Herculean effort needed if Labor is to rebound
Paul Kelly’s commentary in The Australian
28 Mar 2011
THIS result reflects a structural change in Australian politics. The Labor Party has lost its heartland and its ruling rationale in NSW, traditionally its strongest state.
With Labor’s primary vote reduced to 25 per cent against more than 50 per cent for the Liberal-National Coalition, a full recovery by the ALP down the track is not guaranteed.
The claims by senior Labor figures that there are no significant national ramifications in this result are ludicrous. It is more helpful at this point to recall Paul Keating’s famous maxim that “where goes NSW, so goes federal Labor”.
The NSW public is unlikely to forget or forgive for many years. This is a seismic shift. In many ways, it is Labor’s most damaging NSW result for more than a century.
Labor has betrayed its base and the justification for its existence.
The problem needs to be addressed with this gravity. While accentuated by the unforgivable behaviour of individual ministers, this is not its real cause.
This NSW election debacle reflects a deep malaise within the culture, structure and policy outlook of the state Labor Party – that once great institution that underwrote the Hawke-Keating economic reforms.
The public saw that Labor was governing for itself and the interests of its tribal, trade union and supporter networks. It was afflicted by a crisis of belief and a failure of delivery in public services, a deadly double.
Its ties to the community were governed by spin, not substance, and its machine grew addicted to focus group politics and leadership executions under pressure.
The nadir of this malaise was the crisis over electricity privatisation when the Labor organisation destroyed the Labor government of Morris Iemma. It is incredible that, with Kristina Keneally’s resignation, the leadership candidate of the NSW machine is now former trade union leader John Robertson – architect of Iemma’s fall.
Keating wrote to Robertson in 2008 saying: “If the Labor Party’s stocks ever get so low as to require your services in its parliamentary leadership, it will itself have no future.”
The chance that Labor can surmount the depth of its malaise cannot be discounted. But the task is herculean.
Any idea this malaise terminates abruptly at the NSW border is absurd.
The problems penetrate party culture, structure and beliefs to varying degrees across the nation, with NSW merely being its ultimate manifestation. The truth is this disease was a factor in the decline and fall of the Rudd government and in the problems now faced by Julia Gillard.
Sunshine State cooling on Julia Gillard: Newspoll
* Dennis Shanahan, Political editor
* From: The Australian
* March 29, 2011 12:00AM
LABOR and Julia Gillard have suffered setbacks in the pivotal state of Queensland since the Prime Minister announced a carbon tax. The ALP’s primary vote has dropped below its disastrous level at last August’s election.
As the federal opposition claims Ms Gillard’s carbon tax contributed to the devastating state Labor loss in NSW on Saturday, the Gillard government’s biggest losses of support have been in Queensland in the past two months.
Since Ms Gillard announced her decision to “walk away” from her promise not to introduce a carbon tax and bring one in from July 1 next year, dissatisfaction with the Prime Minister has jumped by between three and 11 percentage points across the various states and age groups. Her greatest rise in dissatisfaction was in her home state of Victoria.
Satisfaction with Tony Abbott has dropped in all states while dissatisfaction with the Opposition Leader leapt by as much as 11 percentage points in South Australia.
It appears the past two months of bitter personal fighting between Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott over the proposed carbon tax has cost both leaders across-the-board losses in voter support. Mr Abbott has accused the Prime Minister of being a liar for breaking an election promise and Ms Gillard has said Mr Abbott is an extremist after he attended an anti-carbon tax rally at Parliament House alongside various far-right organisations.
According to an analysis of Newspoll surveys taken last month and this month exclusively for The Australian, Labor’s primary vote fell three points to 31 per cent in Queensland since the previous survey in October-December last year. This left Labor with a lower vote than the 33.6 per cent it gained at last year’s election.
Queensland, the home state of former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who was dumped in June last year but is still polling ahead of Ms Gillard as preferred Labor leader, accounted for Labor’s worst losses last year and holds the marginal seats the ALP must regain to ensure victory at the next election.
Dissatisfaction with Ms Gillard rose from 44 to 48 per cent in Queensland.
Support for her as preferred prime minister fell from 49 to 42 per cent.
Ms Gillard was accused of appearing “wooden” during the catastrophic floods in Queensland, was seen as less communicative than Queensland Premier Anna Bligh.
She has been unfavourably compared in the media with Mr Rudd on foreign policy in the past two months.
Queensland has overtaken Western Australia as Labor’s “worst state” because the ALP’s primary vote rose five points in the West to 35 per cent.
Voter dissatisfaction with Mr Abbott rose in every state and among every age group, with South Australia’s satisfaction with him falling from 46 to 37 per cent and dissatisfaction rising 11 points to 51 per cent.
