Obligatory post-election grizzling
Oct. 11th, 2004 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenWell, that sucked.
For those outside Australia who haven't heard already, the results: Coalition (Liberals/Nationals) won, with a 2% swing in their favour. This translates to an increased majority in the Representatives, and for the first time since 1976 government looks like also holding a majority in the Senate; some commentary on what that means here. Alternately, the ALP and Democrats may have succeeded, via preference deals, in handing Family First the balance of power, which would probably suck worse.
(Oh, I forgot to mention in my previous post - while at the booths on Saturday, I was touched by Bob Carr on Saturday. He came by to cheer on Labor, and it took me a while to realise who he was, because I was thinking of Federal politicians instead.)
My local member will be Peter Garrett, who managed to increase Labor's majority in Kingsford-Smith. I'll be very interested to see how he goes - now's when we find out whether Labor just wanted a celebrity candidate to raise visibility, or if he can do something with this position.
One Nation got hammered, dropping from 4.3 to 1.1% in Reps and 5.5 to 1.7% in Senate. Partly because the Coalition did a good job of poaching their supporters, partly because of infighting and disorganisation.
The Greens picked up considerably, going from 7 to 9% in Reps and 4.4 to 7.5% in Senate. Looks like we've lost Cunningham, their one and only Reps seat, but that was expected - winning it last time had a lot to do with ALP internal wrangling and a large protest vote that didn't repeat itself. Picked up one seat in the Senate, maybe more; probably won't help much if the Coalition get a Senate majority, as seems likely, but it improves visibility and means more funding.
(Unfortunately, a lot of that advance seems to have come at the expense of the Democrats, who were pretty much wiped out; they didn't win anything this time, so they're down to the four Senate seats they won in 2001, which weren't up for grabs this year. Andrew Bartlett is hoping for a recovery in 2007, but I think he's being VERY optimistic.)
Andrew Wilkie put up a good showing in John Howard's own seat, Bennelong - Greens jumped from 4% to 16.5% there, forcing Howard to go to preferences. That has improved my mood marginally.
Fred Nile didn't win a Senate seat in NSW. (He might've been an improvement on Family First - at least Nile's honest about who he is - but FF's wins were elsewhere, in any case.)
Everybody has a theory. Here's mine.
In the end, most commentators seem to agree that it came down to economics; I heard it said that 70% of people vote according to who they think will make them financially better off, and the results seemed to bear that out. I was commiserating yesterday with a friend who was one of Gough's speechwriters, and he noted that the Australian public almost never throw out a government when the economy's performing well - not since 1972, and even then the shine had come off it.
Lev has some good comment here about the two parties' economic credentials - in particular, how much the Coalition's successes depend on factors they had no say in - but I'm going to come at it from a different angle...
Most voters are bewildered by economics. It's one of those things nobody really understands, and that encourages voter caution - unless the wheels are visibly coming off, nobody wants to fix what isn't too badly broken. No matter *how* good Labor's policies might really be, how phantasmal the Coalition's successes, you're going to have trouble convincing anybody who's even moderately comfortable to vote for a change. That makes economics a very favourable battleground for the Coalition, and IMHO one of Latham's big mistakes was to accept Howard's choice of battleground.
Certainly, it is the public's right to decide what issues will determine their vote, and self-interest is a very legitimate issue. But it's also part of a leader's role to shape opinion, and convincing them you have the best answer to a problem is only half of that; the other half is convincing them about what problems matter. IME, people find it easiest to think and behave according to self-interest - but if they can be convinced that there's a significant moral dimension, that will override it.
One of the Liberal HTVers explained his position on Saturday: "I don't think we should be in Iraq. I think we've made the terrorism problem worse by going there. But I'm voting out of economic self-interest. If this election had been a year ago while I was still at uni, or looking for work, I'd be voting Labor, but now it's in my interests to vote Liberal."
I think he was speaking for a lot of Liberal voters. There are a lot of people who believe the Coalition was wrong about Iraq, and mandatory detention, and so on; what Labor didn't achieve was to convince these people that they should cast their vote on those issues.
For the most part, Labor played small-target politics: say enough on those issues to establish a ghost of a position, so people determined to vote against war or mandatory detention will favour you, but don't make a big issue out of it because you might alienate people. The drawback of this approach is that if you don't make a big issue out of these things, people won't cast their vote on that basis, and then it goes back to economics.
Perhaps the majority of Australian voters *do* think going to Iraq was the right decision, and that mandatory detention is right - in which case, making them more prominent would've hurt Labor. But I don't think we really found out, either way; Howard invited people to vote with their hip-pocket, and Latham accepted that as the big issue.
Relevance to the US.
Surprisingly little, I suspect (though that may just be wishful thinking). Howard's victory will quite likely be interpreted by both Republicans and (less enthusiastically) by Democrats as a vote of confidence in Bush, and that might give Bush a small fillip against whatever undecideds care about the USA's international standing*, but - as discussed above - he won mostly on issues that don't translate directly to the USA. The economic situation is different, the track record is different, and there are about a thousand dead soldiers to make Iraq a bigger part of the US campaign than it was here.
But one lesson that can be drawn: don't just convince people that you're right on some issues, convince them that those are the issues that matter.
*If such exist :-)
Final thoughts:
This is a bad result. For me personally, most of that badness is second-hand - I'm male, white, straight, married, graduated, in good health, earning more than the average wage, with a bit saved up. It's mostly other people who will be hurt, financially and otherwise, and there's going to be a lot of that.
But it isn't the end of the world. I think Australia's a poorer country for this result, but there is another election in three years' time, and I plan to be around for it.
For those outside Australia who haven't heard already, the results: Coalition (Liberals/Nationals) won, with a 2% swing in their favour. This translates to an increased majority in the Representatives, and for the first time since 1976 government looks like also holding a majority in the Senate; some commentary on what that means here. Alternately, the ALP and Democrats may have succeeded, via preference deals, in handing Family First the balance of power, which would probably suck worse.
(Oh, I forgot to mention in my previous post - while at the booths on Saturday, I was touched by Bob Carr on Saturday. He came by to cheer on Labor, and it took me a while to realise who he was, because I was thinking of Federal politicians instead.)
My local member will be Peter Garrett, who managed to increase Labor's majority in Kingsford-Smith. I'll be very interested to see how he goes - now's when we find out whether Labor just wanted a celebrity candidate to raise visibility, or if he can do something with this position.
One Nation got hammered, dropping from 4.3 to 1.1% in Reps and 5.5 to 1.7% in Senate. Partly because the Coalition did a good job of poaching their supporters, partly because of infighting and disorganisation.
The Greens picked up considerably, going from 7 to 9% in Reps and 4.4 to 7.5% in Senate. Looks like we've lost Cunningham, their one and only Reps seat, but that was expected - winning it last time had a lot to do with ALP internal wrangling and a large protest vote that didn't repeat itself. Picked up one seat in the Senate, maybe more; probably won't help much if the Coalition get a Senate majority, as seems likely, but it improves visibility and means more funding.
(Unfortunately, a lot of that advance seems to have come at the expense of the Democrats, who were pretty much wiped out; they didn't win anything this time, so they're down to the four Senate seats they won in 2001, which weren't up for grabs this year. Andrew Bartlett is hoping for a recovery in 2007, but I think he's being VERY optimistic.)
Andrew Wilkie put up a good showing in John Howard's own seat, Bennelong - Greens jumped from 4% to 16.5% there, forcing Howard to go to preferences. That has improved my mood marginally.
Fred Nile didn't win a Senate seat in NSW. (He might've been an improvement on Family First - at least Nile's honest about who he is - but FF's wins were elsewhere, in any case.)
Everybody has a theory. Here's mine.
In the end, most commentators seem to agree that it came down to economics; I heard it said that 70% of people vote according to who they think will make them financially better off, and the results seemed to bear that out. I was commiserating yesterday with a friend who was one of Gough's speechwriters, and he noted that the Australian public almost never throw out a government when the economy's performing well - not since 1972, and even then the shine had come off it.
Lev has some good comment here about the two parties' economic credentials - in particular, how much the Coalition's successes depend on factors they had no say in - but I'm going to come at it from a different angle...
Most voters are bewildered by economics. It's one of those things nobody really understands, and that encourages voter caution - unless the wheels are visibly coming off, nobody wants to fix what isn't too badly broken. No matter *how* good Labor's policies might really be, how phantasmal the Coalition's successes, you're going to have trouble convincing anybody who's even moderately comfortable to vote for a change. That makes economics a very favourable battleground for the Coalition, and IMHO one of Latham's big mistakes was to accept Howard's choice of battleground.
Certainly, it is the public's right to decide what issues will determine their vote, and self-interest is a very legitimate issue. But it's also part of a leader's role to shape opinion, and convincing them you have the best answer to a problem is only half of that; the other half is convincing them about what problems matter. IME, people find it easiest to think and behave according to self-interest - but if they can be convinced that there's a significant moral dimension, that will override it.
One of the Liberal HTVers explained his position on Saturday: "I don't think we should be in Iraq. I think we've made the terrorism problem worse by going there. But I'm voting out of economic self-interest. If this election had been a year ago while I was still at uni, or looking for work, I'd be voting Labor, but now it's in my interests to vote Liberal."
I think he was speaking for a lot of Liberal voters. There are a lot of people who believe the Coalition was wrong about Iraq, and mandatory detention, and so on; what Labor didn't achieve was to convince these people that they should cast their vote on those issues.
For the most part, Labor played small-target politics: say enough on those issues to establish a ghost of a position, so people determined to vote against war or mandatory detention will favour you, but don't make a big issue out of it because you might alienate people. The drawback of this approach is that if you don't make a big issue out of these things, people won't cast their vote on that basis, and then it goes back to economics.
Perhaps the majority of Australian voters *do* think going to Iraq was the right decision, and that mandatory detention is right - in which case, making them more prominent would've hurt Labor. But I don't think we really found out, either way; Howard invited people to vote with their hip-pocket, and Latham accepted that as the big issue.
Relevance to the US.
Surprisingly little, I suspect (though that may just be wishful thinking). Howard's victory will quite likely be interpreted by both Republicans and (less enthusiastically) by Democrats as a vote of confidence in Bush, and that might give Bush a small fillip against whatever undecideds care about the USA's international standing*, but - as discussed above - he won mostly on issues that don't translate directly to the USA. The economic situation is different, the track record is different, and there are about a thousand dead soldiers to make Iraq a bigger part of the US campaign than it was here.
But one lesson that can be drawn: don't just convince people that you're right on some issues, convince them that those are the issues that matter.
*If such exist :-)
Final thoughts:
This is a bad result. For me personally, most of that badness is second-hand - I'm male, white, straight, married, graduated, in good health, earning more than the average wage, with a bit saved up. It's mostly other people who will be hurt, financially and otherwise, and there's going to be a lot of that.
But it isn't the end of the world. I think Australia's a poorer country for this result, but there is another election in three years' time, and I plan to be around for it.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-10 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-11 06:06 am (UTC)We will find any means we can to further restrict them because I hate guns. I don’t think people should have guns unless they’re police or in the military or in the security industry. There is no earthly reason for people to have... ordinary citizens should not have weapons. We do not want the American disease imported into Australia.
(Well, actually he annoyed me back in April, but I only saw the quote amid the post-election kvetching.)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-11 04:10 pm (UTC)Not reflected in the above quote, but I *think* he also recognises that farmers etc. also have a legitimate reason to own a (non-semi-auto) rifle. I daresay the Nationals would be upset if he didn't allow that exception.