mark you sound as if you actually think Labor could win.
You seem to forget that the Leader sees no signs that people want him to lose. He has secret weapons that he will unleash soon … and his opponents will certainly fall to fighting amongst themselves any day now … and General Wenck’s counter-attack will send the enemy reeling, just wait and see.
Curse Godwin and his law to hell, he spoils so many blog comments.
Mark,
Undoubtedly hubris is part of the explanation for Howard’s coming (I hope ) destruction. Bu there may be another element to it : that Howard doesn’t want to hand over to Costello at all, because of (a) their mutual hatred and more importantly (b) because Costello is much more moderate, with the exception of IR. He believes the country should apologise to the Aborigines, he’s in favour of a republic, he may be more willing to follow the Rudd strategy and get out of Iraq but put more troops into Afghanistan (that’s a guess) and, if his brother Tim is any indication, he may be softer on welfare. Howard really wants a man of the hard right there, like Abbott, not some character who might go all small ‘l’ wimpy on him after his gone and remove some of his reforms. If/When he’s defeated at the next election his hope may be that soon after Costello will leave Parliament, leaving the way open for Howard’s right wing Rottwieler mates.
Howard is a lot of things, but he isn’t a quitter.
I’m having lots of trouble squaring the narrative that Howard is on the nose with the electorate. The conservative commentariat seem to believe that Howard is the problem, despite the continuing theme that he still garners 50% popularity. However, I also find it hard to believe that an electorate that was so enamoured of conservatives it voted them in for 11 years has suddenly changed (or woken up, or something).
There is one clue that kind of gels a germ of an idea - the last election was a total aberration as evidenced by the closeness of the overall result.
Have Australians really had enough of Liberal party style conservatism? Have they finally had enough of Ruddock and Downer and are reluctantly cutting Howard loose because of that? Perhaps it’s sunk in that Costello would be getting a gig as prime minister he doesn’t deserve?
I’m terminally confused now. I’m happy that the liberals look like losing in a historic rout, but I really want to know why.
Ken, you can always try Comical Ali instead.
Well I’m still worried. Because:
1. I figure the real 2pp is 55:45 once the temporarily pissed-off-with-APEC affect is eliminated.
2. We have seen in the past that sort of lead can evaporate with a single piece of deceptive Howard sliminess or ALP mistake. In the main, swinging voters are a disengaged herd and are ever ready to latch on to any sparkly thing that catches their attention, no matter how superficial.
3. The public is still wary of the ALP’s Iraq position. They sort of agree, but withdrawal makes us and the troops into the bad guys for (1) going there in the first place, then (2) ratifying Ratty by reelection.
4. The public is still wary of the ALP’s position on IR. They sort of agree, but there’s a lurking suspicion that they might be wrong - that Workchoices might actually be good for them.
5. The public still believe the LNP are the better economic managers. Doesn’t matter how many times we talk about resouces booms, the public are still fixated on Keating’s 17%.
6. Ratty still has $17 billion of taxpayer funds to purchgase our votes. I actually don’t think the big spend in marginal electorates will help him, but giving us our money back might do the trick.
Hey, don’t want to sound too ‘doom and gloom’ but that disengaged herd of swingers worries me. Hard to have much trust in the mob that bought into Tampa and the hollow interest-rate promises.
Look forward to somebody convincing me that there’s nothing to worry about.
When I went to visit my parent’s place in the country, the locals were grizzling about Howard in the pub.
The pub is in a small town in Sophie Panopoulos’s electorate, in which she got well over 60% of the 2PP vote last time. The grizzlers were mostly small business owners and retirees.
I’m still crossing my fingers, but it might finally be time. Now the question is how much of an improvement Rudd Labor will be…
The disengaged voters are not a “herd”. They are my fellow citizens, some are your neighbours, friends, acquaintances. Each of us has one vote, and only one. Let’s not have this superiority complex.
Every voter has her or his own interests to consider, and her or his own way of deciding how to vote. As a democrat, I feel I must respect my fellow citizen’s rights to cast their votes as they so choose. If I take the view that I know better than they do, that way lies
* feelings of my own moral or intellectual superiority entirely unsupported by the facts
* schoolmasterly bossiness, treating my fellow citizens as children who must be TOLD
* delusional rants (for instance, after the Latham defeat: “oh, everyone’s so selfish, they just worry about interest rates and their own mortgages, they’re selfish!”; surely there were many other, complex factors at work?)
I bid you all weeks of speculative pleasure. I agree that it’s a bloody mystery.
cheerio
Jenny,
I go up and down like a yo-yo. One day I’m on air because I think Howard will be gone and I’m chortling e-mailing friends in Europe, then I read a post like yours and it brings me down to earth. I want to believe this evil little man and his evil government are on the way out this time, but I can’t bring myself to quite believe it. And won’t until election night.
If he gets in again I’m contemplating borrowing money from the building society and going to Europe and staying there until he is gone.
Mark, I reckon you’ve pointed out one thing that everyone else seems to have ignored. The Libs’ tactics in the last year have been appallingly bad. Trying to slime and smear Rudd of all people - a man capable of boring anyone to death, and who is running a small target strategy.
The way to counter a small target strategy is to govern - act like a government, not an opposition. Have a modest but clear strategic agenda and be seen to have one, and avoid slanging matches. Force the opposition to take the risks.
With compulsory voting you’re usually best keeping things boring - you don’t need to enthuse people into turning up to the polls. Malcolm Fraser had it right when he said the way to get re-elected in Australia was to “keep sport on the front pages of the newspaper”. It’s a lesson Ratty knew well in the past (and of course Keating never learned).
Jenny, I agree because if people are pissed off with Howard abusing his control over both houses of parliament, it just doesn’t make sense that they would give Rudd the same degree of control.
Robert, there were big swings to Labor in the sorts of electorate you describe in 1998.
Well Beattie has Quit so that will make Howard’s staying even more stupid.
Sounds like a fair description of Kim Beazley or Simon Crean.
Just like Whitlam in 1975, Kennett in 1999.
If your friends at Catallaxy find out you said that, you’re finished.
You heard it first on LP. Will there be a contest for Qld ALP leader?
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write (apologies to Janet Albrechtsen), but I agree with Andrew Bolt on Insiders yesterday. He says the Government has got contented and lazy, which is why it didn’t cut Howard off and replace him sooner. I think he’s spot on. They’ve had it so good for so long, they weren’t ruthless enough when they needed to be.
Beattie has quit so it puts more pressure on Howard.
Seems people are sick of the never ending election campaign especially as it’s being paid for out of our taxes by virtue of enormous budget surpluses created for that purpose by the highest taxing government ever. Rudd’s on the right track with the savage losses Vets and many others have suffered over the last 11yrs and workchoices swelled the group to a majority of Australians shafted by this lousy uncaring unsorry and now unpopular pack of greed and power addicts. I’m glad Howard sees himself as a non quitter because he is the author and executioner of all that is wrong with our great country. And that’s another thing.. he’d have the world believe it’s his!
Beattie quitting puts pressure on Howard? *guffaw*
This is hubris in the extreme.
Beattie is a charismatic politician who has stuffed almost everything he touched.
Howard has no charisma whatsoever, and almost everything he has touched has worked.
For Robert Merkel: care to explain what exactly the small business owners and retirees had against Howard? Seems to me they are the last groups that should be complaining.
I’m leaning towards Howard not contesting the election. Standing holds the promise of a double whipping, whereas retiring leaves “what might have happened” up to speculation and gives Howard room to put any face on it that he chooses. By retiring now with the international fanfare still ringing is many ears Howard can say that Apec was the spotlight on his “successful” career and gives him time to carry on the delusion with a private world tour while he still can, and expect celebrity status hosted by his real friends.
Wednesday will be the day.
The other positive for Howard in bowing out now is that he can get in his retirement speech in parliament and expect a standing ovation from all parties, Rudd included. This he could present as endorsement of his “success”.
You know Jenny, I am also convinced that the election is not won by any stretch, and I get somewhat mildly irritated by the gloating from some everytime a poll is released. However you raise very good points and I would like to comment on them.
1. I figure the real 2pp is 55:45 once the temporarily pissed-off-with-APEC affect is eliminated.
I still think that the current polls are just too good to be true. I do agree with the Liberal strategists that once an election is called the distance between the parties will narrow, by how much however remains to be seen.
We have seen in the past that sort of lead can evaporate with a single piece of deceptive Howard sliminess or ALP mistake. In the main, swinging voters are a disengaged herd and are ever ready to latch on to any sparkly thing that catches their attention, no matter how superficial.
I have to disagree with you there. The social researcher McHugh stated (I think) that generally the swinging voter is disingaged normally, but once he or she has to decide takes the election seriously. Of course you may have a security scare or a John Hewson Birthday Cake type interview that can change things.
The public is still wary of the ALP’s Iraq position. They sort of agree, but withdrawal makes us and the troops into the bad guys for (1) going there in the first place, then (2) ratifying Ratty by reelection.
I really think that Iraq will not be a negative for the ALP this time. Firstly because unlike Latham, Rudd looks like someone who is rational and knows what he is doing. But most importantly because the whole Iraq thing is gone so pear shaped in the last few years. The Coalition of the Willing has dissipated now with Blair gone and the British withdrawing their own troops. And even more importantly most Americans want to withdraw too, and it is likely that the next US president will initiate a withdrawal process. In this case Rudd looks like he is in the majority while Howard is still clinging to the past.
The public is still wary of the ALP’s position on IR. They sort of agree, but there’s a lurking suspicion that they might be wrong - that Workchoices might actually be good for them.
Again I am not too sure about this. Workchoices is the most important thing that seems to have swung the ‘battlers’ against Howard. And this is because of two things. First because he sprung them on the electorate without saying anything during the elections, but second is exactly because the economy was going well even before Workchoices that they think that any erosion of conditions is unnecessary. I live in Victoria and Kennett introduced IR laws which were similar, if not even more draconian. But people accepted them because they saw Victoria as economically in trouble, and they were happy to accept them. But in WorkChoices case the economy was going well anyway, so there was no need for these laws.
The public still believe the LNP are the better economic managers. Doesn’t matter how many times we talk about resouces booms, the public are still fixated on Keating’s 17%.
Yes and no. There is this perception that the Coalition is better on economics while Labor is better on Education etc. However for a large proportion of the electorate the times whe interest rates were 17% was when they were children and it is along time ago. The current interest rate raises, considering that the Coalition promised them they they would keep them low last time is more relevant.
Ratty still has $17 billion of taxpayer funds to purchgase our votes. I actually don’t think the big spend in marginal electorates will help him, but giving us our money back might do the trick.
This is also true. But the budget gave lots of money back as well and it seems it didn’t do much for them.
I wouldn’t be too hard on the swinging voter. They are susceptible to fear tactics, but most of the time the Australian electorate is pretty good.
One of the things I’ve been saying all year is that we’re ill served by the sheer amount of political “analysis” and its ephemeral nature. There’s no mystery here - the country was never “conservative” or “Howardian” - remember 47% of people voted Labor in a 2PP sense in 2004. If you lined up 47 people on one side of a room and 53 on the other you’d find it difficult at first glance to work out which was the bigger group.
The two things that have done Howard in are WorkChoices and his political tactics.
In a word, as I said, hubris.
I’ve put up a thread on Beattie’s resignation here:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/09/10/breaking-news-premier-pete-resigns/
So I’ll respond to Ambigulous’ question on that one.
Workchoices is the big one - plus the intrinsically chaotic and fickle nature of public opinion. People are just bored of him. People just like Kev. Trying to predict this is like trying to rationalise changing fashions or Britney Speers’ success as a singer.
Indeed. And WorkChoices stands for hubris because it was pushed through the Senate without having been discussed before the last election. As for comments like Steve’s that small business or whoever should be grateful to Howard, it’s a big big mistake to think that swinging voters sit down and make rational calculations as to how they’re going to vote.
Mark, a long, long time ago when I was a university student I was part of a survey of swinging voters which looked at why they changed their votes. I interviewed many of them. What I remember is that they were all pretty rational in their decisions to cast their votes as they did. Often it was for a particular reason, like their assessment of which party would be, at the time, the better economic manager and how that would affect their own economic interests. One one occasion it was a woman whom I would have taken to be a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal voter who chose to vote Labor in the 1975 election because she saw the dismissal of the Whitlam government as a violation of constitutional convention and something to be opposed on principle. They may vote for reasons that you would not but they are quite rational about their choices and, from my memory, were quite capable of articulating those reasons. I never interviewed one who came across as frivolous in his or her choice or reasoning. The experience of interviewing them gave me great condfidence in our democratic system.
Maybe things have changed, GregM, but note that non-rational doesn’t equate to frivolous. There is ample evidence that the amount of time people devote to reading and talking about public affairs has declined very markedly over recent decades. It’s a self-reinforcing loop because the parties campaign in such a way as to push emotive and symbolic buttons rather than by serious policy discussion.
People almost always have rational explanations for their behaviour, but it’s a mistake to assume these are the actual reasons. People change, and then they will nominate things like the “the economy” after the fact.
If you ask people why they buy a famous band, they will often say something like “quality”. But a year later they might move to a completely new brand, once again because of “quality”. It doesn’t mean they actually evaluated quality, though. You ask people why they buy Britney Speers and they will provide a list of rational sounding reasons, but these simply cannot account for her fame, when you think that these reasons could be attributed to a thousand other potential stars.
Mark,
You seem to be contradicting yourself here. In the post you have criticized Howard for not being “…seen as having a positive agenda for the future…”, but, later “…[both] the parties campaign in such a way as to push emotive and symbolic buttons rather than by serious policy discussion” which would mean that both of them are avoiding the issues.
Really, neither party (IMHO) has a strong, positive, agenda for the future - the ALP’s (or should that now be Labor’s) policy positions seem to be that “…we agree with him on everything except Iraq and WorkChoices - on Iraq we will discuss it with the US first and on WorkChoices we will water it down only some of the way”.
Not exactly a strong, forthright policy position showing a strong lead for the future.
Andrew, Rudd has won the battle of looking like he has a “plan for the future” as the Crosby/Textor polling suggests. That doesn’t mean he does have one.
Having said that, I think the ALP has been saving a lot up for the real campaign. But we’ll see.
Note also that I’ve been very critical of Rudd’s move to the right and of the small target strategy. It’s not necessarily dumb politics by any means, and you do have to pick your ground to fight on, but I’d have been happier if there’d been more differentiation or even a bit of dog whistling implying some!
The fact that many people don’t spend a great deal of time reading and talking about public affairs doe not mean that their decisions are not rational, it just means that they’re not political junkies. As I recall the research conclusion, which was designed to test the very proposition you are advancing, swinging voters were found to think more about their voting decisions than many “rusted on” party affiliated voters who didn’t think much at all about their choices.
Still I will allow that in my case you may be right. At the last election I voted Liberal but for this election I find myself enrolled in the Elecorate of Indi, currently represented by Sophie Panopoulos/Mirabella. Such is my loathing for that woman for the way she ran her cynical and mendacious campaign against the republic in order to kick-start her political career, my vote will be for anyone but her. I am currently taking advice on how much I can use my ballot paper for a tirade against her without rendering my vote invalid.
I don’t want to end up like one of my aunts who was a rusted-on Labor voter living in Robert Menzies’ electorate. She hated him so much that she’d scratch his name off the ballot paper.
GregM, as I said, decisions don’t have to be rational to be non-frivolous. Irrational is not the only opposite to rational - non-rational thought can be quite sound even if it’s dominated more by emotion than calculation.
Well I guess by your line of reasoning all of the posters here who refer to the prime minister as “ratty” will be casting non-rational votes.
Well, possibly, in a way.
In practice, it’s very difficult to sort out “rational” from “non-rational” in decision making, as recognised even in the dismal science with the rise of behavioural economics.
I suspect that if the study you worked on were repeated today, the hypotheses and questions would both be somewhat differently framed.
I think there’s one more reason why WorkChoices sunk Howard, and it’s a more compelling one than that he spring it on us without warning. The Liberals let the ACTU set the agenda. Three things happened:
1. No reason was advanced for the IR changes. Then, a bunch of very clever, very emotive, and very factual ads were put out that said, effectively, John Howard is making it easier for you to get sacked and/or have your pay reduced. This became the reason for the IR changes, and this played into a - not so much a fear of the bosses, but increased the wariness and (more importantly) a sense of insecurity among many workers.
2. A series of news stories showed that the ACTU ads were largely correct. Employers did what they were supposed to do - screw over workers (occasionally in nasty ways). This reinforced the message - Liberal IR laws = bad = vote for someone else.
3. Most problematically for the Libs, their (taxpayer-funded) ads reinforced the ACTU campaign. It’s now at the stage where whenever a pro-WorkChoices (or whatever it’s called now) ad is seen, the message is Liberal IR laws = bad = vote for someone else. The supposed fairness test has the same message. Every time they talk about IR, it’s the same message. Liberal IR laws = bad = vote for someone else.
That’s the reason why WorkChoices is such a dead cat. The Libs didn’t know why they were introducing WorkChoices, apart from the fact that they could. It was ideological rather than factual, and as they couldn’t articulate the case for the new laws, they resigned the field to those who could argue against them.
Workchoices: A textbook study of a policy which on the one hand is extremely electorally unpopular, while on the other hand it actually works.
Works for employers, you mean.
No, I mean it actually works, does what it was designed to do.
Not to be confused with any of the following terms:
“ideal” “perfect” “popular” “admired” “unsurpassable” or even “likeable”
Well worth losing an election over for the genius who promoted it. Yep works a treat, at least we have found one practical use for it, and it seems to be going just fine. Lib 40 Lab60. Works real well for me.
Hehe Steve, though quite possibly the outcome, that is not what was supposed to be the function of the legislation.
There are many more practical uses for the legislation than the unintended one of toppling a government. It does work, even though bitterly opposed and seemingly quite unpopular.
Possum’s Crosby/Textor analysis has been pulled by Crikey on legal grounds.
How long before critics of the government are sent to the Gulag at Port Headland.
For that to happen Growler, the gulag at Port Hedland will first have to be reopened.
Hey? Phil Coorey mentions Liberal Party internal polling showing it AHEAD of Labor in most seats. On top of polling suggesting Ratty still has a remarkably high personal approval rating, maybe the government isn’t in as much trouble as the national polls suggest….
Megan, I wouldn’t believe a word about the Liberal “internal polling”. It’s bound to be a lie to maintain the illusion they’re trying to create that they’re still in the game. There are no details, which is highly suspicious, and parties never talk about their inhouse polling except to execute a political play. Be fun if it leaked!
And this whole distinction between “national polling” and “seat polling” (or worse, betting markets) is completely confected as well. As Possum said, there’s no way they’d be moving extra seats into their own marginal column - for an astonishing total of 40 - for extra resources if they believed genuinely they were ahead. Follow the dollars not the spin.
Can I ask this question? Has the recent turnaround in the Polls for the ALP and the march to victory (I am still skeptical) been about clever ALP strategy, poor Howard strategy or outside factors like the ACTU giving the ALP some legitimacy in the eyes of the electorate on workchoices?
I think the Ruddster has alot to thank the Union movement for but I guess in the revisionist history scenarios which seems to pervade all sides of Politics (You know the Howard is a political genius and always has been line) I doubt there will be any public acknowledgment of organised third parties and the role they played in getting the ALP over the line?
Perhaps we are seeing the emergence of powerful third party blocs which organise effectively on electoral matters ala the US race where Labor often plays a fundamental role?
Bazza, I am going to plonk my money on the ACTU grabbing the ball from the Govt on Workchoices (or rather because of Workchoices) and conferring legitimacy by default upon the ALP/Opposition.
Beazer could no traction on anything. The punters rejected him for the timid old windbag he was.
Rudd looks like the kind of bloke Howard’s mum would have liked Howard to be.
Or, more formally, Beazley had all of the necessary ammunition to fire off at Howard’s dishonesty and extremism, but refused to use it.
Rudd has given voters permission to acknowledge that they always despised Howard.
There is also the gift of a very incompetent and smug Government who think they have the divine right to rule and are just waiting for a miracle to get them over the line. It just isn’t happening for them this time though the liabilities have exceeded the benefits.
Further up the thread on GregM’s survey, I wonder how the sample was drawn. Did they access Pauline Hanson type territory, for example?
Also why people vote and what they tell university researchers may be different.
Never mind the grand narratives - most voters have never heard of half the theories that pundits cut their teeth on. The truth is far more mundane - Howard was evidently on the nose in 2001, but clawed back enough support in the middle of the year, until the Tampa episode and the twin tower attacks blew the ALP to bits within a fortnight. Beazley did quite well, but he was always going down. In the 2004 cycle, Howard probably would have gone down (four terms is a big ask for any government). But then the ALP put Latham - who was nutty then, and is even more tapped now - forward and so the rest was history. Now, Howard is not only disliked (or has at least lost whatever halo he might have had), but the ALP have now elected a leader without any obvious personality disorders, who has the added bonus of speaking Mandarin. That makes him both safe and interesting. Which is the exact formula that opposition leaders need. It’s the election cycle, stupid (plus it being delayed by one term due to Latham’s insanity, as I pointed out). It buried the ALP in 96 (and would have done so in ‘93 if the Libs weren’t so stark raving), and it will cut the legs off the Liberals now.
SATP,
Could be worse, could send Possum to Adelaide. Nothing good ever came out of there.
I agree with Steve Edwards.
Take Latham out of the picture, and Howard was probably toast in 04. The current “margins” in a lot of suburban and regional seats are inflated for that reason - as Antony Green has also argued. There was an anti-Latham vote in 2004 that with a different leader would have gone to Labor. It’s been in Rudd’s pocket since December.
Watch it there, boyo, I was born in Adelaide!
I thought underarm bowling was perfected there.
Oh alright Mark, I’ll write it slowly.
Actually hasn’t this been shown to not be true?
Iraq is only a minor issue and is partially being about Howard being Bush’s pet, not about terrorism. AND now with the total mess people can’t see there being a solution stay or leave.
The perception was of a highly arrogant and aggressive government serving nobody but itself and the USA. WorkChoices was the watershed, that issue that woke the electorate out of its complancency and caused them to pay some little attention. People simply became aware of the nature of the Howard govt and didnt/dont like much what they see. WorkChoices fundamental unfairness, plane for the average person to ‘feel’ is the emblem of a government that hasnt got the well being of the people as its purpose.
Rudd came along and stole every issue the government had been sleeping on for so long basically making himself look a better government than the govt.
Howard by waiting will lose further votes. This is not going to get better and is why Rudd is now focussing some effort on liberal safe seats.
I agree, Kina. The polls are not too good to be true. They are what they are. An indication of what people are thinking.
In a few weeks to come, the only lasting memories of APEC will be the Chasers stunt and Rudd talking Mandarin.
Rudd has already become PM in the minds of most people and it seems like the electorate like him.
Kina, the Morgan this week and the Newspoll next week could show the break towards Rudd that makes it impossible for Howard to recover. Howard’s performance on the 7.30 Report night was very ordinary with him saying that workchoices hurt him but the fairness test has addressed that. Well why isn’t he ahead then?
He also had the laughable claim that they have not been an incompetent government and even listed Costello, Abbott, Downer and Brough as being some of his better performing ministers. It is obvious he has no idea and is madly grasping at straws. Luckily for him he never bothered listing what the General Public would regard as a long list of underperforming ministers.
Like most of the received “wisdom” this year, the claim that the polls will narrow during the campaign only holds for the last election. Beazley gained ground in 01, if I recall correctly. Howard is a poor campaigner - as anyone who will recall how rattled he looked in 04 and the shoulder twitch and crazed spendathon. Anyway, that’s why he’s now pointing out that Keating gained ground in 93, but as O’Brien said to him, the polls were much more volatile in 93.
If they have been thinking about 92/93, remember Fightback Mark II gave Hewson back his poll lead. The “fairness test”, I suspect, as a softening of the edges of a highly unpopular policy, was supposed to operate similarly. But Hewson still lost, didn’t he? And how shrill and nutsoid did he look in the lead up to polling day? A long campaign would be a very dumb move by Howard.
Spot on. What the polls are actually saying, contra Howard on 7 30, is that people have made up their minds, and want it to be over already. Interesting to see some of the “media narrative” switching to what Rudd would do confronted by certain issues, on the assumption that he will be dealing with them very soon. The Mandarin speech was bloody brilliant.
The APEC situation will begin feeding into the polls this week as will the gentle letting go of Beattie contrasted with the barnacle like holding on of Howard as indeed will the peaceful nature of the APEC protests along with the Government’s tardiness on the quarantine/horse flu front.
Then there’s the flogging of the dead horse in appealing the Haneef case and the number of repossed houses going up as interest rates rise. Sooner or later all this will wash through and the Government overall is looking very tardy and inept.
“Rudd has given voters permission to acknowledge that they always despised Howard.”
Nice one, Katz.
“But then the ALP put Latham - who was nutty then, and is even more tapped now - forward and so the rest was history.”
The Labor Party owes the country a huge apology for making Latham their leader and in so doing giving us three more years of this government. Labor was done in by events out of its control in 2001. Not so in 2004.
Really, what could they have been thinking?
But it’s not just Latham.
History will look at the array of supremely unimpressive list of Labor leaders from 1996 - 2006 - Beazley I, Crean, Latham, Beazley II and ask how and why the party lost a whole decade being led by that bunch of losers.
Howard is no political genius. He just had the great fortune to be up against the worst consecutive set of Labor leaders ever, Evatt and Calwell included.
As soon as Howard has come against a Labor Leader worthy of the position, he has gone to pieces.
Betting markets now have Labor at 1.40 (except Sportingbet, wherte labor is $1.38).
A really interesting part of APEC that will be feeding into the polls this week is Bush’s endorsement of Howard like he didn’t realise our political process doesn’t work like the Amercan one. We don’t have endorsments here. To most Australian voters this will just look like an American President interfering in Australian domestic politics, and an American President that most of us think is either stupid or dangerous or both.
I don’t think Oz likes being told how to vote by outsiders.
Katz, that is truly a gem. Well done.
Aside perhaps from his groupies Miranda Devine and Janet Albrechtsen, I can think of no-one who genuinely likes Howard - as opposed to the many chancers who eagerly accept the favours Howard offers sycophants. Even Dickens’s Uriah Heep is a more attractive and indeed varied character - would that we’d had a Heep administration instead.
GregM:
Make sure you vote correctly, numbering all boxes clearly with consecutive numbers.
Don’t make any identifying marks, or anything that could look like identifying marks (your name, initials, autograph, or anything that could be seen as these things).
Otherwise go to town, just don’t cover up anything important. Sketches of genitals and swears are the traditional favourites.
Don’t draw a square to tick and write ‘donkey’ either.
Enjoyable post, Mark.
Thanks, James.
I had a very interesting dinner last night with a couple of old school friends who have always been Liberal voters. They are both from families that always voted Liberal, so they did when they were old enough to vote. You know the type; absolutely rusted-on, never wavering types.
Well, I got the shock of my life when they both indicated to me that they really would be voting Labor this election. It seems the reasons are ‘really like Kevin Rudd’, ‘Howard’s lied to us too often’, ‘Howard’s done nothing about climate change/Labor are most likely to tackle this problem’, ‘Howard’s too right-wing now’, ‘too much tax/surplus is just a joke/they are just giving us our own money back’ and, of course, the obligatory “I know someone who…” Workchoices disaster story.
I seriously NEVER thought I’d hear either of them speak positively about the Labor Party, but here they were - could have knocked me down with a feather. Interesting also that most of their anger was directed very personally at John Howard rather than at the Liberal Party as a whole. And listening to them talk, I couldn’t help wondering how many other apparently rusted-on small ‘l’ Liberals feel the same way about JWH and whether, in fact, they might be similarly prepared to vote against their own party just to get rid of him.
Mark wrote:
Mark,
While those two things have certainly played their part, I think it’s wrong to claim that they are the sole reasons why Howard is facing electoral oblivion.
Can I suggest to you that Howard’s predicament is largely due to not one or two but a whole catalogue of unpopular right wing policies the Liberal government has implemented over the past 10 decade (G.S.T, HECS fee increases, Work Choices, Medicare safety net, Iraq etc.)
The chickens have come home to roost.
Yes, it’s all cumulative, delrio, but WorkChoices marks the moment when the polls finally turned against him for good.
Lynda,
I think that your dinner company are pointing out that Howard has trampled on the aspirations of many Australians far too many times. And that carries an accumulative toll which, like global warming, once established cannot be reset. Well I think that He will retire. He say’s not. That makes me look foolish and His judgement poor. I think that China’s straightforward rejection of Howards drive for a global warming Pacific solution was the biggest single blow to His credibility. He had a lot riding on His ability to create a seperate softer GW protocol to justify His obstinate position on Kyoto and He was shot down before the conference commenced. At that point a large number of people let go of the ropes and cast Howard off.
“The Labor Party owes the country a huge apology for making Latham their leader and in so doing giving us three more years of this government.”
The Labor Party should thank the voters for saving it from itself in 2004. No apology is required.
So how was Vietnam Steve?
Personally, I miss the foggy mornings among the banyan trees in Hanoi and that turbo-charged sugar cane liqueur you could splosh into your bitter drip coffee with condensed milk. And the sunsets on the south coast. And the very dry Vietnamese sense of humour. And the weird 21st century hustler yet still strangely timeless Greenelandish vibe of the rooftop bar still happening on top of the old part of the Caravelle.
And yes, that’s the kind of pragmatic analysis that Jack Strocchi thinks he’s always pulling off except he just can’t stop pulling it off.