I was thinking the other week about the crisis of conviction within Labor. Much has been spoken about a destructive internal party culture and a dysfunctional, soul-less organisation. A number of books have covered off the current crisis - for those interested, I recommend Rodney Cavalier's book as a very good take.
But the more I thought of it, the more I realised that these problems were mere by-products of something far greater. An organisation can be dysfunctional, and the Labor party has certainly been that way over many parts of its history. But there's only one reason that dysfunction would become the sole focus - and that's if there's nothing else to talk about. In the absence of a clear set of beliefs, these other things become amplified.
Labor's crisis is one of conviction - of not knowing what it stands for, as distinct from the Liberal Party on its right, and increasingly, as distinct from the Greens on its left.
This is not unique to Labor parties around the world - most social democrats in Europe now find themselves completely out of power as well. Since many went down the road of co-opting many of the doctrines of neoliberalism, what makes them different than conservative governments?
On social policy, the divisions have been clear. You could summarise them as "the culture wars". With such a wide ranging economic consensus between conservatives and social democrats, these culture wars have become amplified as the sole focus of politics. And yet, it's that very economic consensus, not spoken about, that actually makes a difference in people's day-today standard of living.
Perhaps we need to go back to a very fundamental question - what is Social Democracy? Why does it exist as an ideology? Why were political parties formed, with names like "The Labour Party", or the "Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SDP)", or "Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti"? Why was there a special place on the political spectrum called "social democracy, somewhere in between socialism and liberalism? And more importantly, knowing this, where does it sit in a modern context?
What does Social Democracy stand for, as distinct from:
1. Neoliberalism/conservatism on the right
2. Pure Socialism on the left
3. Green Politics
The difference between S.D. and Liberalism/Conservatism/Neoliberalism
Liberalism is about the individual rights and responsibilities of a person under the law. Neoliberalism is about the economics of an "individual" in the market. Both of these philosophies stress smal government and the promotion of the individual as an economic actor and his/her rational decisions. It rejets collectivism and government intervention as an "impurity", and that the economic good is best served when markets are allowed to function without state intrusion.
Social democracy stresses the rights and responsibilities of people, and the economics of common people and workers. Social democracy recognises that markets are fallible and don't produce the best social outcomes if left to themselves. Social democracy realises that there are powerful forces in society that screw over workers, and they thus must be reigned in by a state that pursues the common economic good.
The difference between Socialism and S.D
Socialism promotes ownership of the means of production by the state, and the abolition of private markets. It views the market as the problem - creating an unjust society that does not act in the economic interests of workers, and that the answer is to abolish the market.
Social Democracy accepts public ownership as necessary in public goods, utilities, and some industries. It believes in universal public services as a way of narrowig the gap between rich and poor.
Social democracy believes in markets as "creators" of wealth under the right circumstances but it does not believe that markets distribute wealth fairly and equitably due to unequal power relations. Therefore social democracy believes that government may have to act to soften to market through eithr government regulation or direct state competition to keep it running properly (eg Medibank Private, Australia post).
The difference between Green Politics and S.D.
This is a contentious area because the Australian greens have stolen a lot of political ground that used to belong to Labor. Putting this aside, Green politics comes from a slightly different political tradition.
Green politics grew out of the environmentalist movement - and particularly takes inspiration from the idea of conservation.
To "conserve" is actually a conservative instinct, applied to the environment. It states that the environment is worth saving, because the environment is beautiful, animals and plants and native flora and fauna are worth conserving in themselves.
Social democracy and green politics will often converge on matters of policy. But the thing that seperates the conservation movement from social democracy is the philosophical approach to the environment.
Green politics prioritises the environment above all other things, often regardless of the impact on other things. There are some environmentalists out there who would gladly see logging in old growth forests stopped tomorrow, without considering the impact on a worker's job or living standards. Many green activists and voters are (or were) people who would chain themselves to trees to try and stop it happening.
Social democracy views environmental issues not just from a conservation perspective, but also from a humanist perspective. It does not believe in saving the environment just for its own sake, but rather because environmental damage can also be bad for humans. For example, certain types of pollution disproportionally affect working people, like poor air and water quality. The destruction of the environment can be bad for humans as well, for example, declining fish stocks and coral reef damage will affect the living standards of communities. A lack of sustainability in something like the logging industry can also eventually destroy jobs. And of course, the big one, climate change - if not for the fact that climate change would negatively affect human beings, social democracy would view it as something to be managed or accomodated, rather than actively attacked head on.
So what is social democracy?
1. The common good for workers and the middle class - including taking on big, powerful interests. Collectivism, not individualism.
2. The reduction of inequality, by the state providing public services as a way of reducing the rich/poor gap
3. The Market as our servant and not our master. State ownership of public goods, state participating in some markets, state regulations in others to ensure good social and economic ends
4. A humanist approach to the environment
5. A foreign policy that acknowledges power relations, but is outward looking and multilateral
6. Social policies that aim to eliminate discrimination under the law and in society, particularly against working australians and minority groups
What isn't social democracy?
1. Liberalism and neoliberalism
2. Individualism over collectivism
3. "Choice" or "nudge" economics that assumes a fair and competitive playing field can be created simply by providing people with more information so they can make a "good choice"
4. Environmentalism without a human focus or perspective
5. Pure socialism or a command economy as the solution in all circumstances
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
My thoughts on Julian Assange and Wikileaks
There can be no doubt this man has made many enemies over his lifetime. Many powerful ones.
It is premature to suggest that his sexual assault allegations are "trumped up". Those sorts of allegations are serious and have to be investigated. The fact that he has turned himself in suggests that he's happy to face them down and protest his innocence.
Beyond those allegations, is Julian Assange guilty of any crime?
The answer, of course, should be no.
Anyone in the Australian public service who leaked such information be guilty of treason. At best, they would be protected under whistleblower legislation if the documents they leaked exposed gross corruption or negligence.
Julian Assange is neither a whistleblower, nor someone guilty of treason. He is not employed by any government. His organisation basically runs a "drop box" for people to provide leaks to, anonymously if necessary. He then publishes them on his website.
His organisation is basically a media organisation that reports the facts by publishing the documents. In the past, leaked documents would be handed to newspapers, who would then report on the story. Today, the documents themselves are freely accessable by anyone. What's the difference? the public still gets the information. In fact now, it's easier than ever. Which is probably the point, as far as many governments are concerned. It's too easy now. And governments don't trust Julian Assange to self-censor stuff that could be potentially explosive.
Assange is no more guilty of reporting sensitive information than the news organisations that have repeated his scoops worldwide. And many of his scoops have been substantial, from leaks of diplomatic cables on afghanistan, evidence of war crimes in iraq, evidence of corporate crime, and other juicy diplomatic cables like Saudi Arabia wanting to attack Iran, and Sweden being a secret member of NATO.
Julian Assange is guilty of nothing more than exposing the world's dirty laundry. For this we should thank him. If he is indeed guilty of sexual assault, he deserves to be punished.
It is premature to suggest that his sexual assault allegations are "trumped up". Those sorts of allegations are serious and have to be investigated. The fact that he has turned himself in suggests that he's happy to face them down and protest his innocence.
Beyond those allegations, is Julian Assange guilty of any crime?
The answer, of course, should be no.
Anyone in the Australian public service who leaked such information be guilty of treason. At best, they would be protected under whistleblower legislation if the documents they leaked exposed gross corruption or negligence.
Julian Assange is neither a whistleblower, nor someone guilty of treason. He is not employed by any government. His organisation basically runs a "drop box" for people to provide leaks to, anonymously if necessary. He then publishes them on his website.
His organisation is basically a media organisation that reports the facts by publishing the documents. In the past, leaked documents would be handed to newspapers, who would then report on the story. Today, the documents themselves are freely accessable by anyone. What's the difference? the public still gets the information. In fact now, it's easier than ever. Which is probably the point, as far as many governments are concerned. It's too easy now. And governments don't trust Julian Assange to self-censor stuff that could be potentially explosive.
Assange is no more guilty of reporting sensitive information than the news organisations that have repeated his scoops worldwide. And many of his scoops have been substantial, from leaks of diplomatic cables on afghanistan, evidence of war crimes in iraq, evidence of corporate crime, and other juicy diplomatic cables like Saudi Arabia wanting to attack Iran, and Sweden being a secret member of NATO.
Julian Assange is guilty of nothing more than exposing the world's dirty laundry. For this we should thank him. If he is indeed guilty of sexual assault, he deserves to be punished.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
The Conservative Era cometh
Much discussion has raged in recent months about Labor's identity crisis. What does it stand for any more, as distinct from the liberals or the greens? It's a good question.
What is less well acknowledged is that the Liberal Party has also had an identity crisis of its own for the past 15 years. It’s been well acknowledged that from 2002-2008 every state and territory government in Australia was run by Labor governments. Despite the success of the Howard government, the liberals have struggled to articulate how they’d be different – in a positive way – to the Labor Party when running state government coffers.
In Victoria, the long shadow of Jeff Kennett has hung over the liberal party ever since his government’s sudden end in 1999. For the past ten years, the liberal party in that state has been associated with huge public service cuts, privatizations, sell-offs, and service cuts. This brand became toxic after 1999, particularly in regional Victoria, and it fed into a narrative about the liberals in state governments around the country – if they get in, they’ll just cut everything.
We must remember that Kennett was able to get away with this sort of government because Victorian labor was in a state of total collapse in the early 1990’s. Kennett was given one of the largest majorities in Victorian history in 1992 and 1996, and he didn’t hesitate to use it with impunity. But his government also suffered a significant crash by the end, when voters got frightened of the scale of what was happening.
The liberals have attempted to run away from that legacy, but have not replaced that vision with anything else. This has merely created political space for Labor, who have been able to argue that only they understand the bread and butter concerns of voters, and they are able to run the state effectively.
Voters in state government are not looking for large scale cuts to services. They are looking for a vision for the future of their state – a vision for roads, public transport, better schools and hospitals, and well run community services. When the only brand the liberals have been associated with is the brand that says all of this stuff would be cut, it’s very difficult to win a state election.
The Victorian election, just completed, showed the first glimmer of a conservative political revival. Ted Baillieu and the coalition sent a very clear message to voters about who they are – ironically not by talking about what they’d do in office, but by announcing their preference deal to put the Greens last. This was a game-changer – combined with their messaging about public transport, law and order, safety, waste and mismanagement of important projects, it gave voters something to cling on to. The liberals sent the message that they are a moderate conservative party standing on a conservative platform of fixing some bread and butter issues. It worked, and they won by one seat.
“Fix The Problems, Build the Future” ended up being a surprisingly effective slogan. Voters didn’t have the same level of anger at the Brumby government that voters in NSW had. But they were angry with the botched delivery of a few major projects, and were frustrated with a lack of Labor vision on new infrastructure development.
Worryingly for Labor, the ALP lost this election because it didn’t have a good enough vision for people living in those outer suburban marginals. Regional Victoria did not swing sharply away from Labor – this is probably because Labor has put a lot of work into making these regional towns into livable cities with good infrastructure and transport. But people in outer suburbia did not feel the same way.
People in the outer suburbs are the “squeezed middle”, worried about their quality of life, and a whole range of social and economic policy concerns. They see their quality of life diminishing through a lack of government investment in their area around new infrastructure, public transport and services. They get stuck in traffic or on unreliable trains (if the trains exist). They also worry about rising utility bills and crime, and were unsatisfied with current service delivery from government.
Compared to NSW, the level of service delivery to these people in Victoria is top-notch. Voters in NSW who watched ABC News 24’s election coverage would probably have felt a bit miffed when the guy from Labor said it was “offensive to compare Victoria to NSW”. NSW voters must have thought voters in Victoria were spoilt brats.
Regardless, there’s nothing wrong with asking a government to do better. Voters didn’t hear a message that appealed to them, and felt their government could be doing better for them. The liberals were offering something else, so they concluded that it was time to flick the switch and give the other guys a go.
There’s already been the inevitable commentary about how Labor lost an election because it ran off to the left on some policy. This is misleading.
Labor is a party that believes in the removal of discrimination, and the protection of the environment. None of that is new. Labor has a record of both pragmatic social reform (Neville Wran, Bob Carr, ), and radical social reform (eg Whitlam, Don Dunstan, some of the Hawke-era reforms).
It’s important to remember that Labor can’t be defined solely by its social agenda. It also must have an economic agenda that appeals to working and middle class people. Without this, it would not be a party of the workers. All of the above governments had radical economic and opportunity agendas.
For a while now, Labor governments at a state level have been struggling with the needs of outer-suburban voters, who worry about their quality of life. These voters will not turn away from Labor just because it supports gay marriage. Some of these voters support gay marriage. But they will turn away from Labor if they see Labor only pushing those issues without delivering on things that will reduce their cost of living and improve their standard of living.
The great irony here is Labor has suffered from not being radical enough on delivering key services and infrastructure. Gough Whitlam spent much of his time talking about how the outer suburbs still had open gutters and sewage. Much of this was caused by the neglect of liberal governments at both a state and federal level.
Today, the modern concerns are a lack of roads, railways, bus services, trams, hospital beds and child care places. Or, if they do exist, they are inadequate. Privatised utilities are now jacking up the rates for electricity and water, causing economic stress. PPP's charge huge tolls for using the roads. People are crying out for basic services, yet Labor has been strangely silent.
All of these are expensive problems to fix, and state governments have not been willing to cough up money, or go into deficit out of a fear of the state losing a AAA credit rating. Governments have prioritised the balance sheet over people’s quality of life. Many voters don’t understand why they don’t have adequate roads and public transport and they are getting impatient.
For a long time the liberals have been silent about these problems. However, now they are the beneficiaries of failure. Labor has vacated the space, and the liberals have gladly filled it with other things.
Check out Ted Baillieu's agenda: nothing about building new infrastructure. In fact a lot of it is about shutting stuff down, like the North-South pipeline, and potentially the Desalination Plant. His improvements to services are mainly in the areas of policing and safety, such as more police, and putting more protective services officers on the train. His promises to improve the cost of living are cuts to stamp duty and royal ambulance service memberships. More urban sprawl. This is a classic liberal state agenda.
NSW, prepare yourselves.
What is less well acknowledged is that the Liberal Party has also had an identity crisis of its own for the past 15 years. It’s been well acknowledged that from 2002-2008 every state and territory government in Australia was run by Labor governments. Despite the success of the Howard government, the liberals have struggled to articulate how they’d be different – in a positive way – to the Labor Party when running state government coffers.
In Victoria, the long shadow of Jeff Kennett has hung over the liberal party ever since his government’s sudden end in 1999. For the past ten years, the liberal party in that state has been associated with huge public service cuts, privatizations, sell-offs, and service cuts. This brand became toxic after 1999, particularly in regional Victoria, and it fed into a narrative about the liberals in state governments around the country – if they get in, they’ll just cut everything.
We must remember that Kennett was able to get away with this sort of government because Victorian labor was in a state of total collapse in the early 1990’s. Kennett was given one of the largest majorities in Victorian history in 1992 and 1996, and he didn’t hesitate to use it with impunity. But his government also suffered a significant crash by the end, when voters got frightened of the scale of what was happening.
The liberals have attempted to run away from that legacy, but have not replaced that vision with anything else. This has merely created political space for Labor, who have been able to argue that only they understand the bread and butter concerns of voters, and they are able to run the state effectively.
Voters in state government are not looking for large scale cuts to services. They are looking for a vision for the future of their state – a vision for roads, public transport, better schools and hospitals, and well run community services. When the only brand the liberals have been associated with is the brand that says all of this stuff would be cut, it’s very difficult to win a state election.
The Victorian election, just completed, showed the first glimmer of a conservative political revival. Ted Baillieu and the coalition sent a very clear message to voters about who they are – ironically not by talking about what they’d do in office, but by announcing their preference deal to put the Greens last. This was a game-changer – combined with their messaging about public transport, law and order, safety, waste and mismanagement of important projects, it gave voters something to cling on to. The liberals sent the message that they are a moderate conservative party standing on a conservative platform of fixing some bread and butter issues. It worked, and they won by one seat.
“Fix The Problems, Build the Future” ended up being a surprisingly effective slogan. Voters didn’t have the same level of anger at the Brumby government that voters in NSW had. But they were angry with the botched delivery of a few major projects, and were frustrated with a lack of Labor vision on new infrastructure development.
Worryingly for Labor, the ALP lost this election because it didn’t have a good enough vision for people living in those outer suburban marginals. Regional Victoria did not swing sharply away from Labor – this is probably because Labor has put a lot of work into making these regional towns into livable cities with good infrastructure and transport. But people in outer suburbia did not feel the same way.
People in the outer suburbs are the “squeezed middle”, worried about their quality of life, and a whole range of social and economic policy concerns. They see their quality of life diminishing through a lack of government investment in their area around new infrastructure, public transport and services. They get stuck in traffic or on unreliable trains (if the trains exist). They also worry about rising utility bills and crime, and were unsatisfied with current service delivery from government.
Compared to NSW, the level of service delivery to these people in Victoria is top-notch. Voters in NSW who watched ABC News 24’s election coverage would probably have felt a bit miffed when the guy from Labor said it was “offensive to compare Victoria to NSW”. NSW voters must have thought voters in Victoria were spoilt brats.
Regardless, there’s nothing wrong with asking a government to do better. Voters didn’t hear a message that appealed to them, and felt their government could be doing better for them. The liberals were offering something else, so they concluded that it was time to flick the switch and give the other guys a go.
There’s already been the inevitable commentary about how Labor lost an election because it ran off to the left on some policy. This is misleading.
Labor is a party that believes in the removal of discrimination, and the protection of the environment. None of that is new. Labor has a record of both pragmatic social reform (Neville Wran, Bob Carr, ), and radical social reform (eg Whitlam, Don Dunstan, some of the Hawke-era reforms).
It’s important to remember that Labor can’t be defined solely by its social agenda. It also must have an economic agenda that appeals to working and middle class people. Without this, it would not be a party of the workers. All of the above governments had radical economic and opportunity agendas.
For a while now, Labor governments at a state level have been struggling with the needs of outer-suburban voters, who worry about their quality of life. These voters will not turn away from Labor just because it supports gay marriage. Some of these voters support gay marriage. But they will turn away from Labor if they see Labor only pushing those issues without delivering on things that will reduce their cost of living and improve their standard of living.
The great irony here is Labor has suffered from not being radical enough on delivering key services and infrastructure. Gough Whitlam spent much of his time talking about how the outer suburbs still had open gutters and sewage. Much of this was caused by the neglect of liberal governments at both a state and federal level.
Today, the modern concerns are a lack of roads, railways, bus services, trams, hospital beds and child care places. Or, if they do exist, they are inadequate. Privatised utilities are now jacking up the rates for electricity and water, causing economic stress. PPP's charge huge tolls for using the roads. People are crying out for basic services, yet Labor has been strangely silent.
All of these are expensive problems to fix, and state governments have not been willing to cough up money, or go into deficit out of a fear of the state losing a AAA credit rating. Governments have prioritised the balance sheet over people’s quality of life. Many voters don’t understand why they don’t have adequate roads and public transport and they are getting impatient.
For a long time the liberals have been silent about these problems. However, now they are the beneficiaries of failure. Labor has vacated the space, and the liberals have gladly filled it with other things.
Check out Ted Baillieu's agenda: nothing about building new infrastructure. In fact a lot of it is about shutting stuff down, like the North-South pipeline, and potentially the Desalination Plant. His improvements to services are mainly in the areas of policing and safety, such as more police, and putting more protective services officers on the train. His promises to improve the cost of living are cuts to stamp duty and royal ambulance service memberships. More urban sprawl. This is a classic liberal state agenda.
NSW, prepare yourselves.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Two significant maiden speeches
Two significant maiden speeches were given in the life of this parliament. One liberal, one Labor.
The first was given by Liberal Josh Frydenberg, the new Liberal Member for Kooyong.
The second was given by Andrew Leigh, the new Labor member for Fraser.
I find them both particularly interesting because they sought to carve out the ideological territory of their parties, and sought to define what their opposition really stand for.
Starting with this passage from Josh Frydenberg:
He accuses Labor of being in favour of "Big Government" that stifles individual innovation, and promotes equality of outcomes, rather than equality of opportunity.
Andrew Leigh outlines what he considers the cause of Labor:
...As elected representatives, one of our most important jobs is to speak out on behalf of those who struggle to have their voices heard. The Labor Party has a proud tradition of defending individual liberties. Past Labor governments outlawed discrimination on the basis of gender or race. This Labor government has removed from the statute books much of the explicit discrimination against same-sex couples, and strengthened disability discrimination laws. And all Labor governments strive to protect the right of workers to bargain collectively for better pay and conditions. Our party also stands firmly committed to democratic reform, including the simple yet powerful notion that every Australian child should be able to aspire to be our head of state.
As that last sentence notes, what I found most interesting about both speeches is both Frydenberg and Leigh both lay claim to Alfred Deakin's liberalism.
Frydenberg:
"The history of Kooyong tells a powerful story about Australian liberalism over more than a century. On 18 March 1895 Alfred Deakin addressed a public meeting at St Columb’s Church in Hawthorn with a speech entitled, ‘What is liberalism?’ His speech was an early enunciation of the attributes which we now identify as a fair go. His clarion call for equality of opportunity and a society tempered by a safety net for those in need has resonated through the decades. The members for Kooyong have taken heed of Deakin’s words—many have been giants in this place..."
Leigh:
Interesting indeed.
The first was given by Liberal Josh Frydenberg, the new Liberal Member for Kooyong.
The second was given by Andrew Leigh, the new Labor member for Fraser.
I find them both particularly interesting because they sought to carve out the ideological territory of their parties, and sought to define what their opposition really stand for.
Starting with this passage from Josh Frydenberg:
Each member for Kooyong has sought a tolerant, fair and prosperous Australia. I will be no different, for this is an honourable legacy. How would I like to see the future unfold? I want to see an Australia that is safe and secure. I want to see an Australia where the only relevant consideration is the content of a person’s character. I want to see an Australia where families are valued and encouraged. I want to see an Australia where each citizen has the opportunity to be the best that they can be. And I want to see an Australia where individuals, not governments, invent the future. This is why I am a Liberal, this is why I joined the Liberal Party and this why I am here.
What drives us as Liberals are notions of individual liberty, individual responsibility and a fairness borne out of a particular kind of equality. The equality which Liberals seek in a society is the equality of opportunity, not the other kind of equality—the equality of outcomes. It seems to me that these two notions of equality reflect the fundamental fault lines between us and the members opposite. It is not a thin divide. Let me illustrate.
How can we all be better off when a teenager loses his daily two-hour job at the local store merely because his employer cannot afford to pay the minimum three-hour shift? How can we all be better off when the government targets independent and Catholic schools merely because parents are exercising choice? How can we all be better off when the government discourages private health insurance at a time when the public system is overburdened? These examples go to the heart of the other side’s preoccupation with the equality of outcomes. By mandating outcomes, the state removes responsibility from individuals and denies the worker, the student and the patient the opportunity to be the best that they can be.
In the writings of John Stuart Mill, Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, I have found what I consider the best elements of both liberal and conservative traditions. Mill’s argument that the state only has the right to intervene in the affairs of the individual in order to prevent harm to others is a fundamental building block in my political philosophy. Burke’s defence of the traditions of society and the institutions of the state and his opposition to utopian notions of change for change’s sake are also critical to my understanding of what is an effective role for government. The opportunity to prosper is given its best chance through competitive markets—the insight reached by Adam Smith more than two centuries ago.
My vision is to achieve what Menzies termed ‘civilised capitalism’, unleashing the power of the individual and his enterprise while always providing a safety net for those who despite their best efforts are unable to cope. These are my motivations, my cause and my way, and they not negotiable."
I thought it was a very interesting speech that touched on some of the major themes of the Australian Liberal Party. Individualism, Family, National Security, Freedom of Choice, Small Government, and Equality of Opportunity. Interestingly he cites Deakin and talks about social safety nets.He accuses Labor of being in favour of "Big Government" that stifles individual innovation, and promotes equality of outcomes, rather than equality of opportunity.
In this place we are painting the canvas of the nation and its future. We have a responsibility to dream large and think of what is possible in a difficult world. It may appear a paradox but the first of my large thoughts is that we need to limit the government. Our government is too big. For problems large and small, bureaucratic outcomes always seem to be the default option. This comes at a price—paralysing monopolies and a culture of dependence. It removes incentives for innovation and creativity. It often crowds out a capable private sector, impeding its ability to create jobs. The net effect is a less productive nation. We must always remember that whenever we create a new arm of bureaucracy or expand a field of activity, we are not spending our own money; we are spending the money of our citizens who look to us as the guardians of their wealth.
More than 30 years ago, Margaret Thatcher said that the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. Thatcher’s nemesis was socialism; ours is bigger and bigger government. My goal is to ensure that government learns to live within its means.
Andrew Leigh outlines what he considers the cause of Labor:
As an economist, much of my research has been devoted to the vast challenges of reducing poverty and disadvantage. I believe that rising inequality strains the social fabric. Too much inequality cleaves us one from another: occupying different suburbs, using different services, and losing our sense of shared purpose. Anyone who believes in egalitarianism as the animating spirit of the Australian settlement should recoil at this vision of our future.
But my research has also taught me that good intentions aren’t enough. As a professor-turned-politician, one of my role models is the late great US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan was innately sceptical about every social policy solution presented to him. Indeed, his starting point was to expect that any given social policy would have no measureable effect. But these high standards didn’t make him any less of an idealist, and Moynihan never lost his optimism and passion. What we need in Australian policy today is not more ideologues, convinced that their prescriptions are the answer, but modest reformers willing to try new solutions, and discover whether they actually deliver results...
...To me, the Australian project is about encouraging economic growth, while ensuring that its benefits are shared across the community. It is about making sure that all Australians have great public services, regardless of ethnicity, income or postcode. And it is about recognising that governments have a role in expanding opportunities, because no child gets to choose the circumstances of their birth......As elected representatives, one of our most important jobs is to speak out on behalf of those who struggle to have their voices heard. The Labor Party has a proud tradition of defending individual liberties. Past Labor governments outlawed discrimination on the basis of gender or race. This Labor government has removed from the statute books much of the explicit discrimination against same-sex couples, and strengthened disability discrimination laws. And all Labor governments strive to protect the right of workers to bargain collectively for better pay and conditions. Our party also stands firmly committed to democratic reform, including the simple yet powerful notion that every Australian child should be able to aspire to be our head of state.
The Labor Party today stands at the confluence of two powerful rivers in Australian politics. We are the party that believes in egalitarianism – that a child from Aurukun can become a High Court Justice, and that a mine worker should get the same medical treatment as the bloke who owns the mine.
But what is sometimes overlooked is that we are also the party that believes in liberalism..."As that last sentence notes, what I found most interesting about both speeches is both Frydenberg and Leigh both lay claim to Alfred Deakin's liberalism.
Frydenberg:
"The history of Kooyong tells a powerful story about Australian liberalism over more than a century. On 18 March 1895 Alfred Deakin addressed a public meeting at St Columb’s Church in Hawthorn with a speech entitled, ‘What is liberalism?’ His speech was an early enunciation of the attributes which we now identify as a fair go. His clarion call for equality of opportunity and a society tempered by a safety net for those in need has resonated through the decades. The members for Kooyong have taken heed of Deakin’s words—many have been giants in this place..."
Leigh:
...what is sometimes overlooked is that we are also the party that believes in liberalism – that governments have a role in protecting the rights of minorities, that freedom of speech applies for unpopular ideas as for popular ones, and that all of us stand equal beneath the Southern Cross. The modern Labor Party is the true heir to the small-L liberal tradition in Australia.
Alfred Deakin was one of the earliest Australian leaders to make the distinction between liberals and conservatives. Deakin argued that liberalism meant the destruction of class privileges, equality of political rights without reference to creed, and equality of legal rights without reference to wealth. Liberalism, Deakin said, meant a government that acted in the interests of the majority, with particular regard to the poorest in the community.
As for conservatives, to quote Deakin’s description of his opponents, they are:
‘a party less easy to describe or define, because, as a rule it has no positive programme of its own, adopting instead an attitude of denial and negation. This mixed body, which may fairly be termed the party of anti-liberalism, justifies its existence, not by proposing its own solution of problems, but by politically blocking all proposals of a progressive character, and putting the brakes on those it cannot block.’
A century on, it is hard to escape the conclusion that if Deakin were in this parliament today, he and his brand of progressive liberalism would find a natural home in the Australian Labor Party. (And given the numbers in today’s parliament, I am sure my colleagues would welcome his vote.)"
Interesting indeed.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Keneally is right about NSW OHS Laws - plus, happy anti-poverty week
One of the things that frustrates me about media coverage of state political issues is the lens that they currently view anything being done by the NSW government. They've already concluded that the NSW government is incapable of making a good decision.
On the rare occasion that the NSW Government does get something right, the media don't know how to handle it. So they either choose not to inform themselves of the facts about the policy, or they wilfully ignore them and just attack the government.
The media love nothing more than conflict, especially if it's between two members of the same political party. A public spat between Julia Gillard and Kristina Keneally is like feeding the monster.
This morning Kristina Keneally announced that she would not be implementing the national OHS laws in NSW over concerns about NSW powers that would be lost under the legislation. In response, Gillard has threatened to withhold $140 million in tied federal grants.
The media have already come out this morning and described the move as an attempt to "shore up the unions support before the March 2011 election".
What frustrates me is the "sop to the unions" meme has already bounced around the media, but none of them have actually looked at the policy.
If they did 5 minutes of homework, they would discover:
1. Keneally has valid policy concerns about protections that workers in NSW will lose
2. the NSW government has voiced these concerns for over 12 months, initially under Nathan Rees. Their position has been consistent the whole time.
With this said, of course Unions have concerns about the harmonised policies. it would be hardly surprising if they didn't have an opinion on an issue like workplace safety.
The ACTU put out a policy statement at its conference last year. It supported the harmonisation process but had grave concerns about some parts of the new policy.
A short summary can be found here (recommended reading):
http://www.unionstas.com.au/News/2009/ACTU_OHS_Fact_Sheet_May09.pdf
Shortly afterwards, the ACTU launched a campaign called "Don't Risk 2nd Rate Safety". Unions NSW held a protest a few weeks after in Martin Place, and similar protests were held across the country.
The dispute between Keneally and Gillard focuses on two of the matters in that policy document. The first is the Union right to prosecute, and the second is the reverse onus of proof.
Union Right to Prosecute Employers over OHS Breaches
The Union right to Prosecute is a power that has existed in NSW for a long time. It allows a union to prosecute an employer in court over alleged breaches of OHS legislation.
If you are a union member (and even if you aren't), this is a very important power to retain. Without it, you will be forced to rely on your state/federal safety authority, or your own pocket, to prosecute an employer for breaches of safety legislation. In NSW, Unions can also prosecute - giving workers a third way to make their workplaces safer.
These powers have improved workers safety. The example often used is that of the banking Industry. In 2002, an important case initiated by the Finance Sector Union found that the Commonwealth Bank had not taken all available steps to ensure the safety of its Bank Tellers from the risk of bank robberies. The FSU won the case, and the Commonwealth bank had to spend over $100 million installing new safety screens, non-jumpable desks and other measures to ensure the safety of staff. Other banks then followed.
This power is in ther interests of workers. NSW state legislation includes it. Other states don't have it. The federal government wants to take this power away from NSW in the harmonisation process - and nobody can understand why, other than the cost to business of making the NSW laws apply nationally. Keneally is right to fight for this.
"Reverse Onus of Proof"
This law means that in any legal action on safety, the onus is on the employer to prove that they acted in accordance with OHS law.
This has been criticised in the past and is a little bit more contestable, at least on legal precedent grounds.
The reverse onus of proof effectively means that an Employer (who would be the defendent in the majority of cases) is found responsible (guilty) until proven innocent (they can show that they took all reasonable steps to ensure safety).
There is a valid criticism to be made here, which was repeated on ABC radio this morning, which is that our legal system operates on a principle of "innocent until proven guilty". The argument could run that it's This piece of legislation effectively reverses that, and that it's unfair to anyone in Australia that a law like this could enshrine that principle.
On the flipside, the effect of these laws is strong. It enshrines a principle that employers are undoubtedly responsible for the safety of their workplaces. This is a principle the Union movement has been fighting for for a long time. It's been very easy for an employer to blame an employee for poor safety standards, saying that "it was the fault of the individual for not acting safely", rather than the responsibility of an empoyer to ensure their staff are properly trained, disciplined and acting safely. Studies have shown that the "safe worker" theory is flawed and without merit. When employers take responsibility, workers are safer.
Secondy, the law provides an enormous legal and economic disincentive for an employer to take risks, and an enourmous incentive to practice diligence to the highest degree. This is the sort of culture you want to encourage in a workplace and an industry. If an employer has been slack or reckless, it will be shown up immediately in court. remember, they must show that at all times they followed all reasonable steps to ensure workplace safety.
The purpose of any OHS legislation must be to reduce death and injury in the workplace. You do that by creating an economic disincentive for employers to be slack about safety. The NSW legislation contains strong disincentives. The national harmonised laws take away some of those disincentives. These may threaten safety in NSW workplaces.
The NSW government is fighting against the laws for this reason. the media should pay more attention to the facts. There's nothing wrong with having a go at the NSW government, but it should be an informed policy debate, not this childish stuff about cowtowing to unions or a spat between two Labor leaders. Talk about the policy, examine the policy, even disagree with the NSW government's policy if you must.
Anti-Poverty Week
However, the media don't always get it wrong on trade union rights.
Today, the firfax press pleasantly surprised me. The Age published a wonderful opinion piece in defence of Unions and workplace rights in the third world. It's written by an ASU delegate and you can read it here:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/workplace-rights-can-alleviate-poverty-20101015-16n6q.html
What prompted this change of heart, you say? Well:
http://www.antipovertyweek.org.au/
Happy anti-poverty week.
On the rare occasion that the NSW Government does get something right, the media don't know how to handle it. So they either choose not to inform themselves of the facts about the policy, or they wilfully ignore them and just attack the government.
The media love nothing more than conflict, especially if it's between two members of the same political party. A public spat between Julia Gillard and Kristina Keneally is like feeding the monster.
This morning Kristina Keneally announced that she would not be implementing the national OHS laws in NSW over concerns about NSW powers that would be lost under the legislation. In response, Gillard has threatened to withhold $140 million in tied federal grants.
The media have already come out this morning and described the move as an attempt to "shore up the unions support before the March 2011 election".
What frustrates me is the "sop to the unions" meme has already bounced around the media, but none of them have actually looked at the policy.
If they did 5 minutes of homework, they would discover:
1. Keneally has valid policy concerns about protections that workers in NSW will lose
2. the NSW government has voiced these concerns for over 12 months, initially under Nathan Rees. Their position has been consistent the whole time.
With this said, of course Unions have concerns about the harmonised policies. it would be hardly surprising if they didn't have an opinion on an issue like workplace safety.
The ACTU put out a policy statement at its conference last year. It supported the harmonisation process but had grave concerns about some parts of the new policy.
A short summary can be found here (recommended reading):
http://www.unionstas.com.au/News/2009/ACTU_OHS_Fact_Sheet_May09.pdf
Shortly afterwards, the ACTU launched a campaign called "Don't Risk 2nd Rate Safety". Unions NSW held a protest a few weeks after in Martin Place, and similar protests were held across the country.
The dispute between Keneally and Gillard focuses on two of the matters in that policy document. The first is the Union right to prosecute, and the second is the reverse onus of proof.
Union Right to Prosecute Employers over OHS Breaches
The Union right to Prosecute is a power that has existed in NSW for a long time. It allows a union to prosecute an employer in court over alleged breaches of OHS legislation.
If you are a union member (and even if you aren't), this is a very important power to retain. Without it, you will be forced to rely on your state/federal safety authority, or your own pocket, to prosecute an employer for breaches of safety legislation. In NSW, Unions can also prosecute - giving workers a third way to make their workplaces safer.
These powers have improved workers safety. The example often used is that of the banking Industry. In 2002, an important case initiated by the Finance Sector Union found that the Commonwealth Bank had not taken all available steps to ensure the safety of its Bank Tellers from the risk of bank robberies. The FSU won the case, and the Commonwealth bank had to spend over $100 million installing new safety screens, non-jumpable desks and other measures to ensure the safety of staff. Other banks then followed.
This power is in ther interests of workers. NSW state legislation includes it. Other states don't have it. The federal government wants to take this power away from NSW in the harmonisation process - and nobody can understand why, other than the cost to business of making the NSW laws apply nationally. Keneally is right to fight for this.
"Reverse Onus of Proof"
This law means that in any legal action on safety, the onus is on the employer to prove that they acted in accordance with OHS law.
This has been criticised in the past and is a little bit more contestable, at least on legal precedent grounds.
The reverse onus of proof effectively means that an Employer (who would be the defendent in the majority of cases) is found responsible (guilty) until proven innocent (they can show that they took all reasonable steps to ensure safety).
There is a valid criticism to be made here, which was repeated on ABC radio this morning, which is that our legal system operates on a principle of "innocent until proven guilty". The argument could run that it's This piece of legislation effectively reverses that, and that it's unfair to anyone in Australia that a law like this could enshrine that principle.
On the flipside, the effect of these laws is strong. It enshrines a principle that employers are undoubtedly responsible for the safety of their workplaces. This is a principle the Union movement has been fighting for for a long time. It's been very easy for an employer to blame an employee for poor safety standards, saying that "it was the fault of the individual for not acting safely", rather than the responsibility of an empoyer to ensure their staff are properly trained, disciplined and acting safely. Studies have shown that the "safe worker" theory is flawed and without merit. When employers take responsibility, workers are safer.
Secondy, the law provides an enormous legal and economic disincentive for an employer to take risks, and an enourmous incentive to practice diligence to the highest degree. This is the sort of culture you want to encourage in a workplace and an industry. If an employer has been slack or reckless, it will be shown up immediately in court. remember, they must show that at all times they followed all reasonable steps to ensure workplace safety.
The purpose of any OHS legislation must be to reduce death and injury in the workplace. You do that by creating an economic disincentive for employers to be slack about safety. The NSW legislation contains strong disincentives. The national harmonised laws take away some of those disincentives. These may threaten safety in NSW workplaces.
The NSW government is fighting against the laws for this reason. the media should pay more attention to the facts. There's nothing wrong with having a go at the NSW government, but it should be an informed policy debate, not this childish stuff about cowtowing to unions or a spat between two Labor leaders. Talk about the policy, examine the policy, even disagree with the NSW government's policy if you must.
Anti-Poverty Week
However, the media don't always get it wrong on trade union rights.
Today, the firfax press pleasantly surprised me. The Age published a wonderful opinion piece in defence of Unions and workplace rights in the third world. It's written by an ASU delegate and you can read it here:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/workplace-rights-can-alleviate-poverty-20101015-16n6q.html
What prompted this change of heart, you say? Well:
http://www.antipovertyweek.org.au/
Happy anti-poverty week.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The New Generation takes control of UK Labour
On Tuesday, Ed Miliband caused a political earthquake when he upset his brother to claim the UK Labour leadership.
Immediately, the right-wing press found their soundbyte – “Red Ed”.
In his keynote to conference, Ed Miliband immediately rubbished that suggestion. It’s a bit of an insult to call him a “Red” when Labour spent many years trying to boot Communists like Militant Tendency out of the party – let alone the fact that “Red Ken” has been given another shot at becoming Labour’s mayor of London (and even that tag is a bit of a joke these days).
Ed should be called a conventional social democrat, who believes in equality and collectivism and using the power of the state to change society, as opposed to the strong strains of liberalism, neoliberalism and individualism that often ran through New Labour.
The press were obviously trying to label him before he had a chance to define himself. They were also angry about how their preferred candidate, David Miliband, had not won. The howls of outrage grew even bigger when Ed Miliband won via the union vote. What these people failed to understand was that the “union vote” is actually a vote of members of affiliated societies. The union vote isn’t some stack of union secretaries, it’s a vote of ordinary union members – teachers, nurses, cleaners, public servants, manufacturing workers. They also include members of small think tanks like the Fabians and compass, who did break for Ed Miliband as well. The fact Ed Miliband won this section wasn’t an accident. He went after their votes and talked about issues that they cared about. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Perhaps there’s a bigger point to make, though. The attacks on Ed Miliband before he has even spent a week in the job show that many in the media think that “New Labour” is the only credible or electable version of Labour. Anything else is illegitimate or “red”. Perhaps more of a worry – many in “the new Labour establishment” feel exactly the same way.
EdM was absolutely spot on when he called them an “establishment”. To this day, none of that establishment have any idea just how bad some of their policies were to the country and to Labour’s credibility. ”. To me this was brought to life when David Miliband was spotted whispering to Harriet Harman about why she clapped Ed’s condemnation on Iraq. When Ed Miliband told conference that Iraq was wrong, conference gave a half-hearted applause, almost like they were in shock.
When he talked about how Unions fight for justice, and how labour market flexibility was not always the answer, and that marketisation of public services had gone too far, and that the gap between rich and poor was too wide, again the New Labour establishment was shaken up. Part of the New Labour brand was to not worry about these things – but as Ed said in an earlier speech a few weeks ago – “New Labour got stuck in it’s own dogma”.
In Australia we wouldn’t view such opinions as out of place or unfashionable in the ALP. In fact, they would be mainstream even in sections of the NSW right faction. Ed Miliband’s comment that the Iraq War was wrong because it undermined international institutions was precisely the opinion of the ALP in 2003 and it remains so today. Yet in British Labour it remains controversial, because Blair spent an enormous amount of his (and Labour’s) political capital in selling it. To call that decision wrong took an enormous amount of bravery to but Ed was absolutely right to do it.
Ed’s task is to remove the “New” from Labour, and then make “Labour” credible. This will not be easy. It was a task that proved too big for Neil Kinnock. It will be resisted by the political and media establishment.
Part of the problem he has is a problem of Labour’s own making. By branding itself “New Labour” in 1996, the Labour party did two things.
First – the term “New” was an appropriate way of showing people that Labour had changed from the era of strikes, militant tendency and Clause IV. In 1996, it was useful way of wrapping up the changes Labour had made in one brand that was easy for people to understand.
On the other hand, “New Labour” implied that everything about Labour before 1996 was “old” or “bad, or at least “unelectable”. When Ed Miliband criticizes New Labour, it will make it easy for people to say he wants to take Labour backwards.
This is a big problem, but one that he simply must overcome.
The only way he can do it is to outline specifically what he liked about New Labour, what he’s going to chuck in the bin, and then rebuild the vision by adding some things of his own.
In his speech yesterday, he went a surprisingly long way to doing that.
He picked the things that New Labour got right, and outlined most of their first term agenda – the minimum wage, peace in northern Ireland, saving the NHS, fixing public services through increased expenditure, its record on equality for women and gay people, and it’s (then) solid foreign policy agenda, and balancing all this with a stable economy.
Then he trashed the things they got wrong. Flexible Labour markets, tuition fees, trashing civil liberties, housing, immigration, marketisation in public services, banking deregulation and the Iraq War.
Ed Miliband basically argued that Labour was at its best when it implemented things that you’d expect a Labour government to do – and it stuffed up when it strayed too far from its core values. Then they wasted an opportunity during the Brown era to move on and reform the economy.
He also added some of his own vision on top. A graduate tax to replace tuition fees, taxes on the banks, a living wage, changes to basic labour market changes to stop the undercutting of wages, green investments, a defense of unions, and a foreign policy based on values, not alliances.
The press will obviously focus on his deficit reduction plan as being the first hurdle for his leadership. Luckily, some of the work has already been done for him via Alistair Darling’s plan. A good first step would be to stick to that plan as a base, oppose cuts that are likely to harm the poor or sacrifice economic growth, outline tax increases for the rich, and then start hammering the airwaves on what the rest of his policy vision should be.
Ed Miliband above all things is at his best when he speaks with passion and conviction. The speech he gave on Tuesday could not have been delivered by David Miliband. There’s no way he could have repudiated sections of the New Labour policy program with any credibility. It’s not just the policy vision, it’s also the sense of humility, passion, honesty and sympathy, yet delivered with a sturdy and calm backbone. Labour has made a courageous decision to elect him, but I believe they made the right one. He is a clean break – some might say a premature break.
Many in the New Labour establishment will feel a sense of entitlement that has now been taken away from them too early, and they won’t appreciate the critique. But in the long term, the Labour party will be better off for electing him. There would have been little point continuing with a model under David Miliband that had been rejected by the electorate, only to see it rejected again. Even if this experiment ultimately fails, Labour will be better off for doing something different, and it will be better off by having an honest conversation about past failures.
Given the fall of a number of social-democratic governments in Europe, the defeat of NZ Labour, the recent near-death experience of the ALP, and the difficulties president Obama is facing, part of Ed Miliband’s task must be greater. Now that he has begun to dismantle New Labour, he must rebuild what a credible social democracy in the 21st century should look like. He has already told the New Statesman that this is what he wants to do.
The Con-Dem coalition should not underestimate the importance of this. Nor should it be underestimated. Labour has seen a huge amount of members join since the general election – 35,000 in just 4 months. Yesterday Eddie Izzard announced that 2,000 more had joined in the 2 days since Ed Miliband became the leader.
If these people are involved as party members in the party’s organization and the future direction of the party, that will be a huge advantage for Labour. Not only will it create a massive organisational movement that can turn out at election time, it can also help shape the vision. If Labour wants to get back to power quickly, having a growing and vibrant organization will be a huge advantage on the ground.
Figures like Bob Hawke, Bill Clinton, Gerhard Schroeder, Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair, Paul Keating, Helen Clark and David Lange defined social democracy in their own time. Social democratic parties during the 80's and 90's warmly embraced the third way as an alternative to both Thatcherism and socialism – even if that meant compromising traditional beliefs about public services, unions, the role of the state, and equality.
That era of social democracy seems to be ending, with Conservatives on the march through almost every western country with a vision of cuts to the state. The third way vision of Blair has, for the most part, reached the end of its shelf life. It was always going to reach a point where someone drew a line and said "this isn't working" or "this isn't labour". Now that Ed Miliband has done that, a new era must now begin. Obama showed part of the way forward through collective organising, but he has now become stuck in a quagmire in government. From opposition, that vision can be renewed and made fresh again, and the sooner this is done the better it will be, and the sooner Labour will come back to government.
Immediately, the right-wing press found their soundbyte – “Red Ed”.
In his keynote to conference, Ed Miliband immediately rubbished that suggestion. It’s a bit of an insult to call him a “Red” when Labour spent many years trying to boot Communists like Militant Tendency out of the party – let alone the fact that “Red Ken” has been given another shot at becoming Labour’s mayor of London (and even that tag is a bit of a joke these days).
Ed should be called a conventional social democrat, who believes in equality and collectivism and using the power of the state to change society, as opposed to the strong strains of liberalism, neoliberalism and individualism that often ran through New Labour.
The press were obviously trying to label him before he had a chance to define himself. They were also angry about how their preferred candidate, David Miliband, had not won. The howls of outrage grew even bigger when Ed Miliband won via the union vote. What these people failed to understand was that the “union vote” is actually a vote of members of affiliated societies. The union vote isn’t some stack of union secretaries, it’s a vote of ordinary union members – teachers, nurses, cleaners, public servants, manufacturing workers. They also include members of small think tanks like the Fabians and compass, who did break for Ed Miliband as well. The fact Ed Miliband won this section wasn’t an accident. He went after their votes and talked about issues that they cared about. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Perhaps there’s a bigger point to make, though. The attacks on Ed Miliband before he has even spent a week in the job show that many in the media think that “New Labour” is the only credible or electable version of Labour. Anything else is illegitimate or “red”. Perhaps more of a worry – many in “the new Labour establishment” feel exactly the same way.
EdM was absolutely spot on when he called them an “establishment”. To this day, none of that establishment have any idea just how bad some of their policies were to the country and to Labour’s credibility. ”. To me this was brought to life when David Miliband was spotted whispering to Harriet Harman about why she clapped Ed’s condemnation on Iraq. When Ed Miliband told conference that Iraq was wrong, conference gave a half-hearted applause, almost like they were in shock.
When he talked about how Unions fight for justice, and how labour market flexibility was not always the answer, and that marketisation of public services had gone too far, and that the gap between rich and poor was too wide, again the New Labour establishment was shaken up. Part of the New Labour brand was to not worry about these things – but as Ed said in an earlier speech a few weeks ago – “New Labour got stuck in it’s own dogma”.
In Australia we wouldn’t view such opinions as out of place or unfashionable in the ALP. In fact, they would be mainstream even in sections of the NSW right faction. Ed Miliband’s comment that the Iraq War was wrong because it undermined international institutions was precisely the opinion of the ALP in 2003 and it remains so today. Yet in British Labour it remains controversial, because Blair spent an enormous amount of his (and Labour’s) political capital in selling it. To call that decision wrong took an enormous amount of bravery to but Ed was absolutely right to do it.
Ed’s task is to remove the “New” from Labour, and then make “Labour” credible. This will not be easy. It was a task that proved too big for Neil Kinnock. It will be resisted by the political and media establishment.
Part of the problem he has is a problem of Labour’s own making. By branding itself “New Labour” in 1996, the Labour party did two things.
First – the term “New” was an appropriate way of showing people that Labour had changed from the era of strikes, militant tendency and Clause IV. In 1996, it was useful way of wrapping up the changes Labour had made in one brand that was easy for people to understand.
On the other hand, “New Labour” implied that everything about Labour before 1996 was “old” or “bad, or at least “unelectable”. When Ed Miliband criticizes New Labour, it will make it easy for people to say he wants to take Labour backwards.
This is a big problem, but one that he simply must overcome.
The only way he can do it is to outline specifically what he liked about New Labour, what he’s going to chuck in the bin, and then rebuild the vision by adding some things of his own.
In his speech yesterday, he went a surprisingly long way to doing that.
He picked the things that New Labour got right, and outlined most of their first term agenda – the minimum wage, peace in northern Ireland, saving the NHS, fixing public services through increased expenditure, its record on equality for women and gay people, and it’s (then) solid foreign policy agenda, and balancing all this with a stable economy.
Then he trashed the things they got wrong. Flexible Labour markets, tuition fees, trashing civil liberties, housing, immigration, marketisation in public services, banking deregulation and the Iraq War.
Ed Miliband basically argued that Labour was at its best when it implemented things that you’d expect a Labour government to do – and it stuffed up when it strayed too far from its core values. Then they wasted an opportunity during the Brown era to move on and reform the economy.
He also added some of his own vision on top. A graduate tax to replace tuition fees, taxes on the banks, a living wage, changes to basic labour market changes to stop the undercutting of wages, green investments, a defense of unions, and a foreign policy based on values, not alliances.
The press will obviously focus on his deficit reduction plan as being the first hurdle for his leadership. Luckily, some of the work has already been done for him via Alistair Darling’s plan. A good first step would be to stick to that plan as a base, oppose cuts that are likely to harm the poor or sacrifice economic growth, outline tax increases for the rich, and then start hammering the airwaves on what the rest of his policy vision should be.
Ed Miliband above all things is at his best when he speaks with passion and conviction. The speech he gave on Tuesday could not have been delivered by David Miliband. There’s no way he could have repudiated sections of the New Labour policy program with any credibility. It’s not just the policy vision, it’s also the sense of humility, passion, honesty and sympathy, yet delivered with a sturdy and calm backbone. Labour has made a courageous decision to elect him, but I believe they made the right one. He is a clean break – some might say a premature break.
Many in the New Labour establishment will feel a sense of entitlement that has now been taken away from them too early, and they won’t appreciate the critique. But in the long term, the Labour party will be better off for electing him. There would have been little point continuing with a model under David Miliband that had been rejected by the electorate, only to see it rejected again. Even if this experiment ultimately fails, Labour will be better off for doing something different, and it will be better off by having an honest conversation about past failures.
Given the fall of a number of social-democratic governments in Europe, the defeat of NZ Labour, the recent near-death experience of the ALP, and the difficulties president Obama is facing, part of Ed Miliband’s task must be greater. Now that he has begun to dismantle New Labour, he must rebuild what a credible social democracy in the 21st century should look like. He has already told the New Statesman that this is what he wants to do.
The Con-Dem coalition should not underestimate the importance of this. Nor should it be underestimated. Labour has seen a huge amount of members join since the general election – 35,000 in just 4 months. Yesterday Eddie Izzard announced that 2,000 more had joined in the 2 days since Ed Miliband became the leader.
If these people are involved as party members in the party’s organization and the future direction of the party, that will be a huge advantage for Labour. Not only will it create a massive organisational movement that can turn out at election time, it can also help shape the vision. If Labour wants to get back to power quickly, having a growing and vibrant organization will be a huge advantage on the ground.
Figures like Bob Hawke, Bill Clinton, Gerhard Schroeder, Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair, Paul Keating, Helen Clark and David Lange defined social democracy in their own time. Social democratic parties during the 80's and 90's warmly embraced the third way as an alternative to both Thatcherism and socialism – even if that meant compromising traditional beliefs about public services, unions, the role of the state, and equality.
That era of social democracy seems to be ending, with Conservatives on the march through almost every western country with a vision of cuts to the state. The third way vision of Blair has, for the most part, reached the end of its shelf life. It was always going to reach a point where someone drew a line and said "this isn't working" or "this isn't labour". Now that Ed Miliband has done that, a new era must now begin. Obama showed part of the way forward through collective organising, but he has now become stuck in a quagmire in government. From opposition, that vision can be renewed and made fresh again, and the sooner this is done the better it will be, and the sooner Labour will come back to government.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Early Predictions for the 2011 state election
With the federal election now done and dusted, the attention of voters in NSW will be on the state election to be held next year.
Opinion polling has been absolutely horrid for NSW Labor for most of its current term in office, as you can see from the wikipedia website.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_state_election,_2011
As you can see, at the last election Labor won exactly 39% of the primary vote. Despite how unpopular the state government was, the coalition could only scrape together 37% (with 26% belonging to the liberals and 10% belonging to the Nationals). The greens polled about 8%, and there was a high vote for independents, reflecting the six that currently sit in parliament.
(One thing before we continue - newspoll has the nationals vote on 5%, even though they got double that at the last state election. this is probably a reflection of the places newspoll call - which would most likely be urban seats where the liberals are running. The combined coalition vote, however, should still be reasonably correct. The nationals are hardly going to lose 5% of their vote compared to last time - if anything it will increase).
The beginning of the rot began to occur in around about May 2008. This was the time where anger about electricity privatisation was at its highest. Around that time, NSW Labor conference was held, and there was much public bloodletting on display. Labor's primary vote in polling fell down to around 32% - a 7% swing away from labor, which washed out into a 52-48 lead for the coalition. At this stage, the situation was bad, but not unsalvageable.
The real damage began in September 2008, when privatisation fell over and Morris Iemma was replaced as premier by Nathan Rees. Immediately, Labor's primary vote fell to 29% - a 10% swing from 2007. The coalition's combined primary vote rose to 42% - an increase of 6%. The greens vote also spiked up 4 points. This meant that Labor was bleeding voters both ways - 40% were disaffected Labor voters going to the greens, and the other 60% were going to the coalition. In december 2008, Labor's vote went to 26% - a record low.
During 2009, the Nathan Rees experiment seemed to have settled things down. labor's vote rose again and hovered around the low 30's for the rest of the year. The coalition's vote was up to around 41%.
Such polling would still have seen Labor headed for a solid defeat. But worse was to follow later.
In december, Rees himself was knifed. Immediately Labor's vote plummeted back to 26%. It would briefly revive in the new year to back around 30%, but it has since falled back to 25% in the past two newspolls (taken over the past 4 months).
Since Keneally took over as premier, Labor's primary vote has been between 25%-30%. If we take the average, that's about 27%. The last two polls have had Labor at 25-26%.
That result represents a whopping 12-13% swing away from Labor on the primary vote. About 8-9% of it seems to be going straight to the liberals. And the rest has gone to the greens, up about 4-5%.
What does that mean for the election?
Given how awful these polls are, how bad can it really get for NSW labor?
Obviously, if this polling was reflected on election day 2011, Labor would be devastated. Exactly how bad would it get?
Well, firstly we need to consider a couple of variables.
Federal election
In metropolitan Sydney, Labor suffered absolutely enourmous swings at the federal election. In many safe Labor seats, there were primary vote swings away from Labor of anywhere between 7-11% - and some were even bigger. Labor could not perform well anywhere. The reasons for it are complicated and varied. But I honestly believe that if people were willing to kick the federal government by that much, they must also be willing to kick an even more unpopular state government.
The Greens vote - where will it increase?
It will be important to also make a distiction in the polling. The high greens vote may very well be a reflection of a state wide trend. Or it may not. One thing we have to take into consideration is that the greens vote is likely to increase hugely in the inner city - especially in seats like Balmain and Marrickville.
The big question of this election won't be how big the anti-labor swing will be on the primary vote. We now know that consistently there has been a 9-14% away from the ALP in polling since Keneally was premier. During Rees's reign, the swing was anywhere between 7-14%.
The big question will be - if Labor's vote drops by that much, where will the swing go? How much will go to the liberals, and how much will go to the greens? And in what seats will there be differences?
Balmain and Marrickville
One reason why we need to be cautious about the higher greens vote in polling is that these two seats are likely to fall to the greens. This could be skewing the current opinion polling. The liberal vote may in fact be even stronger than that in some areas.
At the last state election, there was a swing against Labor, but the vast majority of it in both seats went to the greens. If the same ratio was reflected this time, a 12% swing against Labor would go to the greens by about 8%. The rest would go to the liberals - but given the liberals will likely preference labor behind the greens, and the greens will likely finish ahead of the liberals, any preferences will go from liberal to green. An 8% swing to the greens would see them easily unseat Verity Firth in Balmain and would put Carmel Tebbutt in big trouble in Marrickville.
Immediately Labor loses 2 seats and would only need to lose 2 more to see it's majority gone.
The Rest of NSW - Coalition sweep
However, what we might find in the rest of Sydney is that the swing to the greens is much smaller - perhaps even less than the uniform swing the current polls predict. The liberals could get a much bigger ratio of the swing.
In the recent penrith byelection, there was a 25% swing away from Labor on primaries - double the current swing in polling (probably reflecting the scandal surrounding Karen Paluzzano). Interestingly though, although the swing was double current opinion polling, the actual ratio of where the anti-labor swing went wa very reflective of opinin polling. 18% of it went to the liberals. Most of the rest went to the greens. That very accurately reflects polling, where 3/4 of the anti-labor swing seems to be picked up by the coalition with the rest going to the greens.
But tere is another problem for Labor - optional preferentia voting. In penrith, 65% of greens voters decided not to direct preferences - what's called "exhausted preferences". Only 21% of greens voters preferenced Labor. 14% preferenced the liberals. This made the anti-labor swing worse.
What's the scenario?
If we consider the ratio - the liberals got about 75% of the anti-labor swing in penrith. Incidentally, this also happened in quite a few sydney seats at the federal election. And it's being reflected in current opinion polling.
If the anti-labor swing on the primary vote is 13%, we would see almost 9.75% of that swing belong to the liberals, with 3.25% of the swing going to the greens. (note: in Balmain and Marrickville this would be the other way around).
If greens preferences exhaust at the same rates as Penrith, Labor would be in a world of hurt.
If we remove Balmain and Marrickville - a uniform swing of that magnitude (9.75% to the libs and 3.25% greens) across the state would see Labor lose 25 seats - that is - every seat on the pendulum up to (and possibly including) the seat of Oatley (but not including Macquarie Fields, which has already had a big byelection swing in 2008 and probably won't happen again - and a few other seats where Labor went up against independents last time), plus balmain and marrickville to the greens.
Under the above scenario, Labor would lose the following seats:
Miranda
Menai
Wollondilly (Phil Costa)
Camden
Gosford
The Entrance (Grant McBride)
Monaro (Steve Whan)
Londonderry
Wyong
Coogee (Paul Pearce)
Drummoyne (Angela D'Amore)
Heathcote (Paul McLeay)
Riverstone (John Aquilina)
Rockdale (Frank Sartor)
Swansea
Blue Mountains
Granville (David Borger)
Mulgoa
Kiama (Matt Brown)
Cessnock
Bathurst
Parramatta
East Hills
Balmain (Veity Firth) - to the greens
Marrickville (Carmel Tebbutt) - to the greens
Labor would lose 25 seats and most of its ministerial talent.
That would leave it with 25 seats in the lower house. The coalition would have 60 (+23), te Greens would have 2 (+2) and Independents would retain 6 (unchanged).
A slightly bigger swing in some individual seats towards the liberals could also see Labor lose:
Oatley (Kevin Greene)
Toongabbie (Nathan Rees)
Strathfield (Virginia Judge)
Smithfield
Wallsend
Maroubra (Michael Daley)
Kogorah (Cherie Burton)
So when the media have been saying Labor could lose 20 seats - that scenario is actually believable on all polling done in the last 9 months - and even beforehand.
Look out, NSW Labor.
Opinion polling has been absolutely horrid for NSW Labor for most of its current term in office, as you can see from the wikipedia website.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_state_election,_2011
As you can see, at the last election Labor won exactly 39% of the primary vote. Despite how unpopular the state government was, the coalition could only scrape together 37% (with 26% belonging to the liberals and 10% belonging to the Nationals). The greens polled about 8%, and there was a high vote for independents, reflecting the six that currently sit in parliament.
(One thing before we continue - newspoll has the nationals vote on 5%, even though they got double that at the last state election. this is probably a reflection of the places newspoll call - which would most likely be urban seats where the liberals are running. The combined coalition vote, however, should still be reasonably correct. The nationals are hardly going to lose 5% of their vote compared to last time - if anything it will increase).
The beginning of the rot began to occur in around about May 2008. This was the time where anger about electricity privatisation was at its highest. Around that time, NSW Labor conference was held, and there was much public bloodletting on display. Labor's primary vote in polling fell down to around 32% - a 7% swing away from labor, which washed out into a 52-48 lead for the coalition. At this stage, the situation was bad, but not unsalvageable.
The real damage began in September 2008, when privatisation fell over and Morris Iemma was replaced as premier by Nathan Rees. Immediately, Labor's primary vote fell to 29% - a 10% swing from 2007. The coalition's combined primary vote rose to 42% - an increase of 6%. The greens vote also spiked up 4 points. This meant that Labor was bleeding voters both ways - 40% were disaffected Labor voters going to the greens, and the other 60% were going to the coalition. In december 2008, Labor's vote went to 26% - a record low.
During 2009, the Nathan Rees experiment seemed to have settled things down. labor's vote rose again and hovered around the low 30's for the rest of the year. The coalition's vote was up to around 41%.
Such polling would still have seen Labor headed for a solid defeat. But worse was to follow later.
In december, Rees himself was knifed. Immediately Labor's vote plummeted back to 26%. It would briefly revive in the new year to back around 30%, but it has since falled back to 25% in the past two newspolls (taken over the past 4 months).
Since Keneally took over as premier, Labor's primary vote has been between 25%-30%. If we take the average, that's about 27%. The last two polls have had Labor at 25-26%.
That result represents a whopping 12-13% swing away from Labor on the primary vote. About 8-9% of it seems to be going straight to the liberals. And the rest has gone to the greens, up about 4-5%.
What does that mean for the election?
Given how awful these polls are, how bad can it really get for NSW labor?
Obviously, if this polling was reflected on election day 2011, Labor would be devastated. Exactly how bad would it get?
Well, firstly we need to consider a couple of variables.
Federal election
In metropolitan Sydney, Labor suffered absolutely enourmous swings at the federal election. In many safe Labor seats, there were primary vote swings away from Labor of anywhere between 7-11% - and some were even bigger. Labor could not perform well anywhere. The reasons for it are complicated and varied. But I honestly believe that if people were willing to kick the federal government by that much, they must also be willing to kick an even more unpopular state government.
The Greens vote - where will it increase?
It will be important to also make a distiction in the polling. The high greens vote may very well be a reflection of a state wide trend. Or it may not. One thing we have to take into consideration is that the greens vote is likely to increase hugely in the inner city - especially in seats like Balmain and Marrickville.
The big question of this election won't be how big the anti-labor swing will be on the primary vote. We now know that consistently there has been a 9-14% away from the ALP in polling since Keneally was premier. During Rees's reign, the swing was anywhere between 7-14%.
The big question will be - if Labor's vote drops by that much, where will the swing go? How much will go to the liberals, and how much will go to the greens? And in what seats will there be differences?
Balmain and Marrickville
One reason why we need to be cautious about the higher greens vote in polling is that these two seats are likely to fall to the greens. This could be skewing the current opinion polling. The liberal vote may in fact be even stronger than that in some areas.
At the last state election, there was a swing against Labor, but the vast majority of it in both seats went to the greens. If the same ratio was reflected this time, a 12% swing against Labor would go to the greens by about 8%. The rest would go to the liberals - but given the liberals will likely preference labor behind the greens, and the greens will likely finish ahead of the liberals, any preferences will go from liberal to green. An 8% swing to the greens would see them easily unseat Verity Firth in Balmain and would put Carmel Tebbutt in big trouble in Marrickville.
Immediately Labor loses 2 seats and would only need to lose 2 more to see it's majority gone.
The Rest of NSW - Coalition sweep
However, what we might find in the rest of Sydney is that the swing to the greens is much smaller - perhaps even less than the uniform swing the current polls predict. The liberals could get a much bigger ratio of the swing.
In the recent penrith byelection, there was a 25% swing away from Labor on primaries - double the current swing in polling (probably reflecting the scandal surrounding Karen Paluzzano). Interestingly though, although the swing was double current opinion polling, the actual ratio of where the anti-labor swing went wa very reflective of opinin polling. 18% of it went to the liberals. Most of the rest went to the greens. That very accurately reflects polling, where 3/4 of the anti-labor swing seems to be picked up by the coalition with the rest going to the greens.
But tere is another problem for Labor - optional preferentia voting. In penrith, 65% of greens voters decided not to direct preferences - what's called "exhausted preferences". Only 21% of greens voters preferenced Labor. 14% preferenced the liberals. This made the anti-labor swing worse.
What's the scenario?
If we consider the ratio - the liberals got about 75% of the anti-labor swing in penrith. Incidentally, this also happened in quite a few sydney seats at the federal election. And it's being reflected in current opinion polling.
If the anti-labor swing on the primary vote is 13%, we would see almost 9.75% of that swing belong to the liberals, with 3.25% of the swing going to the greens. (note: in Balmain and Marrickville this would be the other way around).
If greens preferences exhaust at the same rates as Penrith, Labor would be in a world of hurt.
If we remove Balmain and Marrickville - a uniform swing of that magnitude (9.75% to the libs and 3.25% greens) across the state would see Labor lose 25 seats - that is - every seat on the pendulum up to (and possibly including) the seat of Oatley (but not including Macquarie Fields, which has already had a big byelection swing in 2008 and probably won't happen again - and a few other seats where Labor went up against independents last time), plus balmain and marrickville to the greens.
Under the above scenario, Labor would lose the following seats:
Miranda
Menai
Wollondilly (Phil Costa)
Camden
Gosford
The Entrance (Grant McBride)
Monaro (Steve Whan)
Londonderry
Wyong
Coogee (Paul Pearce)
Drummoyne (Angela D'Amore)
Heathcote (Paul McLeay)
Riverstone (John Aquilina)
Rockdale (Frank Sartor)
Swansea
Blue Mountains
Granville (David Borger)
Mulgoa
Kiama (Matt Brown)
Cessnock
Bathurst
Parramatta
East Hills
Balmain (Veity Firth) - to the greens
Marrickville (Carmel Tebbutt) - to the greens
Labor would lose 25 seats and most of its ministerial talent.
That would leave it with 25 seats in the lower house. The coalition would have 60 (+23), te Greens would have 2 (+2) and Independents would retain 6 (unchanged).
A slightly bigger swing in some individual seats towards the liberals could also see Labor lose:
Oatley (Kevin Greene)
Toongabbie (Nathan Rees)
Strathfield (Virginia Judge)
Smithfield
Wallsend
Maroubra (Michael Daley)
Kogorah (Cherie Burton)
So when the media have been saying Labor could lose 20 seats - that scenario is actually believable on all polling done in the last 9 months - and even beforehand.
Look out, NSW Labor.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Election 2010: What the hell happened?
Yesterday, Australia elected its first hung parliament since 1940.
The media will try to say that this vote was a vote for Tony Abbott's liberal party. I wouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions.
I believe the result does not reflect well on either party. But it does reflect very accurately the will of the people. In fact I believe the reason for the result was far more fundamental.
Above all things, I believe Australia voted yesterday against politics as usual.
It was reflected in the big swing against Labor in Queensland, which saw it's home town Prime Minister ousted in a brutally efficient coup only weeks ago.
It was reflected in a massive anti-labor vote in metropolitan Sydney, who have wanted to remove their state labor government for 3 years and were sick of a federal campaign being run by the same state labor goons.
It was reflected in the nation-wide vote for the greens, who picked up a senate seat in every state and a lower house seat in Melbourne.
It was reflected by the likelihood that the 6th senate spot in Victoria could be won by the DLP or Family First.
It was reflected in the large amounts of voters who opted for minor parties or independents. Tellingly, each sitting independent recorded a big swing towards them.
It was reflected in O'Connor, where the nationals took out Wilson Tuckey. Similar to their state government stance, they pledged to not sign coalitions and to be indepentent of the rest of the National Party.
It was reflected in the fact that - unbelievably - an independent may win the safe seat of Denison.
It was reflected in the record informal vote of almost 6% nationally - a new record. In some seats, it was 8%. In Werriwa, it was 10%. Many of these ballots were submitted blank. In the booth I scruitinised, 140 out of 1665 votes were informal. 34 of them were submitted blank, and many more with crosses, comments, "none of the above", or other shows of discontent.
Yesterday, Australia had an enourmous tantrum at the visionless negativity of their political system, and they responded by awarding a victory to nobody. The Australian people got it right - neither party deserved to win.
Why did this happen?
Well, firstly lets look at the stats.
The Southern States stay progressive
In Victoria, Labor's vote was mostly up - but so was the Greens. There can be little doubt now that Victoria is no longer the "jewel in the liberal crown". On the contrary - it has now proven itself to be the most politically progressive state in Australia. It has an 11 year old Labor government that has a decent chance of re-election in a few months. It responded well to a Victorian Prime Minister, and won two seats off the liberals. It mostly rejected the social hysteria of Abbott's government on boat people. And it responded very well to the pitch by the Greens, picking up a lower house seat in Melbourne and decicively winning a senate spot.
It also baffingly returned a DLP senator (probably) on family first preferences. The fact people are willing to vote for these two parties in big enough numbers says that people aren't happy with the liberals in Victoria, and sent their conservative vote elsewhere.
In South Australia, Labor's vote stayed steady and strong. No seats were lost or won - although Boothby came close. Again, the greens picked up a senate seat. Labor was narrowly re-elected on seats at the state election earlier this year, although it lost the 2PP vote.
In Tasmania, Labor won every seat with a swing towards it - except for the boilover of the night in Denison. Counting is still going on, but Independent Andrew Wilkie could win on green and liberal preferences. The Greens, as always, won their senate spot. And the state government is a Labor-green coalition.
In the ACT, Labor's vote went down, and the greens picked up all of it. But the seat status quo remained.
In each of these states, there was a swing to the greens. But they remained solidly in the Labor/Green camp, and mostly rejected Tony Abbott's pitch.
NSW, QLD and WA turn feral
The rest of Australia reacted angrily against Labor. In most of Queensland, and in Metropolitan Sydney, there were 10% swings away from Labor on the primary vote. Labor lost 8 seats in QLD and 2 more in NSW.
WA was already bad for Labor and got worse. It may yet lose Hasluck - and if so, Australia will have it's first Aboriginal in the Federal House of representatives. A liberal. (Note: Labor also ran an Aboriginal candidate in Boothby in SA - but they narrowly lost).
When I was doorknocking in Macquarie, there was a palpable sense of disenchantment. People were not switched on to national issues, or were visibly hostile to even talking about the subject of national campaigning. Lots of people I spoke to just hated all the attack ads and had switched off. People were angry about Rudd. The only time I was able to have a good convo with anyone was when I switched off the national campaign and just talked about local issues and local promises. People didn't want to know about anything else. And everywhere I went, people had policy complaints about issues that were the state labor government's responsibility.
The only time I had a positive experience leafleting was when I was handing out a positive flyer on Labor's health policy at a railway station. People were genuinely interested in knowing what Labor stood for on health. It's a shame we didn't talk about it more.
Labor's campaign
I honestly believe that much of this result has been driven by the incredibly negative tone of the election. The tone of this election was not positive from the start - arguably, ever since the knifing of Rudd, or even before that, with his many policy backdowns.
Labor certainly understood that Abbott was a big minus for the liberals. But you can't just attack - you also have to contrast. Abbott was always going to go negative - in fact his entire election campaign was based around it. His ads were just as bad as Labor's. Many voters sitting in their lounge rooms, by the final week of the campaign, must have been putting fingers in their ears and screaming at their TV to shut up. Worse, the attack ads were so similar that people forgot which party was which.
I honestly believe that Labor went far too hard. In fact it went completely overkill on the negative, without offering anything on the positive. Part of the reason was because it went to the election not quite knowing what it stood for. It's slogan was "moving Australia forward". But in what sense?
Labor has a very good economic story to tell - but because Rudd was knifed, it couldn't tell it.
Then Gillard had to talk about the future, but beyond a few new soundbytes on key policy areas, she didn't articulate the big vision. There actually was no new policy direction. Labor's best election policy, the National Broadband Network - was an idea from the Rudd era that Abbott was dumb enough to oppose. That policy probably saved Labor from losing government completely, by shoring up regional marginals like Page and Eden-Monaro.
The other new Gillard policies - the citizens assembly on climate, and the east timor solution on asylum seekers, were ridiculously half-baked policies that were rightly ridiculed. They actually lost Labor votes at both ends. Swinging voters thought they were bullshit and voted Liberal. Progressive voters thought they were betrayals and voted Green. Labor's primary vote fell in every state. In the southern states, it went to the greens. In NSW, QLD and WA, the liberals and greens shared it. That wasn't an accident.
The Rudd-Gillard Leadership change
I said earlier this year to people that "leadership change without policy change is electoral suicide". NSW Labor has now proved that three times. Federal Labor has proved it again. The lesson still has not been learned.
The people who orchestrated the leadership coup obviously had no idea about how badly it would go down in QLD and NSW. QLD is a deeply conservative state where Labor is already unpopular. It's also deeply parochial - and they would not have like the manner of Rudd's removal.
Only 6 months previously, powerbrokers brought down Nathan Rees in much the same fashion.
Gillard obviously didn't know how bad it would go down when she called the election too quickly, before fully fleshing out her policy agenda.
The people who ran Gillard's campaign obviously had no idea about how badly it would go down in NSW, when you knifed the leader, didn't change any policies, trundled out a few soundbytes, and then tried to win on a honeymoon period.
It had already been proved wrong with Kristina Kenneally in the Penrith By-election. NSW voters have seen that all before and did not take kindly to being treated like idiots for a third time.
State labor and stupid factional deals cost Labor votes in Sydney
Sydney voters in particular are deeply cynical of Labor promises on anything to do with infrastructure. When Gillard announced funding for the Parramatta-Epping rail link, it actually backfired. People thought it was bullshit straight away. And it linked Gillard with state Labor even more. I personally think that actually lost us votes. In Metropolitan sydney seats, Labor's primary vote fell around 7-10%.
In some places it was even worse - check out Fowler. Chris Hayes lost 15% of the vote, because he was previous the member for Werriwa. Laurie Ferguson contested Werriwa, suffered a big swing, and the informal vote was over 10%. Chris Bowen lost a big chunk in the redrawn McMahon (formerly Prospect).
Why? well, maybe one reason is because the NSW powerbrokers played musical chairs in south west sydney to accommodate Laurie Ferguson after his seat was abolished - thus depriving seats of their sitting local labor MP's. In each seat where it happened, the swing against Labor was enormous, to the point where some seats would now have to be called marginal. Labor powerbrokers - you have been warned.
Labor's national campaign looked like an exact replica of Labor at a state level in NSW and QLD over the past few years. Although people do differentiate between state and federal labor on issues, people do tend to notice when something looks and smells the same. And this did look and smell exactly the same. Negative ads. New leader. No clear policy.
Even the slogans were similar. The 2007 NSW state election slogan was "more to do but we're heading in the right direction". Gillard's slogan was "Moving Australia Forward". Where have we heard that before?
Maybe the slogans were the same because the same people who ran the NSW state Labor campaign in 2007 were running this one. Is it any wonder, then, that people in Metro Sydney and QLD decided to pull out their baseball bats a bit early?
Tony Abbott's campaign
Tony Abbott had a very negative message too - stop this, stop that, end this, end that, labor is incompetent, labor is wasteful, labor assassinated their prime minister. Labor is a bad government that stuffed up.
People hated Abbott's ads as much as they hated Labor's. But the key difference was policy. Abbott was very clear about what he wanted to stop in his "Action Contract". Everyone could name one of the four things in it. End the waste. Pay off debt. Stop the big new taxes. Stop the boats.
Tony Abbott's action contract did not resonate much in the southern states, because people there didn't think these issues were a problem. Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania were busy voting for more greens. Regional NSW mostly stuck with Labor.
But in Metro Sydney, QLD, and WA, the promise of "real action" chimed brilliantly.
Abbott's campaign was a success in NSW and Queensland because he tapped into a very deep feeling in those states that Labor at a state level was all spin and no substance, or all talk and no action. Instead, he was offering "real action".
Labor's campaign message was "don't trust Abbott". Okay, sure he's untrustworthy. But what will Labor do on policy? Labor had no answers. They just banged on about workchoices.
Abbott's campaign message was "Labor is a bad government that stuffed up on these four things, and I'll fix them".
In NSW and QLD, it worked.
So Where did the Policy Vision go?
Clearly, Labor wasn't ready to fight this election.
Its agenda got sidetracked earlier this year when it dumped the ETS and went down the Mining Tax line. Then when Rudd was knifed, Gillard raced to the polls too early, still on her honeymoon, and thought that'd be enough. In hindsight she got that badly wrong and should have taken some time to think about her positions.
In the UK, David Cameron spent three years selling what he stood for to voters. In 2007, Kevin Rudd spent 11 months hammering his message - sign kyoto, rip up workchoices, an education revolution, fix hospitals, I'm an economic conservative. It was very successful.
In 2010, Australian Labor had only 8 weeks to do all this. Tony Abbott had 6 months.
So was it Labor's campaign, or was it about something more?
There can be little doubt that this was the most dysfunctional election campaign the Labor party has run in the last 30 years. Mark Latham's campaign produced a bad result, but many commentators observed that it was mostly professional and a reasonably tight ship. Latham was on message, it's just that the message was wrong, and Howard's message was more effective.
The difference between 2004 and 2010 is that Labor had absolutely no campaign message at all.
I believe this election has demonstrated, loudly and clear, that the Labor party in NSW needs serious and long lasting reform. It needs to revise it's policy agenda, and stick to it. Hollowmen like Arbib and Bitar need to be swept away. Corrupt hangers-on like Tripodi and Obeid need to go too.
I think this election has been a very striking repudiation of the NSW Labor Right faction brand of politics. Their political style is actually causing the party a lot of self-harm.
"Whatever it takes" ceased to be a tactical campaign strategy, and started to become the party's ideology. The local party is moribund in many areas. The political class has taken over the reins and runs everything with an iron grip. Strong values and policy beliefs are not compulsory - in fact, they are a luxury. Idealism is scoffed at. A University degree and a job as a staffer is more important than the personal achievement you have made campaigning for change in workplaces, in your community, in law and social justice, or in broader society for the benefit of others.
These problems are products of long labor domination of politics in NSW. Only an amazingly arrogant party could assume it could treat it's own party members with disdain, and then treat the electorate the same, and assume nothing bad will happen. Only an arrogant party could feel that changing a premier or prime minister is no big deal - oh please, we did that last week! They have had power for too long and don't fear losing it.
The push for reforming this system could only ever come when this very political culture caused Labor to lose an election. Well, now it nearly has. And next year, they'll lose another one.
They need to stop assuming people are mugs, and will vote for Labor when it has no positive policy agenda just because there'll be a leadership honeymoon. Rudd's honeymoon with voters lasted from december 2006 until April 2010. Gillards lasted 3 weeks until the campaign leaks. Leaders and their honeymoons come and go - what matters are the things the party stands for.
In this election, Tony Abbott was very negative. But he had his policy agenda - the four point action contract.He even put it on the back of his how to vote cards on polling day.
What did Labor have? "Moving Australia Forward"? "Don't trust Abbott"?
Hollowmen believe that people vote for leaders and don't care about policy. Thus, you can solve a policy problem by changing a leader. Hollowmen also believe you can decide all your policies on polling, and win an election by negative attack ads alone.
The 2010 federal election, and the 5 NSW state by-elections since 2007 have now proved that philosophy of politics to be complete and utter rubbish.
That philosophy has nearly made Tony Abbott prime minister - and it will cause the complete destruction of NSW Labor next year.
The media will try to say that this vote was a vote for Tony Abbott's liberal party. I wouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions.
I believe the result does not reflect well on either party. But it does reflect very accurately the will of the people. In fact I believe the reason for the result was far more fundamental.
Above all things, I believe Australia voted yesterday against politics as usual.
It was reflected in the big swing against Labor in Queensland, which saw it's home town Prime Minister ousted in a brutally efficient coup only weeks ago.
It was reflected in a massive anti-labor vote in metropolitan Sydney, who have wanted to remove their state labor government for 3 years and were sick of a federal campaign being run by the same state labor goons.
It was reflected in the nation-wide vote for the greens, who picked up a senate seat in every state and a lower house seat in Melbourne.
It was reflected by the likelihood that the 6th senate spot in Victoria could be won by the DLP or Family First.
It was reflected in the large amounts of voters who opted for minor parties or independents. Tellingly, each sitting independent recorded a big swing towards them.
It was reflected in O'Connor, where the nationals took out Wilson Tuckey. Similar to their state government stance, they pledged to not sign coalitions and to be indepentent of the rest of the National Party.
It was reflected in the fact that - unbelievably - an independent may win the safe seat of Denison.
It was reflected in the record informal vote of almost 6% nationally - a new record. In some seats, it was 8%. In Werriwa, it was 10%. Many of these ballots were submitted blank. In the booth I scruitinised, 140 out of 1665 votes were informal. 34 of them were submitted blank, and many more with crosses, comments, "none of the above", or other shows of discontent.
Yesterday, Australia had an enourmous tantrum at the visionless negativity of their political system, and they responded by awarding a victory to nobody. The Australian people got it right - neither party deserved to win.
Why did this happen?
Well, firstly lets look at the stats.
The Southern States stay progressive
In Victoria, Labor's vote was mostly up - but so was the Greens. There can be little doubt now that Victoria is no longer the "jewel in the liberal crown". On the contrary - it has now proven itself to be the most politically progressive state in Australia. It has an 11 year old Labor government that has a decent chance of re-election in a few months. It responded well to a Victorian Prime Minister, and won two seats off the liberals. It mostly rejected the social hysteria of Abbott's government on boat people. And it responded very well to the pitch by the Greens, picking up a lower house seat in Melbourne and decicively winning a senate spot.
It also baffingly returned a DLP senator (probably) on family first preferences. The fact people are willing to vote for these two parties in big enough numbers says that people aren't happy with the liberals in Victoria, and sent their conservative vote elsewhere.
In South Australia, Labor's vote stayed steady and strong. No seats were lost or won - although Boothby came close. Again, the greens picked up a senate seat. Labor was narrowly re-elected on seats at the state election earlier this year, although it lost the 2PP vote.
In Tasmania, Labor won every seat with a swing towards it - except for the boilover of the night in Denison. Counting is still going on, but Independent Andrew Wilkie could win on green and liberal preferences. The Greens, as always, won their senate spot. And the state government is a Labor-green coalition.
In the ACT, Labor's vote went down, and the greens picked up all of it. But the seat status quo remained.
In each of these states, there was a swing to the greens. But they remained solidly in the Labor/Green camp, and mostly rejected Tony Abbott's pitch.
NSW, QLD and WA turn feral
The rest of Australia reacted angrily against Labor. In most of Queensland, and in Metropolitan Sydney, there were 10% swings away from Labor on the primary vote. Labor lost 8 seats in QLD and 2 more in NSW.
WA was already bad for Labor and got worse. It may yet lose Hasluck - and if so, Australia will have it's first Aboriginal in the Federal House of representatives. A liberal. (Note: Labor also ran an Aboriginal candidate in Boothby in SA - but they narrowly lost).
When I was doorknocking in Macquarie, there was a palpable sense of disenchantment. People were not switched on to national issues, or were visibly hostile to even talking about the subject of national campaigning. Lots of people I spoke to just hated all the attack ads and had switched off. People were angry about Rudd. The only time I was able to have a good convo with anyone was when I switched off the national campaign and just talked about local issues and local promises. People didn't want to know about anything else. And everywhere I went, people had policy complaints about issues that were the state labor government's responsibility.
The only time I had a positive experience leafleting was when I was handing out a positive flyer on Labor's health policy at a railway station. People were genuinely interested in knowing what Labor stood for on health. It's a shame we didn't talk about it more.
Labor's campaign
I honestly believe that much of this result has been driven by the incredibly negative tone of the election. The tone of this election was not positive from the start - arguably, ever since the knifing of Rudd, or even before that, with his many policy backdowns.
Labor certainly understood that Abbott was a big minus for the liberals. But you can't just attack - you also have to contrast. Abbott was always going to go negative - in fact his entire election campaign was based around it. His ads were just as bad as Labor's. Many voters sitting in their lounge rooms, by the final week of the campaign, must have been putting fingers in their ears and screaming at their TV to shut up. Worse, the attack ads were so similar that people forgot which party was which.
I honestly believe that Labor went far too hard. In fact it went completely overkill on the negative, without offering anything on the positive. Part of the reason was because it went to the election not quite knowing what it stood for. It's slogan was "moving Australia forward". But in what sense?
Labor has a very good economic story to tell - but because Rudd was knifed, it couldn't tell it.
Then Gillard had to talk about the future, but beyond a few new soundbytes on key policy areas, she didn't articulate the big vision. There actually was no new policy direction. Labor's best election policy, the National Broadband Network - was an idea from the Rudd era that Abbott was dumb enough to oppose. That policy probably saved Labor from losing government completely, by shoring up regional marginals like Page and Eden-Monaro.
The other new Gillard policies - the citizens assembly on climate, and the east timor solution on asylum seekers, were ridiculously half-baked policies that were rightly ridiculed. They actually lost Labor votes at both ends. Swinging voters thought they were bullshit and voted Liberal. Progressive voters thought they were betrayals and voted Green. Labor's primary vote fell in every state. In the southern states, it went to the greens. In NSW, QLD and WA, the liberals and greens shared it. That wasn't an accident.
The Rudd-Gillard Leadership change
I said earlier this year to people that "leadership change without policy change is electoral suicide". NSW Labor has now proved that three times. Federal Labor has proved it again. The lesson still has not been learned.
The people who orchestrated the leadership coup obviously had no idea about how badly it would go down in QLD and NSW. QLD is a deeply conservative state where Labor is already unpopular. It's also deeply parochial - and they would not have like the manner of Rudd's removal.
Only 6 months previously, powerbrokers brought down Nathan Rees in much the same fashion.
Gillard obviously didn't know how bad it would go down when she called the election too quickly, before fully fleshing out her policy agenda.
The people who ran Gillard's campaign obviously had no idea about how badly it would go down in NSW, when you knifed the leader, didn't change any policies, trundled out a few soundbytes, and then tried to win on a honeymoon period.
It had already been proved wrong with Kristina Kenneally in the Penrith By-election. NSW voters have seen that all before and did not take kindly to being treated like idiots for a third time.
State labor and stupid factional deals cost Labor votes in Sydney
Sydney voters in particular are deeply cynical of Labor promises on anything to do with infrastructure. When Gillard announced funding for the Parramatta-Epping rail link, it actually backfired. People thought it was bullshit straight away. And it linked Gillard with state Labor even more. I personally think that actually lost us votes. In Metropolitan sydney seats, Labor's primary vote fell around 7-10%.
In some places it was even worse - check out Fowler. Chris Hayes lost 15% of the vote, because he was previous the member for Werriwa. Laurie Ferguson contested Werriwa, suffered a big swing, and the informal vote was over 10%. Chris Bowen lost a big chunk in the redrawn McMahon (formerly Prospect).
Why? well, maybe one reason is because the NSW powerbrokers played musical chairs in south west sydney to accommodate Laurie Ferguson after his seat was abolished - thus depriving seats of their sitting local labor MP's. In each seat where it happened, the swing against Labor was enormous, to the point where some seats would now have to be called marginal. Labor powerbrokers - you have been warned.
Labor's national campaign looked like an exact replica of Labor at a state level in NSW and QLD over the past few years. Although people do differentiate between state and federal labor on issues, people do tend to notice when something looks and smells the same. And this did look and smell exactly the same. Negative ads. New leader. No clear policy.
Even the slogans were similar. The 2007 NSW state election slogan was "more to do but we're heading in the right direction". Gillard's slogan was "Moving Australia Forward". Where have we heard that before?
Maybe the slogans were the same because the same people who ran the NSW state Labor campaign in 2007 were running this one. Is it any wonder, then, that people in Metro Sydney and QLD decided to pull out their baseball bats a bit early?
Tony Abbott's campaign
Tony Abbott had a very negative message too - stop this, stop that, end this, end that, labor is incompetent, labor is wasteful, labor assassinated their prime minister. Labor is a bad government that stuffed up.
People hated Abbott's ads as much as they hated Labor's. But the key difference was policy. Abbott was very clear about what he wanted to stop in his "Action Contract". Everyone could name one of the four things in it. End the waste. Pay off debt. Stop the big new taxes. Stop the boats.
Tony Abbott's action contract did not resonate much in the southern states, because people there didn't think these issues were a problem. Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania were busy voting for more greens. Regional NSW mostly stuck with Labor.
But in Metro Sydney, QLD, and WA, the promise of "real action" chimed brilliantly.
Abbott's campaign was a success in NSW and Queensland because he tapped into a very deep feeling in those states that Labor at a state level was all spin and no substance, or all talk and no action. Instead, he was offering "real action".
Labor's campaign message was "don't trust Abbott". Okay, sure he's untrustworthy. But what will Labor do on policy? Labor had no answers. They just banged on about workchoices.
Abbott's campaign message was "Labor is a bad government that stuffed up on these four things, and I'll fix them".
In NSW and QLD, it worked.
So Where did the Policy Vision go?
Clearly, Labor wasn't ready to fight this election.
Its agenda got sidetracked earlier this year when it dumped the ETS and went down the Mining Tax line. Then when Rudd was knifed, Gillard raced to the polls too early, still on her honeymoon, and thought that'd be enough. In hindsight she got that badly wrong and should have taken some time to think about her positions.
In the UK, David Cameron spent three years selling what he stood for to voters. In 2007, Kevin Rudd spent 11 months hammering his message - sign kyoto, rip up workchoices, an education revolution, fix hospitals, I'm an economic conservative. It was very successful.
In 2010, Australian Labor had only 8 weeks to do all this. Tony Abbott had 6 months.
So was it Labor's campaign, or was it about something more?
There can be little doubt that this was the most dysfunctional election campaign the Labor party has run in the last 30 years. Mark Latham's campaign produced a bad result, but many commentators observed that it was mostly professional and a reasonably tight ship. Latham was on message, it's just that the message was wrong, and Howard's message was more effective.
The difference between 2004 and 2010 is that Labor had absolutely no campaign message at all.
Federally, Labor would have to go back to the 1977 election or the 1971 Victorian election to have witnessed such a pulverizing example of stupidity on the campaign trail. No policy vision, damaging leaks, a dramatic leadership change that didn't seem to mean anything, and nothing but constant attack ads that looked far too similar. The liberals even stole labor's thunder on a major social policy issue - paid parental leave, and made it look like their idea, even though Labor had already passed their bill through parliament.
The Hollowmen
There's already been commentary in the media about the "Hollowmen", specifically, Mark Arbib, Karl Bitar and the NSW Right, and their role in the events of this year. This morning, Morris Iemma has publicly called for Bitar's resignation. For the first time in three years, I agree with Morris Iemma on something.
Karl Bitar and Mark Arbib were heavily involved in Morris Iemma's re-election campaign in NSW in 2007. They were credited for winning an election Labor really shouldn't have won - although they were greatly helped by the surge to federal labor, workchoices, and a very poor campaign from Peter Debnam. For their efforts, they were hailed as some sort of genuises, and so after Tim Gartrell left after 2007, Karl Bitar got the gig.
In 2008, they were thenn instrumental in bringing down Morris Iemma over privatisation. This can explain why Morris is bitter at Bitar and Arbib. But he was brought down when they showed everyone polling they had done which showed a catastrophic loss of support for Labor. Costa and Iemma also made bad tactical errors when they didn't bring the party and unions with them, and instead tried to be adversarial. this was a big mistake.
In this instance, Arbib and Bitar were right about the policy. Nobody in NSW wanted privatised electricity - it would have killed Iemma and Labor if it had gone through. Look at what has happened to Anna Bligh after she announced her big round of privatisations. Also important to note is that Bligh and Iemma never told their respective voters they were going on a round of privatisations before the election. They shredded their goodwill with voters much in the same way Howard did when he brought in workchoices.
There is, however, one important point to make. If Arbib and Bitar had thought that electricity privatisation was a vote winner or vote neutral, they would have been all for it - Labor values be damned.
Earlier this year, Arbib saw polling that Labor had lost support on it's ETS. He then saw Tony Abbott's "great big new tax" soundbyte. He then probably saw polling where people started to get scared because of tony abbott's claim. He then saw the irresponsible headlines in the daily telegraph about rising electricity prices.
Falsely sensing danger, he concluded that the ETS was a vote loser, and started campaigning relentlessly in the party for the ETS to be dropped. Knowing Rudd would not listen to him, he went and hassled Swan and Gillard instead to have it dropped. After months of inaction, and against his political instincts, Rudd caved.
This decision turned out to be Rudd's downfall. The ETS was a key plank of brand Rudd - and voters brought out their baseball bats and smashed Labor's primary vote down to 35%. Gillard replaced him, but then didn't change the policy. She then made it worse by announcing a "citizen's assembly". This entire process, from start to finish, from Copenhagen to Hung Parliament, had Mark Arbib's grubby fingerprints all over it.
But again, I stress - If Arbib had thought the ETS was a vote winner, he would have been all for it. But he mistakenly thought it was a vote loser, so he told Rudd to drop it. Labor values be damned.
Arbib, Bitar, and anyone else from the NSW Right faction who were associated with the running of our campaign should no longer be in any position of influence in the labor party.
Equally though, Labor had nothing to say
It's only natural that a party goes negative when it doesn't have a strong vision. Gillard didn't have time to develop it. What would have a good campaign have looked like? One with better ads? One with no leaks? One with more campaign footsoldiers? Well, that's not that hard. But again, Labor had nothing to say. People already didn't trust Abbott - they didn't need reminding. They needed to know why Julia Gillard deserved to be prime minister, and what she stood for.
My English housemate made a great point to me yesterday - no British political party would have raced to an election without a Policy Manifesto and a pledge card. People debated about whether Gordon Brown was the right party leader - but criticisms of him were more about his communication performance as Prime Minister, not about what he stood for. Policy was a problem too, but there was never any question of blurring the two. The party wrote policy. Labour's leader might have been unpopular, but Labour as a party stood for something at that election. If you wanted to know what, you could read the manifesto and the pledge card.
Labor went to this election without a clear manifesto or pledge card on a number of key policy areas. Many of it's key policy promises were half baked, and would never have been put in a policy manifesto as a serious suggestion. The citizens assembly, sustainable australia and the East Timor solution were not serious policy ideas - they were soundbytes designed to get Labor through the election.
On the same day Howard called the 2004 election, he immediately framed it as an election about "who do you trust to keep interest rates low?" Nobody was in any doubt about what howard stood for. Even if it was totall bull.
Julia Gillard had "Moving Forward". On what? She didn't define the election. In fact, the liberals and the greens defined what the election was about. The Greens said it was about climate change. The Liberals said it was about waste, debt, taxes and boats. Labor was caught with it's pants down - only late in the piece did it campaign on the economy, the NBN, and workchoices. But by then it was too late.
And what about health care? Foreign affairs?
What's going to happen now?
I personally believe the Independents and Green will side with Labor. Labor has a more helpful program for these electorates on issues like Health, the NBN and the environment.
Tony Windsor and Bob Katter are agrarian socialists, but they have been no fans of the nationals Warren Truss and Barnaby Joyce. Bob Katter is a protectionist in his economic philosophy, and he is libertarian on things like fishing, shooting guns and camping, so wooing him could be fraught with difficulty for both sides. He is, on the other hand, supportive of Unions and Labor's Industrial laws.
Tony Windsor, a former national, is positive about Labor's agendas on regional health care and the National Broadband network.
Rob Oakeshott, although rural, is generally the most progressive of the three. He seems to want to talk about reform of the house of representatives, and again is positive about Labor's NBN. Of the three, he would probably be the most willing to support a Labor government.
Adam Bandt, the Green, has stated that he'd prefer to work with Labor. As a former industrial lawyer, and as someone who just took a seat off labor, it would be hard for him support the coalition.
Andrew Wilkie, the potential fourth independent, has previously been both a member of the liberal party 30 years ago, and a candidate the greens in 2004. An intelligence officer who blew the whistle on Howard over Iraq, he later split with the greens over a few environmental issues and a perception he was more economically moderate. Personally, I think he'd be more likely to support labor, especially since Labor would normally have won his seat (and may still do so).
Relying on these four would be embarassing for Labor, but it could end up being positive for our democracy.
I believe this election has demonstrated, loudly and clear, that the Labor party in NSW needs serious and long lasting reform. It needs to revise it's policy agenda, and stick to it. Hollowmen like Arbib and Bitar need to be swept away. Corrupt hangers-on like Tripodi and Obeid need to go too.
I think this election has been a very striking repudiation of the NSW Labor Right faction brand of politics. Their political style is actually causing the party a lot of self-harm.
"Whatever it takes" ceased to be a tactical campaign strategy, and started to become the party's ideology. The local party is moribund in many areas. The political class has taken over the reins and runs everything with an iron grip. Strong values and policy beliefs are not compulsory - in fact, they are a luxury. Idealism is scoffed at. A University degree and a job as a staffer is more important than the personal achievement you have made campaigning for change in workplaces, in your community, in law and social justice, or in broader society for the benefit of others.
These problems are products of long labor domination of politics in NSW. Only an amazingly arrogant party could assume it could treat it's own party members with disdain, and then treat the electorate the same, and assume nothing bad will happen. Only an arrogant party could feel that changing a premier or prime minister is no big deal - oh please, we did that last week! They have had power for too long and don't fear losing it.
The push for reforming this system could only ever come when this very political culture caused Labor to lose an election. Well, now it nearly has. And next year, they'll lose another one.
They need to stop assuming people are mugs, and will vote for Labor when it has no positive policy agenda just because there'll be a leadership honeymoon. Rudd's honeymoon with voters lasted from december 2006 until April 2010. Gillards lasted 3 weeks until the campaign leaks. Leaders and their honeymoons come and go - what matters are the things the party stands for.
In this election, Tony Abbott was very negative. But he had his policy agenda - the four point action contract.He even put it on the back of his how to vote cards on polling day.
What did Labor have? "Moving Australia Forward"? "Don't trust Abbott"?
Hollowmen believe that people vote for leaders and don't care about policy. Thus, you can solve a policy problem by changing a leader. Hollowmen also believe you can decide all your policies on polling, and win an election by negative attack ads alone.
The 2010 federal election, and the 5 NSW state by-elections since 2007 have now proved that philosophy of politics to be complete and utter rubbish.
That philosophy has nearly made Tony Abbott prime minister - and it will cause the complete destruction of NSW Labor next year.
Labor's very big problem in Metropolitan Sydney
I'll post my full thoughts about the election soon. But before I do, there's something I'd like to point out that nobody has noticed.
The huge disparity between the ALP's vote in metropolitan sydney and elsewhere in NSW.
Specifically: the complete collapse of Labor's primary vote in Metropolitan Sydney. Not many seats were lost, but some of the results are truly stunning, and must be sending shockwaves through the ALP's NSW branch.
Yet when you look at the regional seats, Labor's primary vote held up, or even increased.
Macquarie
A good example of the contradiction is the seat of Macquarie, which takes in the Hawkesbury and the blue mountains. Most of it is very regional in the hawkesbury, but the blue mountains is more like outer metropolitan sydney these days - socially progressive with lots of commuters.
The liberal party's vote in this seat actually went nowhere - it stayed exactly the same. But Labor's primary vote fell 5%. Amazingly, none of it went to the liberals - they went to the greens and other candidates. The independent votes didn't come back to Labor, and the liberals won the seat on a narrow 2PP swing.
Labor's primary vote mostly held in the mountains or leaked to the greens, but they suffered in the hawkesbury. If Labor's primary vote had been 2% bigger, they would have narrowly held on. But all in all, the 2PP swing to the liberals was not very large here. Labor will be kicking themselves that they lost this one.
Rural/Regional NSW Seats - Labor actualy increased its 2PP vote in some key places
Perhaps the most baffling thing is how Labor managed to actually hold, or even increase its vote in regional NSW.
Against all the odds, and despite a tiny margin of just 0.1%, Labor somehow managed to get a 2PP swing in favour of it, to the tune of 1.5% in the central coast seat of Robertson. The Labor and the liberals vote both fell by 2% and the greens vote slightly increased. Everyone had written it off, and Labor had actually stopped a lot of campaigning there and transferred resources to Dobell. The liberals must be kicking themselves - they really should have won this seat. Instead, the decision of local branches to remove Belinda Neal's preselection saved the day. Well done Deb O'Neill.
Next door in Dobell, also marginal, Labor's Craig Thompson increased his primary vote by 0.1% on Primaries. The liberal vote fell by almost 2%.
Just above Dobell, in the safe liberal seat of Shortland, Labor's vote only fell 2%.
Further up the North Coast in Page, Janelle Saffin got a very healthy 4.1% primary vote swing in her favour, while the nationals vote went nowehere. Well done Janelle.
In the bellweather seat of Eden-Monaro in the south of NSW and near the ACT, Mike Kelly increased his primary vote by 0.3%, and picked up a swing of 1.5% on the 2PP, with help from a slightly higher greens vote.
In all these seats, Labor's vote actually increased on a 2PP basis.
But now look at Sydney
Outer suburbs
In Greenway, the seat Louise Markus held before a very bad redistribution for her, Labor lost 7.9% on Primaries. They were only saved when a mere 2.8% of it went to the liberals, giving Labor a very narrow win on 2PP.
In Lindsay, strong local campaigning from David Bradbury seems to have saved the day. Despite a 6.9% swing against him, he still beat the liberals on primaries. Tellingly, the greens only got 4.5% of the vote, and so he squeaked back with 50.2% of the 2PP. The liberals will be very annoyed they didn't win.
In Macarthur, Labor suffered a 6.9% swing on primaries. The libs got 2.4% of it, and that was enough to give them th seat. Interestingly, 2.9% of it went to One Nation, although they were number one on the ballot paper.
In Hughes, Labor's hopes of winning a tight seat from 2007 were derailed by a 5.8% primary swing against Labor - 3.1% went to the liberals. One nation again scored lucky with the number one ticket spot and picked up 1.6%.
In Werriwa, Labor's primary vote fell a whopping 8.9%. The locals may not have appreciated Laure Ferguson being parachuted in.
In all of these seats, the swing was around 5-7% against Labor on the primaries. It's a miracle they didn't lose more.
Bennelong
Next, lets have a look at the other seat Labor lost - Bennelong, right in the heart of Sydney's west.
Labor's primary vote fell by a whopping 8% - and almost all of it went straight to the liberals. John Alexander won 49% of the Primary vote and was easily elected.
And now, for the carnage in safe ALP Sydney seats
Although Bennelong was the only seat the ALP lost, check out the enormous collapses in Labor's primary vote in a number of Sydney Metro seats:
Banks: -10.3%
Barton: -8.9%
Blaxland: - 8.4%
Chifley: -12.0%
Fowler: -15.9%
Kingsford-Smith: -8.7% -
McMahon: -7.3%
Parramatta: -8.9%
Reid: -11.8%
Watson: -10.3%
In all of these cases, the swing went almost straight to the liberals, to the point where some of them were won by Labor by only 52.5% on the primary vote. Some of them could only now be called marginal.
Even in the inner city there was severe damage:
Grayndler: -8.7% - Albo was given an almighty fright when the Greens picked up 6%, finished ahead of the liberals, and only lost to the ALP 51.5-48.5.
Sydney: -5.4% - Tanya Plibersek did better than many colleagues - the greens got 3% of the swing but fell 4% short of getting into 2nd spot.
And even in Wollongong and the Hunter, Labor heartland, there was bad damage:
Throsby: -7.9%
Cunningham: -3.3% - although the liberal primary vote actually increased by 5.3%
Newcastle: -2.8% - the ALP lost it's primary vote win, but the libs and greens each picked up 5% off an independent from last time.
Hunter: - 5.2% - of which sadly, 3.3% went to One Nation. And no, they weren't first on the ballot.
So what does all this mean?
Clearly, brand Labor is well and truly down the toilet. Although the ALP hasn't lost many seats, it has lost a sizeable chunk of it's iron grip on metropolitan Sydney. If these results are repeated at the upcoming state election in March 2011, Labor will be utterly wiped out for a generation in NSW.
And I'll post my thoughts on why in a moment.
The huge disparity between the ALP's vote in metropolitan sydney and elsewhere in NSW.
Specifically: the complete collapse of Labor's primary vote in Metropolitan Sydney. Not many seats were lost, but some of the results are truly stunning, and must be sending shockwaves through the ALP's NSW branch.
Yet when you look at the regional seats, Labor's primary vote held up, or even increased.
Macquarie
A good example of the contradiction is the seat of Macquarie, which takes in the Hawkesbury and the blue mountains. Most of it is very regional in the hawkesbury, but the blue mountains is more like outer metropolitan sydney these days - socially progressive with lots of commuters.
The liberal party's vote in this seat actually went nowhere - it stayed exactly the same. But Labor's primary vote fell 5%. Amazingly, none of it went to the liberals - they went to the greens and other candidates. The independent votes didn't come back to Labor, and the liberals won the seat on a narrow 2PP swing.
Labor's primary vote mostly held in the mountains or leaked to the greens, but they suffered in the hawkesbury. If Labor's primary vote had been 2% bigger, they would have narrowly held on. But all in all, the 2PP swing to the liberals was not very large here. Labor will be kicking themselves that they lost this one.
Rural/Regional NSW Seats - Labor actualy increased its 2PP vote in some key places
Perhaps the most baffling thing is how Labor managed to actually hold, or even increase its vote in regional NSW.
Against all the odds, and despite a tiny margin of just 0.1%, Labor somehow managed to get a 2PP swing in favour of it, to the tune of 1.5% in the central coast seat of Robertson. The Labor and the liberals vote both fell by 2% and the greens vote slightly increased. Everyone had written it off, and Labor had actually stopped a lot of campaigning there and transferred resources to Dobell. The liberals must be kicking themselves - they really should have won this seat. Instead, the decision of local branches to remove Belinda Neal's preselection saved the day. Well done Deb O'Neill.
Next door in Dobell, also marginal, Labor's Craig Thompson increased his primary vote by 0.1% on Primaries. The liberal vote fell by almost 2%.
Just above Dobell, in the safe liberal seat of Shortland, Labor's vote only fell 2%.
Further up the North Coast in Page, Janelle Saffin got a very healthy 4.1% primary vote swing in her favour, while the nationals vote went nowehere. Well done Janelle.
In the bellweather seat of Eden-Monaro in the south of NSW and near the ACT, Mike Kelly increased his primary vote by 0.3%, and picked up a swing of 1.5% on the 2PP, with help from a slightly higher greens vote.
In all these seats, Labor's vote actually increased on a 2PP basis.
But now look at Sydney
Outer suburbs
In Greenway, the seat Louise Markus held before a very bad redistribution for her, Labor lost 7.9% on Primaries. They were only saved when a mere 2.8% of it went to the liberals, giving Labor a very narrow win on 2PP.
In Lindsay, strong local campaigning from David Bradbury seems to have saved the day. Despite a 6.9% swing against him, he still beat the liberals on primaries. Tellingly, the greens only got 4.5% of the vote, and so he squeaked back with 50.2% of the 2PP. The liberals will be very annoyed they didn't win.
In Macarthur, Labor suffered a 6.9% swing on primaries. The libs got 2.4% of it, and that was enough to give them th seat. Interestingly, 2.9% of it went to One Nation, although they were number one on the ballot paper.
In Hughes, Labor's hopes of winning a tight seat from 2007 were derailed by a 5.8% primary swing against Labor - 3.1% went to the liberals. One nation again scored lucky with the number one ticket spot and picked up 1.6%.
In Werriwa, Labor's primary vote fell a whopping 8.9%. The locals may not have appreciated Laure Ferguson being parachuted in.
In all of these seats, the swing was around 5-7% against Labor on the primaries. It's a miracle they didn't lose more.
Bennelong
Next, lets have a look at the other seat Labor lost - Bennelong, right in the heart of Sydney's west.
Labor's primary vote fell by a whopping 8% - and almost all of it went straight to the liberals. John Alexander won 49% of the Primary vote and was easily elected.
And now, for the carnage in safe ALP Sydney seats
Although Bennelong was the only seat the ALP lost, check out the enormous collapses in Labor's primary vote in a number of Sydney Metro seats:
Banks: -10.3%
Barton: -8.9%
Blaxland: - 8.4%
Chifley: -12.0%
Fowler: -15.9%
Kingsford-Smith: -8.7% -
McMahon: -7.3%
Parramatta: -8.9%
Reid: -11.8%
Watson: -10.3%
In all of these cases, the swing went almost straight to the liberals, to the point where some of them were won by Labor by only 52.5% on the primary vote. Some of them could only now be called marginal.
Even in the inner city there was severe damage:
Grayndler: -8.7% - Albo was given an almighty fright when the Greens picked up 6%, finished ahead of the liberals, and only lost to the ALP 51.5-48.5.
Sydney: -5.4% - Tanya Plibersek did better than many colleagues - the greens got 3% of the swing but fell 4% short of getting into 2nd spot.
And even in Wollongong and the Hunter, Labor heartland, there was bad damage:
Throsby: -7.9%
Cunningham: -3.3% - although the liberal primary vote actually increased by 5.3%
Newcastle: -2.8% - the ALP lost it's primary vote win, but the libs and greens each picked up 5% off an independent from last time.
Hunter: - 5.2% - of which sadly, 3.3% went to One Nation. And no, they weren't first on the ballot.
So what does all this mean?
Clearly, brand Labor is well and truly down the toilet. Although the ALP hasn't lost many seats, it has lost a sizeable chunk of it's iron grip on metropolitan Sydney. If these results are repeated at the upcoming state election in March 2011, Labor will be utterly wiped out for a generation in NSW.
And I'll post my thoughts on why in a moment.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Current betting odds - federal election
The polls seem to be 52-48, with Labor doing poorly in Queensland.
Since the national polls seem to be a bit confusing, now might be worth having a look at the betting markets to see what they're saying about individual seats.
Currently, in marginal seats, the Liberals are tipped by the punters to gain:
Dawson (QLD)
Flynn (QLD)
Leichhardt (QLD)
Macquarie (NSW)
Robertson (NSW)
Swan (WA)
The Greens stand to Gain:
Melbourne (VIC)
And Labor stands to gain:
McEwen (VIC)
This result would leave Labor with 77 seats - a very slim majority (76 is needed to form government).
Into the mix we also need to throw in the following seats, which are dead even in the current betting markets:
Hughes (NSW) - currently held by libs
Macarthur (NSW) - currently held by libs
Hasluck (WA) - currently held by ALP
Solomon (NT) - currently held by ALP
If Labor was to lose all four of these seats, there would be a hung parliament, with Labor winning 75 seats. Labor would be the likely election winner with the 1 Greens MP from Melbourne probably supporting them. The coalition would win 71 seats and there would be 3 Independents.
Hughes and Macarthur are marginal seats that were on Labor's hitlist in 2007. Popular liberal incumbents prevented Labor from getting over the line despite some big swings, but they are retiring in 2010, giving Labor an opening.
Labor has been optimistic about Hughes since the start of the campaign and has been campaigning very hard. Dana Vale was a master at attracting pork-barrelling projects into the seat when she was an MP, but with the Howard government gone, she has decided to retire. Macarthur is in the same boat - the Liberal, Pat Farmer only held on to that seat with a tiny majority in 2007. The question with of those seats will be - can Labor win them against the broader trend of dissatisfaction in NSW? It won't be easy. The markets in Hughes are a dead heat, but the liberals are very slightly favoured in Macarthur.
Solomon is the seat that takes in Darwin and surrounds. Labor won the seat off the liberals in 2007, but some upcoming personal scandals will not help Labor's candidate a second time around. Currently it's all tied up on the markets.
Hasluck was the only seat Labor took off the liberals in WA in 2007, but the mining tax has made it a hard win the second time around in a state that Labor isn't favoured. The liberals have nominated a good candidate here. Currently all tied up as well.
Labor will be desperately hoping it can win one of these four seats, because it will make their job a hell of a lot easier. On current market predictions, if Labor won one of them, it would put them back into government.
Anomalies -
The markets are usually good predictors of seats, but they didn't get everything right in 2007. The big swings in queensland surprised a lot of people - some swings were up around the 15% mark.
There seems to be a disconnect between current polling and these betting results. Labor's polling is down in QLD, with some predicting a 4% swing - this would be enough to cost Labor nearly 10 seats, according to some News Ltd papers. This could be an exaggeration or it could not. Yet the markets are only predicting a loss of three.
Likewise, markets are showing safety for seats like Bennelong and Lindsay, despite Labor also being on the nose at a state level in western sydney. If Labor win those seats, plus Hughes and Macarthur, they could afford to lose Macquarie and Robertson with - amazingly - no net loss. Perhaps the key will be incumbency - Maxine McKew is running again in Bennelong and David Bradbury is recontesting Lindsay. Meanwhile, Belinda Neal was disendorsed in Robertson, while Bob Debus isn't recontesting a redistributed Macquarie.
The other disconnect is SA - despite Labor showing enormous poll leads, they aren't predicted to pick up either of the 2 remaining marginals there.
Somewhere, someone is getting it wrong.
Personally I think all eyes need to be on Queensland. Labor might shed the odd seat in NSW and WA, and they might gain the odd one in SA, NSW and VIC. I honestly think once those seats are settled, there'll be no more than -4 seats for Labor.
The real focus is Queensland. If Labor loses more than 3-4 seats there, they will be badly under the pump.
Since the national polls seem to be a bit confusing, now might be worth having a look at the betting markets to see what they're saying about individual seats.
Currently, in marginal seats, the Liberals are tipped by the punters to gain:
Dawson (QLD)
Flynn (QLD)
Leichhardt (QLD)
Macquarie (NSW)
Robertson (NSW)
Swan (WA)
The Greens stand to Gain:
Melbourne (VIC)
And Labor stands to gain:
McEwen (VIC)
This result would leave Labor with 77 seats - a very slim majority (76 is needed to form government).
Into the mix we also need to throw in the following seats, which are dead even in the current betting markets:
Hughes (NSW) - currently held by libs
Macarthur (NSW) - currently held by libs
Hasluck (WA) - currently held by ALP
Solomon (NT) - currently held by ALP
If Labor was to lose all four of these seats, there would be a hung parliament, with Labor winning 75 seats. Labor would be the likely election winner with the 1 Greens MP from Melbourne probably supporting them. The coalition would win 71 seats and there would be 3 Independents.
Hughes and Macarthur are marginal seats that were on Labor's hitlist in 2007. Popular liberal incumbents prevented Labor from getting over the line despite some big swings, but they are retiring in 2010, giving Labor an opening.
Labor has been optimistic about Hughes since the start of the campaign and has been campaigning very hard. Dana Vale was a master at attracting pork-barrelling projects into the seat when she was an MP, but with the Howard government gone, she has decided to retire. Macarthur is in the same boat - the Liberal, Pat Farmer only held on to that seat with a tiny majority in 2007. The question with of those seats will be - can Labor win them against the broader trend of dissatisfaction in NSW? It won't be easy. The markets in Hughes are a dead heat, but the liberals are very slightly favoured in Macarthur.
Solomon is the seat that takes in Darwin and surrounds. Labor won the seat off the liberals in 2007, but some upcoming personal scandals will not help Labor's candidate a second time around. Currently it's all tied up on the markets.
Hasluck was the only seat Labor took off the liberals in WA in 2007, but the mining tax has made it a hard win the second time around in a state that Labor isn't favoured. The liberals have nominated a good candidate here. Currently all tied up as well.
Labor will be desperately hoping it can win one of these four seats, because it will make their job a hell of a lot easier. On current market predictions, if Labor won one of them, it would put them back into government.
Anomalies -
The markets are usually good predictors of seats, but they didn't get everything right in 2007. The big swings in queensland surprised a lot of people - some swings were up around the 15% mark.
There seems to be a disconnect between current polling and these betting results. Labor's polling is down in QLD, with some predicting a 4% swing - this would be enough to cost Labor nearly 10 seats, according to some News Ltd papers. This could be an exaggeration or it could not. Yet the markets are only predicting a loss of three.
Likewise, markets are showing safety for seats like Bennelong and Lindsay, despite Labor also being on the nose at a state level in western sydney. If Labor win those seats, plus Hughes and Macarthur, they could afford to lose Macquarie and Robertson with - amazingly - no net loss. Perhaps the key will be incumbency - Maxine McKew is running again in Bennelong and David Bradbury is recontesting Lindsay. Meanwhile, Belinda Neal was disendorsed in Robertson, while Bob Debus isn't recontesting a redistributed Macquarie.
The other disconnect is SA - despite Labor showing enormous poll leads, they aren't predicted to pick up either of the 2 remaining marginals there.
Somewhere, someone is getting it wrong.
Personally I think all eyes need to be on Queensland. Labor might shed the odd seat in NSW and WA, and they might gain the odd one in SA, NSW and VIC. I honestly think once those seats are settled, there'll be no more than -4 seats for Labor.
The real focus is Queensland. If Labor loses more than 3-4 seats there, they will be badly under the pump.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
NSW Federal Senate ballot guide
I noticed that there are 83 candidates on the senate ballot paper in NSW this year. Yes - 83. So, for those who can be bothered to number below the line, here's your handy guide to the positions of those on the ballot paper in NSW.
Group A: Socialist Alliance
A broad electoral church of eight different socialist groups who formed under the one banner in 2001. They’ve become quite popular on university campuses and you can barely attend any left wing protest without them drowning out the crowd with signs. They describe themselves as “anti-capitalist” and for “a democratic society run by and for working people, not the greedy, destructive elite that now rules”.
http://www.socialist-alliance.org/
Group B – Independents: Robert Hodges and Bob Frier
Very little information can be found online about these guys or their policies. They both seem to be involved on the board of the Glenorie RSL club. Make of that what you will.
Group C – Independents: Tony Robinson, Noel Selby
Nick Selby is a truckie who ran as an Independent in the recent State Penrith By-election. He was accused by the liberals as being a Labor supporter, because he supported building a roundabout up the mountains somewhere. Whatever the merits or stupidity of that claim, it was denied by Mr Selby, who stated he has been a “swinging voter”. His Penrith campaign was centered around providing better public services to the area. Given Selby’s profile, it’s a bit baffling he is second in the group. Tony Robinson is also a truck driver and a Penrith local.
Noel Selby profile: http://penrith-press.whereilive.com.au/news/story/independent-noel-selby-steps-forward-for-penrith-by-election/
http://www.penrithstar.com.au/news/local/news/general/noel-selby-independent-nepean-river-and-penrith-valley-sports-stadium/1854196.aspx
Group D – Independents: Darrin Hodges and Nick Folkes:
These two have a campaign website, not that it’s all that pleasant to read. They seem to want to stop all immigration, bash “third world masses”, end the mining tax, and build up the manufacturing industry. They seem to hate socialism, multiculturalism, and globalization. Maybe they should have run for One Nation - oh wait, hang on, they oppose the internet filter.
http://www.darrinhodges.com/
Group E – Building Australia Party
This seems to be a building industry-based party that supports loosening planning and local council regulations to assist the building industry build more homes.
http://www.buildingaustralia.org.au/
Group F – Senator On-Line
A party that promises to raise any policy in the senate put to them by any voter around the country through online submissions. Their first candidate is Wes Bas, a Surry Hills police officer and community activist. Their second candidate is Brianna Roach, a law student from the north shore.
http://senatoronline.org.au/
Group G – Communist Alliance
The reds are out from under the bed. The Communist Alliance incorporates the old Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and a few other disparate communist groups. Geoff Lawler is a trade union official with the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union in the Riverina area. Brenda-Anne Kellaway is a teacher and single mum. They are also running a candidate in the lower house seat of Sydney.
http://www.communist-alliance.org.au/
Group H – Independents Nadia Bloom and Bede Ireland
Nothing can be found anywhere about either of these candidates apart from the AEC website. They are apparently retirees.
Group I – Citizens Electoral Council of Australia
These guys are the Australian followers of the wacky conspiracy theorist and former US democratic party congressman, Lyndon LaRouche. If you’re someone who thinks that the US government brought down the twin towers in a controlled explosion, and that we should renationalize the banks so the Jews won’t get hold of them, this party could be for you.
http://www.cecaust.com.au/
Group J - Australian Democrats
They’re barely alive, but still around. Originally a breakaway progressive liberal party, the democrats now claim that they are “returning to their roots”. Apparently this involves a rejection of the Mining Tax for reasons of “states rights”. Ah, ever the small-L liberals.
http://www.democrats.org.au/
Group K - Independents – Meg Sampson, J Hinchcliffe
They at least have a twitter account. They both describe themselves as old – 65 and 75. Meg Sampson says she was an ex-member of the Australian democrats, and there seems to be a record of a Megan Sampson as a previous candidate for the dems in the 1980’s and 1990’s. They even have a twitter account!
http://msmegansampson.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/meg4sensampson
Group L – Independents – Leon Adrian Belgrave, Janos Beregszaszi
Leon Adrian Belgrave appears to have previously run as a candidate for the “Outdoor Recreation Party”, who are a libertarian group now allied to the Liberal Democratic Party. I’m not sure whether these guys are running as ODP candidates or just on their own.
http://www.orp.org.au/
Group M – The Climate Skeptics
This is a party devoted to advancing the cause of Climate Change skepticism – the first such party in the world (so they claim). If you’ve ever uttered the phrase “but it’s all just natural cycles”, or “the science isn’t settled”, maybe these guys are up your alley. .
http://www.landshape.org/news/
Group N – Secular Party of Australia
These guys are a party of humanists and atheists who are committed to advancing policies that strengthen the separation of church and state and advance the cause of reason and strict secularism. They also want to attack the influence of religion in politics. Amongst their policies is a commitment to end state money to religious schools. I’m guessing that approximately 70% of voters will hate them, while the rest stand up and cheer.
http://www.secular.org.au/
Group O – Shooters and Fishers Party
They catch things, then shoot them. Combining guns and fish may sound like a weird concept, but they actually do quite well in the NSW state upper house, where they currently hold the balance of power. These guys are a largely rural-based party that aims to protect the rights of fisherman and gun owners. They describe themselves as strong “family values” social conservative types, which is probably the reason why they are distinct from the more libertarian Outdoor Recreation Party/LDP.
http://www.shootersandfishers.org.au/
Group P – Democratic Labor Party (DLP) of Australia
Originally formed out of the labor party split in the 1950’s before dying in the mid 1970’s, the DLP have had something of a minor resurgence in recent years, particularly in Victoria where they have state upper house representation. On economic issues they would be mostly centrist with a pro-union slant, and on social issues they are very conservative (against same-sex marriage, stem cells, abortion, etc).
http://www.dlp.org.au/
Group Q - Australian Sex Party
A new party that has attracted attention for it’s name alone. The Australian Sex party rails against censorship and “wowserism”. It supports an R rating for videogames and the abolition of the internet censorship filter. They actually have some detailed policy proposals on sex education, health, preventing sex slavery, immigration, protecting the rights of sex workers, and legal-no fault abortion. And even a bit of religion bashing thrown in for good measure.
http://www.sexparty.org.au/
Group R – Independents – David Barker and S G Zureik
David Barker was the bible-bashing liberal candidate for Chifley, who was disendorsed. Why? Because he posted anti-Muslim messages on his Facebook page and tried to claim that labor wanted to take a Christian Australia in a muslim direction. Not the smartest idea, especially when your main opponent, Ed Husic, is a “non practicing muslim”. He was also a former member of Fred Nile’s Christian Democrats.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/anti-muslim-liberal-candidate-david-barker-to-be-dumped-says-joe-hockey/story-e6frf7jx-1225896596514
Group S – Socialist Equality Party
These guys are the official followers of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International. Yes, real live trots.
http://www.sep.org.au/website/
Group T – Sustainable Population Party
These guys are listed as Independents on the ballot because they didn’t get their ballot in on time. The Sustainable Population Party want to limit Australia’s population growth to a maximum of 26 million by 2050. They stress they aren’t racist and the reasons are purely environmental, and they want to maintain out current refugee intake of 13,000 a year. Their website proudly boasts the endorsement of Dick Smith. An immigration party endorsed by Dick Smith – you’d think they’d be popular enough to get their name on the ballot. Maybe their missing ingredient was blatant racism.
http://www.populationparty.com/Home/About-Us
Group U – Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting)
This group wants to change Australia’s Family Law and Child Support policies so that there is more room for equal custodianship of children when in divorce. They also have other policy proposals.
http://www.ncpp.xisle.info/
Group V – Family First
A conservative Christian political party backed by Pentacostal Churches like Hillsong. They are one of the fastest growing minor parties in Australia, although they are likely to be left with no federal senate representation now that Steve Fielding’s senate term has expired.
http://www.familyfirst.org.au/
Group W – Australian Labor Party
Australia’s oldest political party, started by the Union movement, Labor is a social democratic party committed to collective bargaining, a multilateral approach to foreign policy, utilizing the role of government to provide services, and progressive social policy. They have been in government since 2007.
http://www.alp.org.au/
Group X – Reconcile Australia Party
Listed as Independents on the ballot, this is a party that advocates policies around Aboriginal reconciliation and living standards.
http://www.reconcileaustraliaparty.org/
Group Y – The Carers Alliance
This party runs on a platform of advancing the rights and living standards of the disabled and their carers. Amongst their proposals is a National Disability Insurance Scheme.
http://www.carers.org.au/
Group Z – Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
Why vote for family first when you could vote for The Original Bible Bashers™? Formed out of Fred Nile’s Call to Australia party, this party “Promotes Christian values in Parliament and evaluates all legislation on Biblical principles.” This is code for bashing gays, arguing against abortion, and promoting ultra-conservative Christian values.
http://www.cdp.org.au/
Group AA – Liberal Party of Australia/National Party of Australia
The Liberal Party are Australia’s major Liberal Conservative party. Formed by Robert Menzies in 1944, they promote policies that support free enterprise, individual liberty, and conservative values. The National Party of Australia (formerly the Country Party) are a rural-based conservative party that advocates policies that benefit rural and regional Australia. The Liberal and National Parties govern in coalition, and have been in opposition since 2007. They are running a joint ticket in NSW, with the first two candidates being liberals and the third candidate a national.
http://www.liberal.org.au/
http://www.nationals.org.au/
Group AB – The Republican Democrats
Listed as independents on the ballot, this party is a centrist/progressive liberal party along similar lines as the British Liberal Democrats. I guess you could call them “small L Liberals”, but with a firm progressive streak. In QLD they are running a noted anti-corruption campaigner for the Senate. Their two NSW candidates are local activists from the central coast. They do have an impressively long list of detailed policies and a professional looking website. They’re obviously trying to start something.
http://republicandemocrats.org.au/
Group AC – One Nation
Australia’s favourite hillbilly party. Founded by Pauline Hanson in 1997, One Nation is the main Australian political party advocating for racism, nationalism, xenophobia, lower immigration and aboriginal-bashing.
http://www.onenation.com.au/
Group AD – The Greens
Australia’s largest Third party by some distance, the Greens are a party that was founded primarily to advocate policies related to environmentalism. Now they are the vanguard for left-wing politics, with a long list of policy proposals for all areas of policy. To the left of Labor, the greens seek to make big inroads in an election where both major parties have abandoned action on climate change. They stand a real chance of holding the balance of power in the senate and winning their first lower house seat.
http://www.greens.org.au/
Group AE – Independents – Cheryl Kernot, Simon Cant
Cheryl Kernot is a former leader of the Australia democrats, who defected to the Labor Party in 1998 and was briefly the member for Dixon until 2001, until she lost to Peter Dutton. She is running on a platform of “change politics”, whatever we expect that to mean. Simon Cant is a former independent councillor on Manly Council.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/kernot-sets-her-sights-on-senate-seat-20100730-10zwv.html
Group AF – Liberal Democratic Party
A libertarian party, advocating for free-market economic policies, small government and social policies based on individual liberty. Although they are economically right wing, they also oppose internet censorship and advocate for policies like same-sex marriage and gun law deregulation.
http://www.ldp.org.au/
Ungrouped:
Hamish Richardson – Very little can be found about him, apart from the fact that he’s a Journalist.
Norman H Joseph Hooper – Described as a Pensioner and Economics Researcher.
Stewart Scott-Irving
Ran as an Independent in the 2008 Lyne By-election (for Mark Vaile’s old seat, won by Independent Rob Oakshott. After the election he tried to get the by-election result disputed because he claimed the ABC had not provided him with equal time as a candidate, despite only receiving 4% of the vote. perhaps a bit loopy, he is an education consultant.
http://www.wauchopegazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/scottirving-will-contest-election/259773.aspx
Bryan Pape
Bryan Pape is a law lecturer at the University of Armidale and a former member of the National Party. His main claim to fame was a constitutional challenge he brought against the $900 payments in the Rudd government’s economic stimulus package in 2008. It got a good run in the Murdoch press.
http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/bonus-payment-finally-ready-to-roll/story-e6frfmd9-1225699613528
Andrew Whelan – There are many Andrew Whelans around, including a lecturer in politics and policy at University of Armidale. However, this Andrew Whelan is a Software Engineer. Amazingly, I can’t find a website for him.
Group A: Socialist Alliance
A broad electoral church of eight different socialist groups who formed under the one banner in 2001. They’ve become quite popular on university campuses and you can barely attend any left wing protest without them drowning out the crowd with signs. They describe themselves as “anti-capitalist” and for “a democratic society run by and for working people, not the greedy, destructive elite that now rules”.
http://www.socialist-alliance.org/
Group B – Independents: Robert Hodges and Bob Frier
Very little information can be found online about these guys or their policies. They both seem to be involved on the board of the Glenorie RSL club. Make of that what you will.
Group C – Independents: Tony Robinson, Noel Selby
Nick Selby is a truckie who ran as an Independent in the recent State Penrith By-election. He was accused by the liberals as being a Labor supporter, because he supported building a roundabout up the mountains somewhere. Whatever the merits or stupidity of that claim, it was denied by Mr Selby, who stated he has been a “swinging voter”. His Penrith campaign was centered around providing better public services to the area. Given Selby’s profile, it’s a bit baffling he is second in the group. Tony Robinson is also a truck driver and a Penrith local.
Noel Selby profile: http://penrith-press.whereilive.com.au/news/story/independent-noel-selby-steps-forward-for-penrith-by-election/
http://www.penrithstar.com.au/news/local/news/general/noel-selby-independent-nepean-river-and-penrith-valley-sports-stadium/1854196.aspx
Group D – Independents: Darrin Hodges and Nick Folkes:
These two have a campaign website, not that it’s all that pleasant to read. They seem to want to stop all immigration, bash “third world masses”, end the mining tax, and build up the manufacturing industry. They seem to hate socialism, multiculturalism, and globalization. Maybe they should have run for One Nation - oh wait, hang on, they oppose the internet filter.
http://www.darrinhodges.com/
Group E – Building Australia Party
This seems to be a building industry-based party that supports loosening planning and local council regulations to assist the building industry build more homes.
http://www.buildingaustralia.org.au/
Group F – Senator On-Line
A party that promises to raise any policy in the senate put to them by any voter around the country through online submissions. Their first candidate is Wes Bas, a Surry Hills police officer and community activist. Their second candidate is Brianna Roach, a law student from the north shore.
http://senatoronline.org.au/
Group G – Communist Alliance
The reds are out from under the bed. The Communist Alliance incorporates the old Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and a few other disparate communist groups. Geoff Lawler is a trade union official with the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union in the Riverina area. Brenda-Anne Kellaway is a teacher and single mum. They are also running a candidate in the lower house seat of Sydney.
http://www.communist-alliance.org.au/
Group H – Independents Nadia Bloom and Bede Ireland
Nothing can be found anywhere about either of these candidates apart from the AEC website. They are apparently retirees.
Group I – Citizens Electoral Council of Australia
These guys are the Australian followers of the wacky conspiracy theorist and former US democratic party congressman, Lyndon LaRouche. If you’re someone who thinks that the US government brought down the twin towers in a controlled explosion, and that we should renationalize the banks so the Jews won’t get hold of them, this party could be for you.
http://www.cecaust.com.au/
Group J - Australian Democrats
They’re barely alive, but still around. Originally a breakaway progressive liberal party, the democrats now claim that they are “returning to their roots”. Apparently this involves a rejection of the Mining Tax for reasons of “states rights”. Ah, ever the small-L liberals.
http://www.democrats.org.au/
Group K - Independents – Meg Sampson, J Hinchcliffe
They at least have a twitter account. They both describe themselves as old – 65 and 75. Meg Sampson says she was an ex-member of the Australian democrats, and there seems to be a record of a Megan Sampson as a previous candidate for the dems in the 1980’s and 1990’s. They even have a twitter account!
http://msmegansampson.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/meg4sensampson
Group L – Independents – Leon Adrian Belgrave, Janos Beregszaszi
Leon Adrian Belgrave appears to have previously run as a candidate for the “Outdoor Recreation Party”, who are a libertarian group now allied to the Liberal Democratic Party. I’m not sure whether these guys are running as ODP candidates or just on their own.
http://www.orp.org.au/
Group M – The Climate Skeptics
This is a party devoted to advancing the cause of Climate Change skepticism – the first such party in the world (so they claim). If you’ve ever uttered the phrase “but it’s all just natural cycles”, or “the science isn’t settled”, maybe these guys are up your alley. .
http://www.landshape.org/news/
Group N – Secular Party of Australia
These guys are a party of humanists and atheists who are committed to advancing policies that strengthen the separation of church and state and advance the cause of reason and strict secularism. They also want to attack the influence of religion in politics. Amongst their policies is a commitment to end state money to religious schools. I’m guessing that approximately 70% of voters will hate them, while the rest stand up and cheer.
http://www.secular.org.au/
Group O – Shooters and Fishers Party
They catch things, then shoot them. Combining guns and fish may sound like a weird concept, but they actually do quite well in the NSW state upper house, where they currently hold the balance of power. These guys are a largely rural-based party that aims to protect the rights of fisherman and gun owners. They describe themselves as strong “family values” social conservative types, which is probably the reason why they are distinct from the more libertarian Outdoor Recreation Party/LDP.
http://www.shootersandfishers.org.au/
Group P – Democratic Labor Party (DLP) of Australia
Originally formed out of the labor party split in the 1950’s before dying in the mid 1970’s, the DLP have had something of a minor resurgence in recent years, particularly in Victoria where they have state upper house representation. On economic issues they would be mostly centrist with a pro-union slant, and on social issues they are very conservative (against same-sex marriage, stem cells, abortion, etc).
http://www.dlp.org.au/
Group Q - Australian Sex Party
A new party that has attracted attention for it’s name alone. The Australian Sex party rails against censorship and “wowserism”. It supports an R rating for videogames and the abolition of the internet censorship filter. They actually have some detailed policy proposals on sex education, health, preventing sex slavery, immigration, protecting the rights of sex workers, and legal-no fault abortion. And even a bit of religion bashing thrown in for good measure.
http://www.sexparty.org.au/
Group R – Independents – David Barker and S G Zureik
David Barker was the bible-bashing liberal candidate for Chifley, who was disendorsed. Why? Because he posted anti-Muslim messages on his Facebook page and tried to claim that labor wanted to take a Christian Australia in a muslim direction. Not the smartest idea, especially when your main opponent, Ed Husic, is a “non practicing muslim”. He was also a former member of Fred Nile’s Christian Democrats.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/anti-muslim-liberal-candidate-david-barker-to-be-dumped-says-joe-hockey/story-e6frf7jx-1225896596514
Group S – Socialist Equality Party
These guys are the official followers of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International. Yes, real live trots.
http://www.sep.org.au/website/
Group T – Sustainable Population Party
These guys are listed as Independents on the ballot because they didn’t get their ballot in on time. The Sustainable Population Party want to limit Australia’s population growth to a maximum of 26 million by 2050. They stress they aren’t racist and the reasons are purely environmental, and they want to maintain out current refugee intake of 13,000 a year. Their website proudly boasts the endorsement of Dick Smith. An immigration party endorsed by Dick Smith – you’d think they’d be popular enough to get their name on the ballot. Maybe their missing ingredient was blatant racism.
http://www.populationparty.com/Home/About-Us
Group U – Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting)
This group wants to change Australia’s Family Law and Child Support policies so that there is more room for equal custodianship of children when in divorce. They also have other policy proposals.
http://www.ncpp.xisle.info/
Group V – Family First
A conservative Christian political party backed by Pentacostal Churches like Hillsong. They are one of the fastest growing minor parties in Australia, although they are likely to be left with no federal senate representation now that Steve Fielding’s senate term has expired.
http://www.familyfirst.org.au/
Group W – Australian Labor Party
Australia’s oldest political party, started by the Union movement, Labor is a social democratic party committed to collective bargaining, a multilateral approach to foreign policy, utilizing the role of government to provide services, and progressive social policy. They have been in government since 2007.
http://www.alp.org.au/
Group X – Reconcile Australia Party
Listed as Independents on the ballot, this is a party that advocates policies around Aboriginal reconciliation and living standards.
http://www.reconcileaustraliaparty.org/
Group Y – The Carers Alliance
This party runs on a platform of advancing the rights and living standards of the disabled and their carers. Amongst their proposals is a National Disability Insurance Scheme.
http://www.carers.org.au/
Group Z – Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
Why vote for family first when you could vote for The Original Bible Bashers™? Formed out of Fred Nile’s Call to Australia party, this party “Promotes Christian values in Parliament and evaluates all legislation on Biblical principles.” This is code for bashing gays, arguing against abortion, and promoting ultra-conservative Christian values.
http://www.cdp.org.au/
Group AA – Liberal Party of Australia/National Party of Australia
The Liberal Party are Australia’s major Liberal Conservative party. Formed by Robert Menzies in 1944, they promote policies that support free enterprise, individual liberty, and conservative values. The National Party of Australia (formerly the Country Party) are a rural-based conservative party that advocates policies that benefit rural and regional Australia. The Liberal and National Parties govern in coalition, and have been in opposition since 2007. They are running a joint ticket in NSW, with the first two candidates being liberals and the third candidate a national.
http://www.liberal.org.au/
http://www.nationals.org.au/
Group AB – The Republican Democrats
Listed as independents on the ballot, this party is a centrist/progressive liberal party along similar lines as the British Liberal Democrats. I guess you could call them “small L Liberals”, but with a firm progressive streak. In QLD they are running a noted anti-corruption campaigner for the Senate. Their two NSW candidates are local activists from the central coast. They do have an impressively long list of detailed policies and a professional looking website. They’re obviously trying to start something.
http://republicandemocrats.org.au/
Group AC – One Nation
Australia’s favourite hillbilly party. Founded by Pauline Hanson in 1997, One Nation is the main Australian political party advocating for racism, nationalism, xenophobia, lower immigration and aboriginal-bashing.
http://www.onenation.com.au/
Group AD – The Greens
Australia’s largest Third party by some distance, the Greens are a party that was founded primarily to advocate policies related to environmentalism. Now they are the vanguard for left-wing politics, with a long list of policy proposals for all areas of policy. To the left of Labor, the greens seek to make big inroads in an election where both major parties have abandoned action on climate change. They stand a real chance of holding the balance of power in the senate and winning their first lower house seat.
http://www.greens.org.au/
Group AE – Independents – Cheryl Kernot, Simon Cant
Cheryl Kernot is a former leader of the Australia democrats, who defected to the Labor Party in 1998 and was briefly the member for Dixon until 2001, until she lost to Peter Dutton. She is running on a platform of “change politics”, whatever we expect that to mean. Simon Cant is a former independent councillor on Manly Council.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/kernot-sets-her-sights-on-senate-seat-20100730-10zwv.html
Group AF – Liberal Democratic Party
A libertarian party, advocating for free-market economic policies, small government and social policies based on individual liberty. Although they are economically right wing, they also oppose internet censorship and advocate for policies like same-sex marriage and gun law deregulation.
http://www.ldp.org.au/
Ungrouped:
Hamish Richardson – Very little can be found about him, apart from the fact that he’s a Journalist.
Norman H Joseph Hooper – Described as a Pensioner and Economics Researcher.
Stewart Scott-Irving
Ran as an Independent in the 2008 Lyne By-election (for Mark Vaile’s old seat, won by Independent Rob Oakshott. After the election he tried to get the by-election result disputed because he claimed the ABC had not provided him with equal time as a candidate, despite only receiving 4% of the vote. perhaps a bit loopy, he is an education consultant.
http://www.wauchopegazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/scottirving-will-contest-election/259773.aspx
Bryan Pape
Bryan Pape is a law lecturer at the University of Armidale and a former member of the National Party. His main claim to fame was a constitutional challenge he brought against the $900 payments in the Rudd government’s economic stimulus package in 2008. It got a good run in the Murdoch press.
http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/bonus-payment-finally-ready-to-roll/story-e6frfmd9-1225699613528
Andrew Whelan – There are many Andrew Whelans around, including a lecturer in politics and policy at University of Armidale. However, this Andrew Whelan is a Software Engineer. Amazingly, I can’t find a website for him.
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