Perspectives

Photograph by Bill McAuley

to speak to a consultant, please call +61 02.6198.3279

Perspectives on the Political Landscape - vol 91  

by Jannette Cotterell and Jessica Wright - 2 August 2018

Perspectives on a bi-election blitz, suspect strategies and the art of losing

By Jessica Wright and Jannette Cotterell  

Kill Bill: a ballot box office bomb

“Well.  As they say in the army: Situation Normal (for Labor). All stuffed up (for us).”

So read the text message from a Coalition source that arrived in our inbox as the results of the ‘Super Saturday’ by-elections rolled in.

The ‘Kill Bill’ campaign (variously mounted by rival ALP factions, some elements of the media and of course Coalition strategists) was a ballot-box office bomb.

Any suggestion of Anthony Albanese replacing Mr Shorten as Opposition Leader crumbled under the weight of convincing results and a Prime Minister who declared the blitz of by-elections would be a ‘test of leadership’. Shorten’s not his.

Malcolm Turnbull single handedly gave to Mr Shorten what his own party couldn’t. Safety.

A senior Labor insider revealed to Executive Counsel Australia this week that Mr Shorten’s office would be “buying stock in Boral, as they are going to cement Bill in for the long haul.”

As for the Coalition? The tediously long campaign in five by-elections and the Government’s attempt to wrest seats from Labor in Braddon (Tasmania) and Longman (QLD) had proven very short on rewards.

Leadership on the line

Putting leadership on the line, unnecessarily and unprovoked, could have deep internal ramifications for the Prime Minister.

“You only say that when you are sure that the chocolates are coming home,” a LNP insider told ECA.

“We knew we were up against history, apathetic voters and a ridiculously long campaign. If these elections had happened a month ago, Big Trev’s medal fiasco would never have been the hand grenade it was and we would have had a real shot at Longman.”

ECA is reminded of the decision by Bob Hawke in 1984 to opt for a long campaign in a bid to grasp a second term of Government. He relied on the old ‘Hawke magic’ and under estimated his opponent in Andrew Peacock. He won but just.

History can be and, bizarrely, often is not a powerful learning tool.

While the debate rages, just how much internal party room (and subsequent voter) grief the Prime Minister will incur because of the drubbing in Longman, it is clear the Government once again snapped its own political antennae at the very time it needs it the most.

The Liberal-Nationals almost lost the 2016 election, which saw the Coalition’s health policies (remember ‘Mediscare’?) and business tax cuts heavily targeted by Labor.

This was a strategy repeated in the by-elections and with almost the same searingly effective result, helped on with the Hayne banking Royal Commission. Again, the Coalition strategists should be taking copious notes by now.

We now know an early election is off the table – unless the Coalition is feeling electorally suicidal, but we are well into a high stakes election year cycle.

Policy v politics and why there is no difference

A high profile business leader said to ECA this week, when advised he might need to change tack with the ALP: “I don’t deal in politics, I will leave it to you.”

Consider this. Policy is all about politics and no more than right now. Every decision, every promise, every policy move will now be viewed through the prism of an election fight. Hence why the Government’s controversial company tax cuts are now at risk.

Yes, they may well make good economic sense but mum and dad in Longman sent a very strong message about them back to Canberra – one that the Government ignores at its peril.

Pauline Hanson may have been pilloried by Canberra’s elite for zig zagging her way through the company tax cut legislative morass, but she did it knowing her people exceptionally well. And her people in Longman spoke in spades (even whilst their political goddess was on a luxury cruise around Ireland).

One Nation gained 16% of the votes. Imagine the swing if punters faced the real deal at polling booths and not the cardboard cut-out.

The LNP vote was tunnelled out by One Nation voters, rather than starving the ALP of preferences and pushing the LNP in Longman over the line, as had been widely expected.

The LNP’s candidates were failed politicians some would even say ‘male, pale and stale’ whom their constituents in Queensland and Tasmania, respectively, had already rejected once before.  

The art of losing

Even so, the perceptual egg-on-face for the Prime Minister could have all been avoided had he mastered the art of losing and ensuring everyone is across the memo that it is better to exceed voter expectations than to fall down to it.

A government losing a by-election is fine. Historically speaking, perfectly acceptable even. It doesn’t change the world. It won’t change a Government.

Indeed, the good burghers of the various electorates could barely raise a pen so low was the turnout. In Perth, nearly half of the voters felt happier copping a $50 fine than bother to show up at the voting booths (lowest on record). They knew their vote meant pretty much zip and they will be forced back to the polls within months so why bother.

One assumes somebody in the Liberal headquarters is now scribbling the mantra: “must manage expectations” on the boardroom blackboard.

Also, homework should be done too on why the pre-poll votes were strong for the LNP but fell dramatically during the campaign. Maybe the ‘liar liar pants on fire’ line on Shorten needs re-working, so too the reliance on polling.

Don’t be shy Tony

But where there is voter disappointment for the Prime Minister, his predecessor is not far away.

Tony Abbott wasted no time in picking apart the Coalition’s current policy settings, claiming there were “no votes” for the company tax cut.

We know Mr Abbott has had the ‘that will be Tony, that will be’ hand-on-the-shoulder plea from a succession of Cabinet Ministers, including the conservatives, but still to no effect.

But he is not alone in openly criticising Mr Turnbull.

With Mr Abbott covering the post by-election kick to the Prime Ministerial kidneys, Barnaby Joyce waded in with an assault on the National Energy Guarantee (NEG). This is a signature energy policy that Minister Josh Frydenberg has been carrying through pernicious negotiations with the states and territories and his own party with all the care of a cracking china doll.

The former Deputy Prime Minister has threatened to pull his support, labelling the policy as “nutcase stuff.”

The first joint party room meeting when Parliament returns later this month is set to be a doozy.

Wedge politics: politics version of the blood moon

Wedge politics is one of those clever, hidden political skill sets that is often only obvious to political die hards. Honed by the master, John Howard, it is to Canberra what the rare blood moon is to astronomers: a wonder to behold when viewed clearly.

Bill Shorten, and his Labor colleagues, have been enthusiastically urging Mr Turnbull and the co-creators not to walk away from the company tax cuts. “That’s right”, says the ALP, “please keep going Malcolm. You must stick to your own policy!”

Surely just a few blood moon flags are popping up for Cabinet by now.

And – at the time of publication - the Coalition’s eternal optimist, the chief wrangler of crossbench bunnies, Mathias Cormann, is still displaying a “never-say-die” determination to wrestle the government’s long desired, much maligned policy through the Senate.

But it really is the case of political expediency versus demonstrating economic smarts. Will the Coalition risk the outcry from the business community to walk away from its cornerstone budget promise? This was captured sublimely by Fairfax’s Nine’s David Rowe.

It would make Kevin Rudd’s abandonment of the ETS a cakewalk, a worried economic dry MP confided to ECA this week. “We will look like we have no spine, no policy and no idea. That said, we are in a tough spot because we can’t pass the bloody thing.”

Having said that, a seasoned political pollster (who ardently defends his craft) told ECA, “whomever argues it should stay, should front a focus group of mum and dad voters and with 30 seconds, explain why and how it benefits them.

If that wins them over, then keep it. But right now, the Government simply doesn’t have the cut through elevator pitch it needs to convince the average Australian.”

A real Downer

The final word on the by-elections belongs to a rather cheeky backbencher who was responding to former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s extraordinary Facebook rage on the eve of the Mayo by-election.

Posting in defence of his failed candidate daughter, Mr Downer accused supporters of Rebekah Sharkie of being full of “abuse” and “horrible hate”, and that they must be “new arrivals” in the seat he had represented for 24 years.

“Alexander has shown in less than 600 words that he has learnt nothing during his time as a diplomat,” said the Liberal MP.  “He has not learnt that the seat of Mayo is not a family birthright and that losing gracefully is an art form. But should we be surprised? His judgement for many in the Coalition, starts and ends with the decision to pull on a pair of fishnets and a high heel with a photographer in the room.” Ouch! ENDS