There was another outbreak of this guff on Monday in The Australian, apropos of quarterly newspolls in New South Wales and Victoria. There was the usual news story and two op/ed pieces to ram home the point. It was intriguing to see the frame applied to the comments of ABC election analyst Antony Green:

Voters clearly see benefits in balancing a federal government with state and territory governments of the opposite political complexion.
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“All the state governments are suffering from the same thing,” ABC election analyst Antony Green said yesterday.

“They no longer have the federal Coalition to run against,” he said. “They have to stand on their own two feet and can’t blame John Howard any more.”

“The Victorian poll shows it’s competitive and Labor can come back. The NSW ratings are terminal, unless Rees can leverage his popularity into votes.”

Any moderately careful reading of this passage would disclose that Green is not making the point which has been seized on as the current all purpose iron law of politics. What he’s in fact referring to is the fact that Labor governments find it harder to make excuses for poor performance on infrastructure and service delivery. Peter Beattie made much of the fact that Howard hadn’t come to the party in 2006, and the focus groups Graham Young and I conducted showed this message resonated. In turn, Kevin Rudd very successfully argued in 2007 the same thing in Queensland – implying that governments working in co-operation could turn things around, but not immediately. That, in turn, suggests that there’s a chance that Howard’s ghost is still available for Anna Bligh to run against in 2009 – because voters know there are long lead times for infrastructure and improvements in services, and the economy may also provide some sort of alibi. Different dynamics, and versions of this one, will be operating in other states. As Green points out – in direct contradicting the spin that his quote is woven into – Victoria’s circumstances are different to those of the putrid NSW Labor regime. Fixed terms allow governments to frontload unpopular decisions, and that’s what Brumby has been up to.

By the way, these comments aren’t intended to suggest that the state governments are all bright and shiny and the fount of all things good. I think Peter Beattie deserved in many ways to lose in 2006 – precisely because of a lack of foresight until quite late in the piece in improving service delivery and attending to infrastructure. What I’m trying to do is suggest that the analysis we’re being told is “common knowledge” is in fact wrong, and reflects neither actual voter behaviour nor some logic of politics, but is itself derivative of a partisan political strategy.

Elsewhere: Possum points out another gaping hole in the commentary on these polls – the fact that almost 30% of respondents in NSW are choosing to indicate a preference for neither major party, and that the same effect is present in more muted form in Victoria. That’s what’s worthy of analysis!