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21 July 2005
Strained relations
Labor went into the past election holding seven out of 28 Queensland federal seats, and needing to win another seven, to have a chance of taking Government.
After an erratic and ill-co-ordinated campaign, Labor not only failed to win another seven Queensland seats, it lost one of the seven it already held, and the Coalition romped home, with 57.1 per cent of the Queensland preferred vote and 78.6 per cent of Queensland's federal seats.
Despite federal Labor's continued impotence, the tables recently were turned on the Coalition over its industrial relations reforms by a cleverly designed advertising campaign from the ACTU, which seems to have learned its lessons from the recent Coalition campaign over Labor's attitude to unionised Tasmanian logging jobs.
The ACTU learned from this campaign that when it comes to a worker's fears about job security, previous political loyalties count for nought.
The fact the ACTU fear-arousal campaign has hit its target is reflected in the overwhelming response we have found in our Internet polls on the IR issue run by Online Opinion editor Graham Young and myself for the ABC.
The responses have been near unanimous from ALP supporters � only 0.8 per cent of Labor voters supported the changes, leaving 99.2 per cent on the other side of the argument, before the Government has even had a chance to put its views.
Of all Labor voters in the sample, 96 per cent were more likely to vote Labor as a result of the ACTU campaign.
With Liberal voters, 87 per cent supported the Government's changes, with the other 13 per cent opposed, but only a little more than 53 per cent were more likely to support the Coalition as a result, with a massive 40 per cent saying it would not influence their voting decision. These are scary figures for the Coalition.
Our results have been tainted by the lack of interest of Coalition voters, with a major write-in campaign from obviously motivated Labor supporters, but even this qualification highlights the fact Coalition voters do not seem to care too much about the reforms in the first place, despite the fact our sample normally elicits a pretty balanced political response.
You don't win modern election campaigns without two-way movement between the major political blocs with about 15 per cent normally moving between parties every poll. The aim of campaign strategists is to maximise gains and minimise losses to get a decent national net swing of at least 2 per cent and a range of swings in marginal seats of up to 10 per cent.
Our demographic profiling shows Prime Minister John Howard won the 1996 election by taking from Labor its core group of skilled and semi-skilled outer-urban male and female Labor voters, those in the middle one-third of income earners. To be more precise, the "Howard battlers" sit between the 33 per cent and 50 per cent range on the census income figures, which includes income from all sources, not only wages.
Coalition campaigns since 1996 have continued to erode Labor's base of support among tradespeople so that it is now neutralised, while the Coalition also has won continued swings via its family support packages from a range of semi-skilled blue-collar male and female workers, and white-collar clerical and sales females, many of whom still support Labor but to a far lesser degree.
Many of these skilled and semi-skilled blue-collar workers would still be employed in unionised, or partly unionised private sector workforces.
More worrying for the Coalition would be the female receptionists and sales clerks, many of whom are employed in state and federal public service jobs which are strongly unionised. These were still pro Labor groups in 2004, but had been swinging strongly to the Coalition and represent nearly 40 per cent of female workers.
These people voted Labor before 1996 and have jobs that require the wage and employment security which the current regulated IR system provides. Many still belong to unions, a lot of them only voted Liberal last time via Family First because of Labor's inept family assistance package, and many live in Queensland outside Brisbane City Council boundaries.
Labor needs 16 seats to form a federal government and eight of these must come from Queensland with realistic local seat margins of up to 9.2 per cent. It should be borne in mind that the Queensland state ALP vote has been 16 per cent ahead of Labor's federal vote, so 9.2 per cent swings would simply return Queensland's federal vote to normal levels.
It seems that Howard, probably our best intuitive political demographer in a generation, is well aware of this threat. He has former Liberal strategist and campaign director Andrew Robb in charge of mounting a rearguard defence for the IR reforms, experienced waterfront IR reform campaigner Ian Hanke in charge of media tactics, and Howard confidant Grahame Morris providing a strategic role with co-ordinating links to the Prime Minister.
At this stage, the ACTU campaign is well in front, but this is going to be a long and sustained battle. As our research shows, Robb's first obstacle is to get his own troops motivated that the changes are even necessary.
First published in The Courier Mail on 21/7/05.
Posted by at 12:54 PM | Comments (1)
19 July 2005
Howard and Caesar's Slave
The latest Newspoll shows the Coalition winning the same proportion of the vote now as at the last election (within the statistical margin for error). This is a very bad result for Labor as it comes at a time when popular commentary suggested that the Government was in trouble over its IR changes. If that was the case there should have been some statistically measurable decrease in the Government's vote.
There appear to be a number of reasons for this. First, based on the online research we have done the IR issue only appears to be biting with Labor voters. The sample is a far too small to be definitive, but as it does tend to confirm what I think should be the case, I'll go with it, subject to a larger sample. Coalition voters (Libs more than Nats) appear to be cool with them. (Don't normally borrow from my kid's slang, but in this case it is appropriate as while they don't appear to mind the changes, they're not particularly fussed about them either.) So, as an issue it is polarising the already polarised on the left, but it is not converting any from the right.
Second, John Howard appears now to be in "the zone", that metaphysical space where he can do no wrong. In as much as people oppose his industrial relations changes, for a significant minority it is probably almost a virtue that he is doing something they oppose. "We might not agree with him, but at least we know where he stands." For the last 4 years our research has shown that voters don't like John Howard, don't like what he promises to deliver, but vote for him because, at least, he will deliver. It's perverse, but effective for Howard.
This leads onto the third point, which is that the ALP is at the moment struggling to prove it is relevant. Yesterday Kim Beazley was having trouble coming up with a position on the national ID card leaving Liberal backbenchers to run the civil liberties arguments. He allowed the same thing to happen on the refugee issue, with Petro Georgiou coming out the hero. Even on the IR issue, it is the unions running the campaign, not Labor.
A strange dynamic has occurred with the government's control of the Senate. Now that the opposition and cross-bench senators are all emasculated, coalition senators have rushed to fill the vacuum. As a result we have almost a one-party universe where most voters can find most shades of opinion within the government. At the moment I suspect that this has the propensity to increase the government's vote. A bit of disunity is good leavening for the Coalition loaf, but tends to deflate the Opposition because they have lost their power to amend.
Now I'm not saying that the next election is a foregone conclusion for the government, in fact their very success is their greatest risk as the signs are already there that it is leading to hubris. Which is why it is probably a good idea that Peter Costello is touring Australia trying to drum up support for his leadership bid. Costello wouldn't think of it this way, but it is probably performing the same function for Howard as the servant that Roman Emperors took around with them to whisper in their ear "Remember Caesar that you are only human". It's another function that a Liberal Party representative has taken over from Kim Beazley!
[This post is cross-posted from Ambit Gambit.]
Posted by Graham at 11:22 AM | Comments (2)