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.
