Note: This piece was published in today’s Crikey email and is cross-posted at Currumbin2Cook. The post has been somewhat delayed, because Graham Young and I spent a large part of the evening moderating an online focus group of Queensland voters for The National Forum. This qualitative polling will form the basis for tomorrow’s article, and was particularly fascinating as an insight into the sort of polling that usually only campaigns themselves are privy to.
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After the Queensland election, Peter Beattie’s political strategy may be judged on the basis of a cruise terminal. The Southport Spit north of Sea World is just about the last piece of oceanside natural bushland on the Gold Coast.
Until last Friday night, a cruise ship terminal was slated for development on the stillwater side. Indeed, Treasurer Bligh was extolling the economic virtues of the terminal in a pre-recorded ABC Stateline interview just as in real time Anna Bligh was releasing an impact assessment that nixed the development. Brisbane’s cruise ship terminal just hosted its first ship, and ads for the flash riverside shopping centre that goes with it have been everywhere in the glossy free press targeted to the Brisvegas inner urban crowd.
This vignette omits the context of Bligh’s interview. A large grassroots movement had formed on the Coast to oppose the terminal. The environment aside, it’s not hard to oppose when there would be few cruise liners stopping both at Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
Labor is ahead in the nearby Broadwater because of the popularity of MP Peta-Kaye Croft, but other Gold Coast ALP seats with theoretically safer margins are in danger. Cleverly, the backflip can be turned into a positive by sending a message about the environment. The Greens are meant to listen, as they decide preferences.
Peter Beattie has made an art form of unashamed backflips. John Howard learnt a trick or two from Premier Pete when he discovered “listening” at the height of his “mean and tricky” 2001 electoral trough.
Beattie has not just consistently run presidential campaigns but has also governed presidentially, distancing himself from his government’s actions. When he discerns the public will, he apologises and reverses the offending decision (much to the ire of many Ministers). Similarly, any crisis can be instantly remedied by taking charge personally. That’s why he became Minister for Water a week before the election was called.
In 2004, the Nationals ran ads explicitly highlighting Beattie’s backflips. They sank without trace. In 2006, Beattie’s “listening” pose is less fresh, and his bag of political tricks much more transparent.
Emboldened by the cruise terminal backdown, every interest group under the sun is thrusting its pet peeves and projects at Beattie. This is a new dynamic for a Beattie campaign. It will be fascinating to see if the past political master can pull off this tactic once again after eight years’ power.
Another long-term leader, John Howard, should be watching Beattie’s ability to continue trimming his sails to the prevailing winds very carefully.
Mark
What you’re really saying is if Beattie catches a chill, Howard may do so as well, or at least I think you are.
I think there are different dynamics at work here. People have a feeling Beattie has screwed up on two issues- water and Health care. These are two important areas for a state government because these are two things it is supposed to do well.
People are not angry with Howard because they think he has messed up the economy. Sure some people may be angry at him for changing work rules and so on, but it is a far different emotion from the screwing up.
People may change their mind over work rules if they see it as not have a great impact on the lives in the adverse way it was portrayed. That’s far different from having to explain screw-ups.
You may be reading too much into it, Joe. I think the comparison is between similar political tactics passing their use by date if they’re used too often by someone who’s been in office for a long time. And the article doesn’t say they won’t work again, just that Howard should watch the Beattie campaign closely to see if they do.
That’s about right. FWIW I think Beattie’s backflip/sorry/fix maneouvre will prove to have more traction than some commentators allow. People recognise it as a tactic now, but it’s still a winning tactic – give the voters what they want when they want it strongly enough. The secret of Beattie’s success is that he’s not in the slightest bit afraid to admit mistakes. In fact he makes a virtue of it. Howard waits longer, and does so with more reluctance.
But there are definitely big federal implications in this campaign – for both parties. More on that tomorrow.
Oh, and Joe, water is a positive for Beattie. And health is largely neutralised because the perception is that it’s turned a corner, and people are more realistic than most pollies think they are about the difficult to solve problems of supply of medical staff, etc. Beattie would have got a lot of kudos for high profile sackings of Qld Health bureaucrats, and a massive government advertising campaign hasn’t hurt (think Abbott neutralising Medicare in 2004 – the dynamic is very similar).
Beattie and his crew are very very smart political operators. More so than Howard, and that’s not a partisan judgement.
On WorkChoices, watch this space. It’s about to become a very big issue in Qld. Beazley’s in Cairns talking about it tomorrow, but the Qld IR system has much deeper roots than some might think, and the ground is well prepared.
No Queensland premier ever lost a vote by bagging Canberra. And some won an awful lot of votes.
Beattie wants to neutralise almost all state issues by matching opposition promises, and trusting that their own incompetence will see doubtful voters turn back to the devil they love to hate for their implementation. So he wants to fight on two fronts – leadership and federal issues. Ideally, for Beattie, state issues and the state Coalition should be irrelevant to most voters’ minds.
Beattie hasn’t mentioned it to date in this campaign. But it has real bite! I suppose that, given the way the Liberals have run their campaign, Kevin Andrews will figure prominently at the launch.
I amagine Beattie will, at some stage, invite voters to send a message to Canberra.
I think Beattie will definitely be mentioning it, wpd.
Beattie is a political genius. It takes real skill to not just survive huge scandals, but turn them to your advantage, by running against your own party and your own government. All this in a state where for demographic and cultural reasons, Labor is the natural party of opposition.
He’s not a good Premier, of course, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
Spiros you say:
While I may agree, I would be really interested in the reasons you give for your statement. Is he a bad politican? A bad manager? Corrupt? What?
This is asked in good faith.