Note: This article was published yesterday in Crikey, and is cross-posted at Currumbin2Cook.
Graham has also posted his preliminary analysis of the focus group research with this post, and the preceding one, draws on, at Currumbin2Cook.
Update: The latest Courier-Mail Galaxy Poll shows Labor very close to its 2004 position and the Liberals in serious danger of losing seats. The poll is discussed at Pollbludger.
—–
Yesterday, Crikey reported on a rumour that the Courier-Mail has been setting up hapless Liberal leader Bruce Flegg for a fall. That’s eminently possible, but he probably doesn’t need much help. Bruce’s latest campaign adventures have included the revelation that a June Dally Watkins stylist accompanies him on his campaign and an incident where a South Australian Liberal operative threatened a press photographer. An actual Flegg policy was announced and reported yesterday. Bruce wants restaurants to serve healthier meals. What the state government can do about this no one seems to know. Flegg suggests eateries can display a government logo if 20% of their meals are low fat.
But the Courier-Mail also reported a poll showing 57% think Flegg is getting a hard time. So Peter Beattie was right to say just that earlier in the week. The focus group research reported in yesterday’s Crikey, facilitated by Graham Young and me for The National Forum, showed that participants largely saw Flegg’s problem, not as his ineptness (for which they did have some sympathy), but his inexperience. Flegg was perceived as being too inexperienced, having no policies outside health, and being too new to politics. His main negative was the manner in which he took the leadership off Quinn.
But it’s not just Flegg’s leadership at issue. Leadership is key to this campaign.
Voters are sceptical of big ticket promises, and Beattie’s gloss is wearing thin after eight years, but neither Flegg nor Springborg meet their minimal expectations for an alternative. Images of both Beattie and Springborg are well entrenched.
Focus group participants held strongly negative views of Springborg, with only one exception. He is troubled by the perception many opposition leaders confront — that he is carping and being negative. But the language used was significant. A 24-year-old male Greens voter described him as a “sour little tantrum thrower”. A female public servant, 45, leaning Independent, use the term “retard”. A male undecided paramedic, 31, said Springborg stood for nothing and had betrayed the bush.
Springborg’s presentation on tv was perceived as “ranting and raving” and “whining”, and he was seen as a weak leader who was too comfortable in Opposition. There were few positives and those were qualified — “genuine but naive” according to a Labor voter in his 50s from Ipswich. Springborg’s claims that the Coalition had runs on the board and the experience to deliver were disbelieved by most.
By contrast, Beattie was generally seen as strong and hard working — although he certainly had negatives, which were predictable for a leader in office for a long time. Many participants were tired of Beattie, but still saw him as the only viable option to lead. While we didn’t ask about Anna Bligh, her name was raised a few times, and positively.
In 2004, Springborg’s commercials heavily promoted him jogging in a singlet. These ads obviously had an impact, as participants searching for a positive quality to highlight about Lawrence mentioned he was a good runner. But it seems fitness and youth cannot overcome perceptions that he has no positive agenda and stands for little other than winning office. At this stage of the campaign, the biggest threat to the ALP remains a protest vote. The leadership race has already been run, and won.
Agreed! While there is a ‘protest vote’ waiting to be cast, it has nowhere to go. At least, it has nowhere to go at this stage.
More worrying for the Liberals this weekend, I suspect, is the news that Doctor Flegg is in receipt of a ‘disability’ pension. While Flegg has refused to disclose the nature of this pension and the reasons for same, citing ‘personal’ matters, this rationale will not defuse the issue.
Doctor Flegg’s ‘disability pension’ will be a source of endless peculation. I suspect that the average punter resents multi-millionaires receiving government ‘disability’ pensions, particularly when that ‘disability’ is not apparent.
Also the fact that he owns $16 million dollar’s worth of shares in Cubby Station (a large contributor to the Murray-Darling environmental disaster, caused by using too much water for cotton production) will not endear him to the Greens.
Such revelations will ensure that Beattie’s ‘beam’ will almost match Quinn’s ‘grin’.
I gather Flegg’s pension comes from the army.
Personally I’ve never minded Springborg in terms of his style. We’ve had worse from the Nats. I can’t say the same for his deputy, Geoff Seeney, who would be even less acceptable to city folk.
My elder brother, a Nat who lives in the country, keeps telling me that the city/country divide is getting worse. He could well be right.
Flegg certainly seems to have accumulated impressive wealth. The engine of his wealth is almost certainly his share in some of those all hours medical centres, now divested. Other than that he has real estate and some fairly safe shares. The companies he’s invested in that I read about, eg AMP and Suncorp, are not speculative or growth companies.
All this does little to convice that he is any more suitable than the next bloke, for example a teacher, a farmer or a lawyer, in understanding the needs of business.
Beattie still shapes as the best politician for business around, at least in this state.
Well, wpd, he has disclosed that it’s a pension that he receives as a result of his military service as a young man. I think where it has blown up in his face is that as has been said, the man appears to be worth some millions. So you have to wonder why a (tax-free) veterans’ affairs payment is so necessary for him to retain. He argues that he spends it on necessary medical expenses related to his (non-disclosed) disablity.
Flegg receiving a hard time from the ‘Courier Mail’…hmmm…now, certainly Murdoch & his androids have a reputation for eating their own when the ‘tea leaves’ read it’s ‘pendulum shift’ time. The free-fall of Thatcher…rapid rise of Blair during a paralysed Major stint is a case in point.
For these quaint fellas & gals (part-time reputation assassins)it’s all about ‘follow the money’…if the Kingmaker decides it’s in the interest of News Corp (Dynasty International)to support the incumbent…then the hive is set loose on the opposition…stings are lethal.
Unfortunately, this sets up a dilemma…is News Corp playing a game?…hoping that Flegg, like Israel of late, is considered hard done by & therefore deserves ‘underdog’ status?…or is Murdoch supporting the re-election of Beattie?…even more worrying.
I’d like to believe there’s some integrity to Courier Mail-based reporting & opine…but experience & many a disappointment has taught me otherwise. Perhaps I’m too cynical…?
I think that old Bruce is a journo’s dream. No one could have anticipated how totally farcical and ludicrous his campaign has been. It’s pure comedy gold. You really can’t blame the meejah for reporting it that way.
I don’t get why the party didn’t put people around Flegg to support him and make sure he doesn’t fall at the too obvious hurdles. Turning up at a shopping centre without a permit, with the media in tow! that’s electioneering 101.
Debnam in NSW does dumb things too – just this week he range the Deputy DPP to urge him to change his position on a paedophile case. It’s bad enought that he rang DDPP – standing for Lib pre-selection at the moment, but what was he thinking tell the media?
These people can’t organise themselves out of paper bags.
The more general aspect of this story is the sorry state of anti-Labor forces at the state level.
Perhaps, state Liberal parties are under a handicap, given the propensity for some voters to refuse to give one party power at both the federal and state levels.
However, that doesn’t explain the dysfunctionality of state Liberal parties the length and breadth of Australia.
The GST settlement has proven to be a bonanza for state governments. They are flush with funds. And it appears that voters are happy with the way state ALP governments handle their spending priorities.
So long as ALP parties aren’t stampeded by law ‘n’ order and culture wars issues, they appear to be ensconced on the Treasury Benches for the foreseeable future.
From the point of view of careerism, given the ALP monopoly over state administrations, they have far more patronage to dispense than the Federal Liberal Party. Apparatchiks follow the money into the ample bosom of the ALP.
wpd, Brian and Mark:
There’s a thoroughly decent tradition that any disability component of a Repatriation (now Veterans’ Affairs) pension arose out of injury or illness suffered as a result of war service should be exempt from income testing. After all, being under enemy fire in disease-ridden jungle makes everyone terribly equal, regardless of wealth or social position back in Australia.
Nice tradition. Pity it has been so weakened over the past few decades by pension-determining practices that do seem to be possibly based on rank and on one’s circle of contacts rather than on either strict internationally-accepted clinical features or on the actual nature of one’s own war service. Unfair? My oath! Just don’t expect any Royal Commission into Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs and its associated “independent” [L-O-L] authorities anytime this century; it would put too many vested interests at risk.
I dunno. Maybe Flegg’s case just might bring a few rejected and very very embittered war veterans out of the woodwork and add yet another exciting and dramatic Federal aspect to what started out as a State election.
Didn’t I read in the herald today that the Federal Govt. has set a team of private investigators onto some people claiming repat. pensions as a result of recent conflicts?
It’s the same old story. Anyone remotely competent on the Liberal side goes into federal politics, because they can’t win in state, anyone remotely competent on the Labor side goes into state politics, since they can’t win in federal, and any truly charismatic independents go local, since they can’t win in federal or state. So we end up with hopeless Laborites in federal and hopeless Liberals in state, which just encourages more voters to entrench governments, and so the cycle continues.
The only way Labor will ever lose power in the states is once they’re abolished. Now THAT will shake up the party system. Once people can’t have their reliable mummy/daddy parties in different levels of government, which way will they vote?
Hell will freeze over before that happens.
Tyro Rex:
Haven’t seen the latest news yet. Nowadays, nothing these DVA people or their “contractors” do would surprise me …. but since they fly beneath the radar of either political activists or journalists they can do whatever they like without any criticism …. and don’t expect too many officials in ex-service organizations to risk their pensions by kicking up a rumpus either.
Douglas McDonald [at 3:12pm]:
How true ….. and how sad.
Angharad [at 10:52am]:
Ooops, sorry; left you out of my last post.
Douglas McDonald summed it up beautifully in his 3:12pm post.
Given that the Liberals are more interested in playing politics than in doing politics, the possibility that Flegg was deliberately sent to a shopping centre without a permit cannot be excluded. A good way to tell what’s really happening is to count the number of knives in his back at any given moment.
Graham Bell and Douglas Mc Donald, a couple of points. First, I didn’t question Doctor Flegg’s right to a pension. I was just questioning the political wisdom of him accepting same. Also I thank you for the information that some ex-servicemen and women close to the action think that ‘fiddles’ occur. I believe that Flegg’s situation will evoke protests from those who feel agrieved.
Second, the notion that there is no Liberal talent at the State level might be a bit tough, particularly if one takes a longer historical perspective. For example, at the State level, the Liberals have had leaders such as Dr Edwards, Terry White and Gordon Chalk.
At the Federal level, current Labor representatives include Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan, Dr Craig Emerson and Arch Bevis. I am not convinced that the average State ALP member of Parliament is somehow superior to those mentioned above.
Also I am not convinced that QLD Liberal federal members of Parliament are rare talents.
But I am open to suggestion.
PS, Flegg of the ‘blonde day’ fame is now in a fight with his private Secretary whose hair colour is decidely ???. No need to tell you the answer is there? But it is not red, brown, etc.
wpd:
I certainly do not question at all Dr Flegg’s right to a DVA pension if he has an injury or disorder that was caused by service; if he has been affected then he is just as entitled to a DVA pension as anyone else similarly affected; that’s his right and accepting such a pension, whether it be only 10% or up to full TPI pension years before, has nothing to do political wisdom.
The outrage arises not out of whether Dr Flegg needs the money or not (it would be only small change to him) but out of the unexposed injustices that have been committed, by a thoroughly biased system, against ordinary ex-diggers injured or ill because of their war service. Of course, there is an “appeal” process …. for those with very deep pockets and all the right connections – and mixing socially with Senior Counsel and well-known experts and specialists doesn’t hurt one’s chances of getting a DVA pension one little bit.
That may indeed happen …. but given the news media’s track-record on dealing with red-hot stuff from war veterans during an election campaign, we won’t get to hear about any of it until hours after the polls have closed.
wpd:
Good points, so far as they go, about Liberal and Labor talent in Queensland. Federal Labor is certainly the poorer for not having Con Sciacca in Canberra..
Thankfully, you omitted a few names that became synonymous with sloth, dodginess, bullying, drunkardness and incompetence (on both sides of politics) …. However, you did mention Chalk, not really a good idea since we are all still paying through the nose for his presence in the Queensland Parliament; some may call his decisions “unwise” but other adjectives come much more readily to mind.
Whatever his faults, I’m sure Dr Flegg is a far better man than was Sir Gordon Chalk.