Opposition Parties Play Musical Chairs As Politics Stays Stuck In A Rut

by John Warhurst - Canberra Times

We've heard it all before, all too frequently recently: a new Opposition leader outlines a new agenda. Yet the point that needs to be made emphatically is that changing an Opposition leader is not a magic potion. A new leader will not bring victory to an Opposition.

Certainly there are occasions when it looks suspiciously like a new leader did the trick. Bob Hawke made the difference for Labor in 1983. But these occasions are rare. John Howard did not win the 1996 election for the Coalition. Paul Keating's government lost it. The cliche remains true that Oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them.

For this reason the position of Opposition is the hardest job in politics. Brendan Smyth knows that. Kim Beazley knows that, too. But there is little evidence that Opposition leaders are lesser people than prime ministers, premiers and chief ministers. Nor are they less talented people than those colleagues who seek to replace them. This should be some bitter consolation to Smyth in defeat and to Beazley in continuous troubles.

Over the past decade in Australian politics, Labor leadership has been in disarray at the federal level, while an almost identical situation in reverse exists at the state and territory level where the Liberal Party leadership is in equal disarray.

Leaders are being replaced not just at the traditional time, after election defeats, but between elections. John Brogden replaced by Peter Debnam in NSW. Robert Doyle replaced in Victoria by Ted Baillieu. Rene Hidding and Rob Kerin replaced after election defeats in Tasmania and South Australia. Similar changes were made earlier in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. What a testing trivia question it would be to have to name all eight state Liberal leaders at the moment.

Australian politics is stuck deep in a rut. Labor holds office at the state level and the Coalition at the federal level.

There are many possible contributing reasons for this state of affairs. In my view, the relative qualities of the political leaders is only a very small part of the story.

It beggars belief that in all eight states and territories Labor has managed to produce leaders superior to their opponents and that this has caused Labor victories and Liberal impotence.

Labor has produced some competent premiers, Bob Carr and Peter Beattie among them. But they have all, including the pick of the bunch, been individuals who have grown in the job, who have flowered in the light of the public gaze that the job ensures.

Many of them, including the most highly regarded, have just squeezed into office by the narrowest of margins. They have just fallen over the line first time around. That should never be forgotten. Sometimes, like Mike Rann in South Australia, they have not even achieved a majority of the popular vote. Sometimes, like Steve Bracks, they have had the smallest of margins and have been supported by independent MPs.

Once in a rut like this it is difficult to get out. The advantages of incumbency are now so huge that, if they have a modicum of luck and good sense, governments can use the resources of government to consolidate their position. It is also true that a strong economy raises all boats.

This does not mean that the Howard Government is keeping the state Labor governments in office. That would give the Federal Government too much credit. What it does mean is that a strong economy, led by the private sector and international circumstances beyond the control of any government, is helping all Australian governments.

Change is rare. Remarkably few governments lose elections. The Australian electorate is cautious. The electorate is also inclined to want a partisan political balance between the two levels of government. This is a sort of divide and rule from a citizens' perspective. The community is not in love with either major party, so either one will do. Better not to let either side of politics get too big for its boots.

Both sides trade on this perception. John Howard campaigns against the state Labor governments as well as against federal Labor.

The line that a federal Labor victory would mean wall-to-wall Labor governments has some sting because it is true. Likewise state Labor premiers, like Morris Iemma and Steve Bracks, will campaign against the Howard Government in coming elections.

However, the current federal-state pattern is more likely than the alternative: a federal Labor government and eight state and territory Liberal governments. Yes, I know that the Liberal Party briefly held all state governments (and the federal government) in 1969.

But Labor is more suited in the eyes of the public to state politics. Labor is perceived to have greater strengths than the Coalition in social policies of a kind administered by state governments. Conversely, Labor is seen to be more unreliable in international affairs and more unpredictable in macro-economic management of a kind which is the responsibility of federal governments. Both big business and the media are kinder to state Labor than federal Labor.

This makes the task of the new state and territory Liberal leaders, like Bill Stefaniak, just that bit harder. But that is not the core of their problem. Their turn to win office will come, but it will rarely come because of their leadership. It will come when governments run out of steam and start to make a perceptible mess of things. When that happens, Opposition parties need to have an alternative leader in place, but they don't necessarily need a brilliant one.


John Warhurst is professor of political science at the Australian National University.