Fighting the battle of who could care less

The 2010 Australian Federal election campaign could be described by paraphrasing Winston Churchill; never has something so important meant so little to so many. In all my years involved in or observing election campaigns, I have never seen such a policy announcement vacuum. In a world facing some of the most difficult and pressing challenges in human history, both the Liberal and ALP leaders are pushing to for Australians to “take a breath” and be content with keeping things as they are. It is as though Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott have moved to that planet in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy; you know the one where if you have an original idea, you are smacked in the face with a shovel. In this blog, I will explore the reasons behind this most mundane election campaign.

One of the key election battle grounds this time around has been economic management, which is not surprising given the Global Economic Crisis that engulfed the world in recent years. With Australians digging money holes in their back yards, Whitlamesque policy announcements are not to be expected by either side. While wads of cash are not required for all types of policy (what would gay marriage cost?), it sure helps. This is one of the main reasons we are seeing a miserly election campaign so far. Liberals are always in favour of cuts and economic conservatism. For the ALP, they are forced to play the same game because of the events of the past three years.

While the Kevin 07 ALP was able to convince the public of it’s fiscal rectitude, the Keynesian largesse of the recent term of Government has potentially spoiled this line of attack for the Labor party. The job for the ALP is to neutralise this issue by avoiding any major, expensive policy announcements and linking the Liberal parties economic strategy to Industrial Relations reforms. This brings us to another reason for the boredom of this 2010 campaign. The ALP and the union movement are relying on the spectre of WorkChoices to return them to Government, despite constant and desperate repudiations of the policy by Tony Abbott. This approach may be successful to some degree in this election campaign, but woe betide the ALP if they think this is a fail safe strategy for ever.

Electorates tend to have very short memories. They care about what is impacting upon them now, not what harmed them in the past. Look at the SA ALP’s election result following their disastrous State Bank election annihilation. The SA Liberals still try to use the spectre of the State Bank on occasion, but the electorate moved on quite quickly. The SA ALP was helped by the fact that Mike Rann was only a junior Minister in the Bannon Government. Abbott, however, is still linked to the Howard team, as is Joe Hockey. Under a Turnbull leadership, the WorkChoices line would not cut mustard. Unfortunately, under Abbott, we will be subjected to arguments about the past instead of policies for the future.

A final potential reason for the stark policy vacuum is the instability of leadership of both parties over the past election cycle. Gillard, in her three week Prime Ministership has spent the majority of the time rolling back or repudiating Ruddisms. Given that the majority of policy development by the ALP would have occurred over the past year under Rudd’s watch, it is possible that the contents of the policy war chest are all unappealing to the new Gillard team. It is also possible that Rudd, because of his domineering management style, ordered that all policy development go through him, rather than delegating it to the Ministers. As a consequence of his chop, all policy may have been chopped as well. For this reason, we are getting bizarre pronouncements by Gillard, such as we are developing an Global Warming strategy, but we will reveal it after the election. When has this ever been acceptable?

Abbott, on the other hand, is the third Liberal leader in the Rudd/Gillard era. Such instability, combined with the inferior resources of Opposition for policy development and the Libs penchant for budget cuts is the explanation for their boring campaign. Abbott has, however, announced the biggest paid maternity scheme ever proposed and massive increases in mental health spending. The unilateral nature of his parental scheme announcement, however, would have resulted in a major wing clipping of the Opposition leader. He would be loathe to embark on any more reckless of the cuff billion dollar pledges.

Well there we have it folks. Normally elections have a centrepiece e.g. a city stadium versus a hospital, reform of workplace laws etc. This time around, however, it is highly likely that the centrepiece will fortress Australia. Both parties are adopting the Pompeii approach, content with keeping the nation frozen as it is, ostrich necking the global challenges which we face. No amount of talk about moving forward will actually result in any momentum in that direction/