Category: Political parties

Could WorkChoices affect the 2007 election?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 12 Comments

In the Newspoll on WorkChoices, more people think that it will be bad for the economy than think it will have bad effects on them personally. Which opinion is more important? In arguing the case for the electoral significance of this polling, Fred Argy and Robert Corr argue that (in Fred’s words):

people are not guided only or even principally by self-interest when they vote

It’s certainly possible to find evidence in issue polling that people are guided by the concerns of others. I made just such an argument in my analysis of pre-Workchoices industrial relations polling. But showing that such concerns have an influence on voting is much more difficult.
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The hilarious reincarnation of the DLP

~ Andrew Norton ~ 10 Comments

The surprise election of two Democratic Labor Party candidates to the Victorian Legislative Council has bloggers appalled. ‘Proportionate my arse’ says Urban Creature. ‘For crying out loud, not again’ laments GrodsCorp. ‘Mr Lefty’ condemns the ‘unbelievable f***ing hypocrites in the ALP’, whose preference deals helped it happen.

But more than any of this, it is just hilarious. I burst out laughing when told the news last night. The Democrats should not give up! Kim Beazley should not give up! If the DLP can come back to political life, anyone can. And the irony of Labor preferences bringing back the people who kept them in Opposition for so long makes it all the more amusing.

People say that proportional representation is more democratic than single member electorates. But what it seems to do in Australia is elect candidates that have negligible primary vote support, but manage to stitch up preference deals with the major parties that the PR system was designed to balance.

Rudd wins

~ Andrew Norton ~ 12 Comments

So Rudd gets the job, 49-39. Once the challenge was on, this was the only politically plausible result – with anything less than a crushing Beazley majority, he would have been a lame duck, and Labor were better off trying to at least kill leadership speculation as an issue, even if there are other risks attached to Rudd as leader.

This morning’s polls showed that among electors Rudd was preferred Labor leader by 36% in the SMH/ACNielsen poll and 43% in a Newspoll reported in The Australian – up 15 percentage points in a week.

The ACNielsen poll also reported Labor leading on the two-party preferred 56-44, regardless of who was leader. I agree with Simon Jackman that this is implausibly high. It will probably go the way of the 9.5% that Beazley was supposedly going to bring to Labor when he became leader in early 2005. But its general direction does suggest that there was no need for Labor to panic and change leader (again).

It will be interesting to see how the Coalition deals with Rudd as leader. Expect Kim Beazley’s comments on the importance of experience to be regularly recycled by the Liberals.

The limits of Green identity politics

~ Andrew Norton ~ 23 Comments

It’s not often that, during a state election, voters receive letters from an interstate federal Opposition backbencher. But that’s what happened to electors in the seat of Melbourne during the recent state election campaign, when letters from Peter Garrett arrived warning of the preference deal that the Greens had done with the Liberals.

This is the ALP and Garrett using their knowledge of left-wing politics to political advantage. While handing out how-to-vote cards for the Liberals, I overheard several voters asking the Green campaigners about the so-called deal with the Liberals (it’s actually quite rare for voters to ask questions). In reality, as can be seen on the Green website (pdf), the Greens were preferencing Labor in the vast majority of seats, and not directing preferences in other seats. And of course Green voters are free to preference any way they choose.

But Garrett and Labor know that left-wing politics is not just about achieving political outcomes, but also about personal identity and making a statement. For many left-leaning voters, opposing the Liberals is a matter of principle, and they are attracted to the Greens because they appear to be a party of principle, free of the compromises the ALP must make as a party relying on mass support.

The political reality, however, is that the Greens must do deals if they are ever to be more than a fringe cause. Even in their best hope, Melbourne, their primary vote was only 27%, just 5 percentage points ahead of the Liberals who ran only a token campaign. They were only in the race because the Liberals were preferencing to them. In the upper house, the Liberals decided to preference against the Greens, jeopardising Green prospects in a number of regions, as the Green website rather bitterly notes:
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Just how crazy is the Rudd challenge?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 36 Comments

The Labor Party’s capacity to talk itself into a crisis is quite amazing. Here they are, tracking reasonably well in the polls, and what do they decide to do? Yes, have a leadership spill. Though there have been rumblings of discontent over low satisfaction ratings for Kim Beazley, the trigger seems to have been a Newspoll (not on their site yet) published in The Australian on Tuesday which found 52% support for a Kevin Rudd/Julia Gillard team, compared to 27% for the current Kim Beazley/Jenny Macklin team.

But political parties should be very careful of polls like this. There is a very loose relationship between leadership polls and the vote. Howard was behind Keating as preferred PM just prior to Keating’s landslide loss. And there is no guarantee that a new leader will deliver support.

Back at Catallaxy, I noted that a Morgan Poll around the time of the last Labor leadership change suggested that Labor’s suport would improve by 9.5%, when in fact there was no change. And if we look at the table in The Australian, Rudd has barely improved his standing in the electorate since the Latham changeover – up 4 percentage points to 28%, 1 ahead of Gillard and 4 ahead of Beazley. The masses aren’t exactly calling for Rudd to take over.

Perhaps this is because they don’t yet know him very well. But there is no guarantee that they will approve of him more when they do. He’s brighter than Beazley – this is a man who confuses Michael Oakeshott rather than Karl Rove with someone else – but he is less likeable. As a fellow nerd, I have tried hard to like Rudd, but the most positive feeling I can muster is respect for his intellect – and even that has taken a battering with his recent weak arguments on ‘market fundamentalism’ etc. He’s going to remind everyone of that annoying smartarse in school who was first to answer all the teacher’s questions.

Whoever wins, I reckon John Howard has an early Xmas present. Rudd wouldn’t challenge if he didn’t think he had a reasonable chance, so even if Beazley hangs on we’ll all know that even much his own party doesn’t think he is fit to be PM. If Rudd wins, the ALP will have as leader a man without the common touch.

Do personal political attacks work #2?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 5 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I thought that the polls showed some signs that the personal personal attacks, mainly directed at Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu, weren’t working – and that maybe Australian voters would resist the American trend of mud-slinging campaigns.

While the Victorian ALP was trying to damage Baillieu by talking about his shareholdings and his real estate firm, NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam stuck his hand into Bill Heffernan’s septic tank and chucked what he found at NSW Attorney-General Bob Debus.

Early this week, the two Sydney daily newspapers each released state political polls. We can say fairly confidently that this attack did not help Debnam’s cause. In the SMH/ACNielsen poll the two-party preferred was stable on ALP 51%, Coalition 49% since July, but Debnam’s disapproval rating had increased from 33% to 44%. In the Daily Telegraph/Galaxy poll the Liberal and National parties were down 8 percentage points on the two-party preferred since September, to ALP 52%, Coalition 48%. 57% of NSW voters – including a third of Labor voters – say that the ALP does not deserve to win the state election. But with even lower confidence in the Opposition, Labor will be returned.

In Victoria, satisfaction with Ted Baillieu as recorded by Newspoll was stable over the last two weeks of the campaign, up 1% since my last post to 46%. But his dissatisfaction rating was up 2% to 30%. Both results could be statistical noise. A Herald Sun/Galaxy poll directly asked its respondents about whether Labor attacks on Baillieu’s share portfolio made them more or less likely to vote Liberal. The vast majority, 70%, said it made no difference. 18% said it made them less likely to vote Liberal, and 10% more likely – perhaps to punish the ALP for running a dirt campaign?
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Do personal political attacks work?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 10 Comments

In the Victorian state election campaign, Labor has been running some grubby ads attacking Liberal leader Ted Baillieu because a real estate firm he was involved with, Baillieu Knight Frank, sold schools closed during the Kennett era (Baillieu’s response is here). Baillieu wasn’t even in Parliament at the time, and the issue is so far as I can see completely irrelevant to how he would operate as Premier.

Perhaps one reason the parties are resorting to personal attacks (the Liberals are focusing on Steve Bracks’ broken promises, thought at least this refers to his record as Labor leader) is that their actual policies are hard to tell apart, if you delete the partisan references. Take these announcements in the last couple of days:

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How the Greens are turning me into a tree-hugger

~ Andrew Norton ~ 55 Comments

It’s enough to turn me into a tree-hugger. Melbourne City Council – having already killed the gums along the middle of my street in an unnecessary and bungled road repavement – is now planning to get rid of Melbourne’s beautiful European trees, on the grounds that they use too much water. Personally, I’d be quite happy to pay higher rates to set up a water recycling scheme if there is genuinely a problem here. And who is leading the charge on this crazy policy? It’s the Green councillor Fraser Brindley. The irony! What finally turns me into a politicised nature-lover is a Green plan for environmental destruction. For my fellow residents of inner Melbourne, remember that on November 25 the Greens have a chance of winning the seats of Melbourne and Richmond. Put them last!