Early this month, I contested the idea that this campaign was a boring race. It didn’t take long for that notion to be junked. But the perception that there’s no salient difference between the two parties has had a stronger lock on commentary. As Ben Eltham correctly argued at The Drum, it’s just as wrong.
However, that does leave open the question of whether we’re witnessing an ideological conjunction between Labor and Liberal.
To some degree, ideology is in the eye of the beholder.
For instance, some Greens supporters will agree with some libertarians that there’s little difference between the two major parties, though for ostensibly different reasons. For the Greens, they’re stuck in the same paradigm and for the libertarians, they’re both irredeemably statist.
Similarly, some Labor lefties will agree with small l liberals that immigration is a good thing, and the rhetoric about a ‘Sustainable Australia’ damaging. There are nuances here, but the same argument is being made by those who like the idea of cosmopolitanism for cultural and political reasons, and those who have an attachment to freedom of movement and think economic growth is best served by population growth.
Most of these folks are looking at the parties from a similar social and class location – professionally educated, often eschewing religious belief, and working in relatively comfortably paid jobs in the public or private sector, depending on political and cultural orientation.
If you’re working with the homeless, or the unemployed, or you are yourself homeless or unemployed, you’re likely to have quite a different take on what the social outcomes of a Labor or a Coalition government would be.
I remember reflecting, when I was a university student in 1993, that the election of a Hewson government would be in the self interest of people like me – the white male middle class. For me, with my politics, that was a reason to resist the pull.
But it’s easier to make political decisions based on self interest when your circumstances are reasonably comfortable or your prospects promising.
So, while we all like to think that we think for ourselves, a confluence of factors to do with our geographical location, our occupation, our gender, our education, and a host of other stuff is likely to give us a powerful predisposition to vote one way or another, or conceive of the purpose of politics one way or another.
That implies we should be wary of the condescending sneers at swinging voters in marginal seats whose vote is purportedly driven only by what the government can do for them personally.
What we can conclude is that the actual conduct of this election, and the campaigning style which has shaped its conduct, appeals to the lowest common denominator in terms of both recognising the real choices at stake and framing the issues.
That’s a great pity.
Where are the leaders in all this?
I have no doubt that Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Bob Brown are all actuated by genuine convictions, among other motivations.
And while a leitmotif of early commentary about Gillard’s leadership was that it was difficult to discern the nature of those convictions, that’s not the case.
The Prime Minister’s speech on July 15 to the National Press Club, ‘overshadowed’ by Laurie Oakes’ leak, actually repays careful reading. The transcript can be found here.
Gillard’s political beliefs are a form of social liberalism – perhaps more in the Deakinite Liberal tradition than might be thought – the emphasis on nation building, on the horizontal value of care and concern for others, and her strong belief in equality of opportunity are all hallmarks of this style of thought.
‘Market design’ and agnosticism as between the state and the private sector as vehicles for service delivery are themes which resonate strongly with New Labour practice in Britain. There’s a tendency in Gillard’s practice towards a species of social neo-liberalism.
Of course, ideological consistency is not something that exists outside the philosophy books, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the pull of perhaps misguided electoral pragmatism overpowers what are probably Gillard’s instincts on social policy such as same sex marriage.
But it would be quite wrong to say of Julia Gillard that she stands for nothing.
What’s more telling is that what she stands for is not really the same thing as traditional Labor social democracy – the emphasis is more on equalising opportunity than remedying inequality.
Tony Abbott, on the other hand, is less easy to place.
He seems to waver between statist instincts – more akin to those of the conservative advocates of the welfare state in continental Europe’s Christian Democracies than what we normally see in Australia – and a skepticism about the efficacy of state action which is more conservative than liberal.
There’s an internal tension in his thought between activism and the time-honoured conservative style of governance where keeping the ship of state afloat is much more important than what direction it’s pointed in.
There is also no doubt whatsoever that his instincts are socially conservative, and that’s demonstrable in this campaign through the sotto voce appeal to the ‘traditional family’.
But it’s more than possible for Abbott to be a conviction politician and not have a strong sense of how he would like to transform Australia – John Howard was at his least conservative when he succumbed to the vision of the largely former leftists among the culture warriors commentariat.
So, aside from real social and economic differences in outcome which can be anticipated from the result of this campaign, whichever way the choice goes, the ideological heritage and instincts of the two leaders will make a significant difference to the way the nation is governed over the next three years.
The big problem with this campaign is not an absence of differentiation, but the wrong sort of differentiation. In other words, the softly softly approach of electoral strategy has obscured what’s at stake, and will leave neither major party with a strong mandate to do what, in other circumstances, they might be inclined to do.
Cross-posted at The Drumroll.
Am tempted to do a little unpick of the fifth para, but that in itself would illustrate just the point Mark makes about what is “in the eye of the beholder”. So its good post, at this stage of our election event; “20/20″only comes in retrospect, the morning after.
Julia needs to come up to QLD & convince Anna Bligh to backoff on the “privatisation”.
She can convince her I reckon. Win some more votes.
N’
It had seemed to me that ALP-Rudd had led us superbly through a difficult time and deserved to be comfortably returned for another term. And I had thought Abbott was an unelectable, nasty, superficial, little attack poodle.
Then suddenly I awoke to discover that Gillard had turfed out Rudd and Abbott was making serious headway with foolish whinging about debt and stimulus spending. And Gillard was telling us it’s alright to carry on like dickheads about a pitifully small number of boat people. And that the rugby states were apparently as mad as cut snakes at the ALP but nobody seemed to know why. And that the non-rugby states had ceased to matter very much.
I feel depressed, disenfranchised and confused.
While I agree Jenny that the idea of dumping Rudd was mad, especially from a getting the government re-elected POV, and that JG ought to have seen the danger and simply refused to have a bar of it — perhaps suggesting instead that they put RSPT onto effective hold and had more consultation on the “framework” as “there’s no rush and we have to get this right”.
The dumping of action on Climate Change was the real start of Rudd’s decline because he trashed his own brand. This, along with his “we are going to get get a whacking in the polls” meme really hurt him and provided the opening to the Opposition. So too did his failure to defend the BER or home insulation from slander when these matters were first raised.
His action on trying to match the opposition on border security when there was simply no way in practice he could do so. Forget the ethics — he was never going to win that one politically. He needed to put the argument that this was no big deal — that in fact, “we Australians are generous to those in need and if the opposition wants a nastier and more brutish Australia, then that is a matter for them”.
These actions made him into a stationary target who was daring people to dump on him — legitimising it even. I recall his departure speech — possibly the best of his whole term of office and I found myself wondering why, despite all the talk of spin, he hadn’t begun making parts of it 12-15 months earlier. Had he done so, he’d have kept his brand as conviction politician. He’d probably have bee impregnable because the people who voted for him in 2007 would have had the person they hoped they’d get.
Yes Fran, that’s what I’d hoped for, too.
The 2007 policy raft was attainable, contra the nonsenses of the Murdoch press, as you say.
But for the shrill tone of the opposition and rightist meeja, they might have stayed on track, certainly with the asylum seeker issue.
Vested interests outside of the reformists also not involved in the asylum-seeker discussion, also had the ears of some in labor, as to the threat of genuine ecological reform not amicable to previous cosy arrangements.
Whatever happens with the election, the NSW right needs to be put firmly back in its box.
The pink batts scam was when the rot set in. The idea that four people died because of an act of public policy is pretty unprecedented.
Sorry Nasking, I would love to answer your point, but remain unable to answer objectively, through anger.
what she stands for is not really the same thing as traditional Labor social democracy – the emphasis is more on equalising opportunity than remedying inequality.
And I think that is just a god-damned shame – almost a disgrace – when there is so much of the former going around.
I know how you feel Jenny.
It’s as though Labor started to believe that the Murdoch view of the world was reality.
Which reminds me.
Jenny, the rugby states are not “mad as cut snakes” at labor, “but no body seems to know why”.
Naskings’ point alludes to the clear cut reason for resentment in these two states when policies presented for privatisation were clearly rejected ( particularly badly, for the oppositions, who were at least upfront in their pursuit of this eco rationalist nonsense).
A solemn promise to abide by the peoples view was immediately jettisoned- by labor- after both recent state elections.
In my mind, both of these so called labor governments have been bloody disgraceful on this specific issue and a Labor federal government and therefore the country, is jeopradised because of the arrogance and selfishness of people like Bligh and Costa.
Can you imagine how much easier it could have been for Gillard, if Bligh had kept the public’s respect instead of snubbing it for a piece of bad faith lunacy?
The NSW problem has been about for ages and the lack of action since Costa as to reform of NSW labor, has also led to questions reflecting back to federal labor, as to sincerity.
Mark, “But it’s easier to make political decisions based on self interest when your circumstances are reasonably comfortable or your prospects promising.”
Is this an error? Surely, it’s easier to make decisions not based on self-interest when you’re well off. And that seems to follow on from your remark about voting for Hewson?
This reminds of my father telling me when I was very young that I should vote for whoever was going to help people who most needed help, because people like us (prosperous, skilled workers from stables families) would do okay regardless of who was in government.
I’m amazed at how the media has treated Abbott w/ kid gloves.
When discussing his book ‘Battlelines’ in July ’09 at the National Press Club, Tony Abbott came up w/ this dopey comment:
Anyone who knows problems in schools & how to make teaching more effective will tell you that we need smaller class sizes.
Yet Abbott wants to increase class sizes. What a dope.
N’
From the same speech:
———–
hmmm…
N’
More from the “tight-arsed” Scrooge Abbott from the same speech:
“Australia’s schools and hospitals don’t actually need a revolution. What they need is devolution of authority from head office to the people who work in them and who benefit from them.
The basic problem in Australia’s schools and hospitals, particularly public ones, is not lack of money but lack of the institutional freedom that would allow them to respond effectively to people’s most important needs.”
————
So, funding schools more wasn’t what was required eh? Imagine what schools will get under him, particularly public schools.
N’
@Terry, four people died because dodgy operators were not creating a safe workplace for their employees. That’s not a direct result of government policy, and suggesting otherwise is just running a Liberal line.
Ah, Liberals! (or republicans, to you USians!) The market is better at everything except when something goes wrong, and then you point and scream at the Government and assert that the Gummint should have controlled it all, central-planning style.
Plus they favour big-Brotherish innovations like the national ID card, while still pretending to be Teh Party of Teh Individual. Contradictions? What contradictions?
From the same ‘Battlelines” speech by Abbott in July ’09 at the National Press Club:
LOL. The irony…the irony.
N’