Ending the Emperor's Second Reign

In all the media talk about the forthcoming election, whose date is now finally glinting at us from the end of its most extraordinarily longggg tunnel, Howard is referred to have been in government for 11 years. It as though the entire period of 'the Howard years' has been one long continuous government marked up the same attitude between the government and the governed.

This analysis fails to capture why Howard is now in the position he is. Certainly the fact that Howard and his party have been in office for over a decade contributes greatly to the 'we've had enough of him' factor sweeping the nation. However, it does not capture the way Howard's management of the issues has changed.

The reason Howard has maintained power for so long is twofold. Firstly, he has faced such a dispirited and clueless opposition that each election becomes a choice between the status quo and something infinitely worse. Beazley did not articulate a competent economic program or any form of alternative vision, Crean had the traction of one of Steven Bradbury's skating rivals and Latham caused a stampede of terrified voters back to Howard. His crash or crash-through policy turned into a ten car pile-up. Secondly, Howard had learnt the art of soothing the ordinary voters with his own ordinariness, breaking the bipartisan consensus on social issues such as immigration by branding them 'elite'.

Howard has never been 'popular' per se, but he has had the ability to get respect from people and convert it into election victories.

Secondly, Howard has run two governments in his 11 year tenure. From 1996 to 2001, he was the classic small government conservative, paring back government spending on health and higher education in the name of fixing the ALP $8 billion black hole. His other programs included introducing IR reform, the GST and privatising Telstra. None of these were especially popular. Howard suffered a swing of almost 5% in the 1998 election, largely a referendum on the GST. It should be remembered that Howard's only scare campaign during this time regarded Labor and the economy, while his equivocation on Pauline Hanson's speeches was based on personal conviction that these matters should be discussed.

This warning sign that major reform was not popular with voters was only heeded after the infamous 'mean and tricky' memo in 2001. One rule of Australian politics, never underestimate the politics of petrol. The circuit breaker that reversed Howard's fortunes was his decision to cut the petrol excise, a cut which he had previously dismissed as uneconomic and of little value.

Hvaing introduced the GST, Howard continued his quixotic campaign to introduce unfair dismissal laws into a hostile Senate. Other than that, his program turned attention to upscaling the role of private health insurance at the expense of Medicare. This was accompanied by a deluge of advertising on the virtues of his private health care rebate and Medicare safety net (not his idea, a condition of Democrat support). To pick up disaffected voters, he turned to issues such as immigration with the Tampa and children overboard farragos. The Pacific solution was economically irrational, spending more than $250 million to keep a few hundred refugees from landing.

Thus the parameters of his second reign were set: firstly, wedge-politics exploiting the division between Labor's left-leaning middle class and right-leaning blue-collar voters. This effectively meant an embrace of much of the Republican party strategy, and it is no coincidence that Crosby/Textor were experienced in American polling techniques. Secondly, policy based on privatisation (health care, telecommunications, employment) sold by the use of blanket advertising campaigns.

The problem with wedges is that they encourage voters to split their vote, voting against their own economic best interests. The law of political gravity says that if you can get low-income earners to vote for a party that favours big business, you can get high-income earners to vote for a party that cares about the environment. The other point is that is you overlay real economic concerns on top of this choice, the low-income voters will come back and vote on their own best interests.

Five key factors have combined to ruin the second reign. Firstly, Labor has a competent leader, and one who doesn't scare those on the thin-edge of the wedge in North Sydney and Wentworth. Secondly, Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' has catapulted climate change into a major issue. This is the worst possible outcome for the Liberals, as their climate skepticism was their Achilles heel, previously protected by other more pressing matters in the public mind. Third, Workchoices has seriously worried former ALP voters (and even some Liberal voters) into defecting to Rudd. Fourth, issues such as Iraq and David Hicks' confinement make the government's hold on national security problematic at best. Five, the old tricks don't work.

The machinery that operated the Howard wonderbus has been exposed. Rudd has called the government's bluff on every wedge it has presented, proactively dealt with Labor's credentials on the economy and inverted the narrative to wedge Howard between his economic success and the growing difficulties of homebuyers, renters and worried workers. He has also neturalised the effect of any government advertising to the point where it became almost counterproductive.

Howard devised his first and second platforms on his terms, well in advance of the election. His third, unformed half-baked vision appears to consist of running on his record, wedges dressed up as unity and doing the opposite of whatever Rudd proposes. Howard has tried the banner 'aspirational nationalism' but it fell flat as the proverbial pancake. He may try to inspire a more community-based model of achieving outcomes, with the federal government as a willing partner in the face of state dysfunction.

At the moment, we have two alternative governments: one with a clear vision and one in desperate need of reinvention.