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5 September 2008

WA - "Mr Grumpy" to beat "Grey Power"

All things being equal it looks like Labor will be returned in WA. According to our research this isn’t because voters particularly approve of them, but because they approve of the Liberals even less. Recycled Liberal leader Colin Barnett may be regarded more favourably than chair-sniffing Troy Buswell, but he is still seen as “a retiree leading a shambolic bunch of characters”. While Carpenter on the other hand has his faults (10% of respondents call him arrogant) they’d rather have Mr Grumpy than Mr Grey Power.

That is not to say that the Liberals couldn’t have won this election, but they haven’t adopted the tactics they needed to.

We had 275 responses to a questionnaire posted at http://polling.nationalforum.com.au/index.php?sid=66776&lang=en. While the response rate was similar to other polls I have conducted, the skew was even more heavily towards the Greens than usual. At 20% the Liberal vote was where it normally is, but the Labor vote has collapsed to be almost level with it. In crude terms Labor voters have moved to the Greens who are at 40% on our poll were well above where they have been previously. Western Australia has compulsory preferential, and almost all of these votes will come back to Labor. So, while there is a protest vote in WA it is not going to the Liberals, it is going to the Greens and will return to Labor via preference flows.

(I should emphasise with these percentages that this is a qualitative poll. They are indicative of what is happening in the general electorate, but they are unlikely to accurately measure the exact magnitude of change).

Winning protest votes is the only option for a party that is not thought fit to govern. The Liberal Party finds itself in this position. This can be done best when voters think that the government is misgoverning, but that the opposition is unlikely to win. They can therefore send a message to the government via a vote for the opposition, without the risk that the opposition will win.

When we asked respondents what party they wanted to win, they overwhelmingly nominated Labor. However, 20% of those voting Labor said they wanted the Liberal Party to win, while on the other side, 11% of those voting Liberal said they wanted Labor to win. There was also 18% across the board support for the idea of a hung parliament. This is dangerous territory for Labor with their own supporters lacking enthusiasm for them and a significant minority wanting them put under the pressure of being a minority government.

On top of this, while there is disquiet with the thought of a Labor victory, everyone expects them to win. Only 14% expect the Libs to win, compared to 52% who expect Labor. It is in circumstances like these where voters often vote for the presumed loser to put a check on the presumed winner.

Labor understands this dynamic, and their advertising is targeted at raising a protest vote against the Opposition for failing to even meet the standards of being a good one. Colin Barnett is a “risk to your future”, and they are particularly targeting him on his plans for nuclear power. This should play well to the doubts about Barnett that voters have. They still remember his promise from last election to build a canal to bring water from the Kimberleys to Perth. They also understand that the only reason he has returned from the brink of retirement is that the Liberal team has no other talent. In fact, some also speculate that he will not stay long after the next election, whether he wins or not, leaving them at the mercy of the rest of the Liberal team.

This voter sums the Liberals problems up neatly. Their hesitations in thinking of voting for him were “His [Barnett’s] performance at the last election. The lack of any real leadership in the coalition. The lack of attention to social responsibility.”

Labor’s takeout message is “How could you trust Colin and the Libs to run the State?”.

In their turn the Liberals are playing into Labor’s hands. Their campaign is based around the theme that after 8 years Labor has had long enough to fix the problems that WA has, and it’s time for someone else to have a go.The first half of this message undoubtedly resonates. The issues that people raised as being important to their vote were frequently to do with problems arising from a failure to plan for the mining boom, or what will happen after the boom is over. Labor is not seen as competent in this area.

But as the Liberals are seen as even less competent, this pitch is not a vote winner.

Interestingly, while the media, at least here on the east coast, has most frequently concentrated on corruption in WA governance, particularly related to Brian Burke, this does not show-up as a top of mind voting issue. Probably both sides are seen to have these sorts of problems, meaning that they are neutralized for Labor.

So, while polls show that the Liberals have closed the gap with Labor, there is nothing in this polling to suggest that they will close it enough to win. Voters don’t want the Liberals to win and the Liberals are not putting an argument to them that they can accept as a reason not to return the government. They all know that things should be better in WA, but they also know that voting for the Liberals is likely to make things worse, rather than better. Carpenter wins by default.

Posted by Graham at September 5, 2008 09:02 PM

Comments

Posted by: Ross at September 6, 2008 06:27 PM

Posted by: Paul at September 5, 2008 10:55 PM

Posted by: Dion Giles at September 5, 2008 10:04 PM