Politics in 2012

Troy Bramston is a columnist with The Australian, a former speech writer for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the author of Looking for the Light on the Hill. On Tuesday 21 February 2012, Troy Bramston joined columnist for The Australian and commentator on ABC TV’s The Drum Niki Savva to address The Sydney Institute in a discussion on Australian politics.

POLITICS IN 2012

TROY BRAMSTON

It is great to be back at The Sydney Institute and to be here with Niki Savva, my colleague from The Australian. I’ve been a member of the Institute for around 15 years and I had the pleasure to address the Institute in 2007.

In 1967, a 20-year-old Bob Carr wrote an article for the UNSW ALP Club, arguing that it “is in three fields (leadership, policy and organisation) that … the key to future victory (in politics) resides.” This will be my framework for examining politics in 2012 – leadership, policy and party politics.

Backlighting this already extraordinary political year, still only in its infancy, is this extraordinary question: How could a government elected with such widespread popular support come to brutally execute its leader after just a few years in office, only to go on to lose its parliamentary majority at a disastrous election, but cling to government with a primary vote lower than then electoral drubbings of 1996 and 1975, and is today historically unpopular, with its credibility, authority and trust virtually destroyed, and – if could not be any more extraordinary – the caucus may be about to go back to the leader they cut down just 18 months ago … I believe that a leadership showdown is as inevitable as it is imminent.

I wrote Looking for the Light on the Hill because I see something far worse than a government in crisis – important though that is. I see a party in crisis – a party that is a shadow of its former self, a party that is not governing in its finer traditions, and a party that is at risk of dying.

The current ALP leadership crisis reflects the broader, deeper, more significant problems at the heart of the Labor Party itself: leadership anxiety; an identity crisis; and a party organisation so weak that it hardly exists.

Those who ignore this crisis and focus on “governing” as the panacea to Labor’s ills are like those on the Titanic reaching for the cutlery as the ship goes down.

So I wrote Looking for the Light on the Hill not because I wanted to merely be a critic, but because I wanted to take on the challenge of how to fix Labor to ensure its long-term viability into the future.

The book is a warts and all account of modern Labor but is ultimately a positive and constructive book that reaches back into the party’s history, uses polling and new interviews, and includes a range of ideas to help rebuild Labor.

The decline of Labor and its systemic dysfunction – in leadership, policy and the party – will define politics in 2012. Let me address each in these turn and reflect on the Coalition as well.

Leadership

Leadership is important in politics as leaders have become the symbol of the party that they lead. As the policy differences between the parties have narrowed, voters naturally look to leaders for differences that are often found in personality, style and personal values. And when parties lose their way, a change in leader is often seen as a way to refresh the party.

This is not a messiah complex, but rather recognition of the importance of leadership in politics and of a particular leader to his or her party’s image and presentation.

Labor

Today, Labor is plagued with leadership anxiety – an affliction that runs counter to the party’s traditions of offering bold, creative, and inspiring leadership. As John Curtin wrote to his political mentor in 1932, “No movement can rally without a personality in the front.”

But it is not so much, today, about individual leaders but about the very purpose of leadership in politics. I think of leaders of the past with a clear vision, who could communicate with intelligence, persuasion and wit, who had integrity and conviction, were determined, and could carry the public with them.

This tradition has been lost.

Can it be found again with the current leader and the leadership aspirant? Well, I’ll come back to the Rudd-Gillard question at the end of my address.

Coalition

For all the talk of Labor’s leadership problems, it cannot be denied that Tony Abbott is the most unpopular opposition leader in the history of opinion polling. Granted, he is more popular than Gillard, but no opposition leader has ever won an election with such low public approval. According to Newspoll, his approval rating is currently at a miserable 36 per cent. His disapproval rating is a diabolical 52 per cent. So his net satisfaction rating – combining the two – is minus 16 per cent. Two weeks ago it was minus 23 per cent.

If Labor sorts out its leadership problems, the parliament runs a full term and Labor substantially lifts its primary vote, I believe that Abbott’s leadership will be under pressure.

But it is hard to think of anything that could save the Gillard government.

Policy

In politics, policy is also vitally important. The problem for Labor is that it is suffering from an identity crisis. The party is unclear about what it stands for and what its values are.

If not broken promises (carbon tax, pokies reform) or policy disarray (refugee policy), there is the watering down of key policies (the health agreement, an Education Revolution, the mining tax). All this does is underline the fact that the party doesn’t know what it believes in and what is, to use Ben Chifley’s phrase, worth fighting for.

The voters don’t understand them either.  To test this assumption, a poll was conducted for my book. It revealed that only 12 per cent of voters believe Labor is clear about what its goals and objectives are and who it represents. Just 12 per cent.

The government has a good story to tell on economic policy and there have been some achievements in other areas, but overall I don’t feel that Labor understands what its modern mission is.

Believe it or not, the party’s core objective, the socialist objective — the very animating purpose of Labor in politics — has remained largely unchanged since 1921. As Bob Carr once said, it is about as useful as an Egyptian hieroglyphic.

For a party that desperately needs a narrative, clarity around its goals and a definitive statement of its purpose in the modern era – rewriting the party’s core objective couldn’t be more relevant. I question whether some in the party really know what being Labor is all about.

I said to a member of Labor’s National Executive that I wished Labor had a culture like social democrats do in the United Kingdom and the United States, where party figures write scores of books on policy, political analysis and history. “Forget about writing books,” they said to me in response, “I’d be happy if they just read a few.”

The Coalition also has a policy credibility problem. This is demonstrated in three areas: climate change, asylum-seeker policy and economic management. The “direct action” climate change policy lacks support among business, economists and environmentalists.

The Coalition says it will cost $3.2 billion. The independent Grattan Institute says it could cost $100 billion. It is a big government interventionist scheme that socialises the costs and privatises the profits.

And the Coalition’s policy on refugees won’t work either. Immigration Department secretary Andrew Metcalfe says offshore processing on Nauru, “could not be repeated with success” and it lacks legislative backing.

Under the Howard Government, 95 per cent of refugees resettled from Nauru ended up in Australia or New Zealand. Navy vice-admiral Ray Griggs said turning back boats was “risky” and endangered lives.
Economic policy is another weak point. Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey’s credibility was damaged when Treasury found an $11 billion shortfall in the Coalition’s election policies. The firm that did those costings was found to be in breach of accounting standards and fined by its professional body. Now Hockey is looking for $70 billion in savings – but he can’t explain where the cuts will come from. He and Shadow Finance spokesperson Andrew Robb can’t agree on whether they’ll deliver a surplus in government.

Time and time again, Robb and Hockey fumble their lines, contradict each other and show no real intellectual capacity in economic matters. I know several corporate leaders in Sydney and Melbourne who have been completely underwhelmed after private meetings with Hockey and Robb.

To call yourself an alternative government, your policies must be credible.

Abbott also promised paid maternity leave, Medicare dental, a national disability insurance scheme, and higher superannuation contributions – governing in the tradition of a big government welfare state if there ever was one.

Party

A party’s capacity to campaign, field quality candidates and organise is equally important. The problem for Labor is that the party is dying internally. Hundreds of branches have closed or merged in recent years.

Membership is in decline – falling from 50,000 members in the 1990s to 31,000 members (with two years standing) today, according to figures leaked to me from the last ALP presidential ballot. Those members that are left, as good and honourable and decent as they are, nevertheless are unrepresentative of the community and they have little say in the party’s affairs.

The party’s culture is also concerning. Bob Hawke says union influence in the party is “almost suffocating”. Paul Keating is critical of the party’s systemic factionalism. “At the operating level it’s become the party of insiders,” Keating says.

Unfortunately, nobody at the upper echelons of the party is leading party reform.

In my book, I outline a suite of internal reforms to open the party up, boost its campaigning, and to grow and engage its membership. The party’s Bracks/Carr/Faulkner report urged comprehensive reform and warned the party faced “a crisis of membership”. It still hasn’t been released in full, although it was leaked to me last year and I published it in The Australian.

At the ALP national conference in December 2011, only 42 per cent of the recommendations on party reform were fully adopted. In addition, the ALP no longer has the membership, the network or the capacity to organise at a grassroots level to campaign for its policies or to fight those who oppose them.

This is important given the rising influence of corporations in politics – as seen in the gaming lobby’s threat of a $40 million campaign in marginal seats and the mining industry’s success in watering down the original mining tax.

Another problem for Labor is the Greens. They may pose a direct electoral threat to Labor but the bigger problem is the perception that the government is beholden to the Greens, which drives mainstream voters away from Labor. One ”death kiss”.

The other problem for Labor is that it is losing a generation of activists to the Greens – people who want a progressive force in politics with leadership, conviction and boldness.

Labor needs to fight the Greens, not accommodate them.

Coalition

The Coalition also has serious internal tensions, a weak organisation and is riddled with the same factional infighting. Old stagers such as Peter Costello and Peter Reith frequently criticise Abbott, which is being echoed from the backbench. When Abbott said that Liberals “don’t support statutory individual contracts”’ any more, Liberal blue-bloods had apoplexy.

The re-establishment of the 1980s free-market group, the Society of Modest Members, indicates further frictions. Keep an eye on the emerging young-old divide between newcomers such as Jamie Briggs, Kelly O’Dwyer and Josh Frydenberg on the one hand, and Howard-era veterans such as Brownyn Bishop, Ian Macfarlane, Warren Truss and Kevin Andrews, on the other.

Abbott needs to make more of the talent that languishes on the backbench. At the local level, many Liberals privately say that they have the same problems internally that Labor does.

This was evident in the poor performance of the NSW Liberals at the last federal election – selecting candidates late, selecting dud candidates and poor campaigning – which Abbott said probably cost him the election.

Labor leadership

Finally, some comments on the Labor leadership, which will define this year more than anything else. The reason the leadership question will not go away boils down to one inconvenient truth: the poor performance of Gillard as prime minister.

There would be no leadership speculation if Gillard was an authoritative leader at the helm of a strong and effective government, and this was reflected in opinion polling. Her warm personality as a central aspect of her appeal, her talents as a speaker and debater, her policy expertise and her strategic political nous appear to have deserted her. A series of poor decisions and stumbles have reinforced negative perceptions about her leadership.

In the end, I just can’t see Labor going to the next election with Gillard as leader

Yes, Rudd Redux wants his old job back – he didn’t want to leave it in the first place. His support is growing but many have serious reservations. Rudd’s obstacle to returning to the leadership is his poor relations with caucus members. Gillard’s great asset is her warm relations with many caucus members.

In the end, I just can’t see Labor going to the next election with Gillard as leader if the government’s performance does not significantly improve. A third candidate remains a real possibility. What happens and when is the great unknown.

A key Rudd supporter told me, “Rudd and Gillard are like two scorpions in a bottle dancing around each other.  They know that you only get one strike.  If you bugger it up, the other one will strike you.”

But as I said earlier, a leadership showdown is as inevitable as it is imminent.

Conclusion

In concluding, both parties have major challenges in leadership, policy and their party organisation. Labor has bigger problems than the Coalition – that is in no doubt. More broadly, I despair about politics today.

Politics continues to be characterised by weak, dull and pedestrian leadership. On policy, Labor is a mess and is sinking back into the sort of economic populism that would have made Chifley happy, but is an anathema to Hawke and Keating. The Coalition has zero credibility on economic policy – which could be their Achilles heel.

Both party organisations are weak and getting weaker.

It would be tempting at the end of this address to give you a prediction. But given Gerard Henderson is likely to hold me to account, I am naturally reluctant. But I will say this – we’ll continue to find our politicians lacklustre as politics becomes dirtier, good policy becomes a thing of the past, while party members and voters turn off in droves.