AUSTRALIAN POLITICS – AS SEEN FROM VICTORIA

As debate over the culture within Parliament House Canberra erupted on social media and in mainstream media, and Australians adjusted to a second year under COVID regulations, former president of the Victorian Liberal Party and Sky News commentator Michael Kroger conducted a Zoom Sydney Institute meeting on Tuesday 2 March 2021. His theme was a discussion on why Australian politics appears differently to the voters of Victoria from voters in most other states. His analysis invited consideration as the political parties squared off for a possible early election. The paper which follows is an edited transcript of Michael Kroger’s opening comments.

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS – AS SEEN FROM VICTORIA

MICHAEL KROGER

The first point I wanted to make was, how do we Victorians see politics differently from the rest of the country, if indeed we do? What are the differences?

Why is there a poorer performance in Victoria than the major states of NSW, Queensland and Western Australia? Is it because we’re a left wing state or we’ve got more public servants? What are the reasons, if they do exist, and the fact is they do exist.

In reverse order, the second most important reason why the left is stronger in Victoria is because the headquarters of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is in Melbourne. That means a massive amount of manpower, or boots on the ground, for election campaigning. The ACTU also has a very strong voice in radio and the print media in Victoria. So, whereas they can get a 100,000 people to a Union demonstration in Melbourne, they might get 10-15,000 in Sydney. That shows you the influence of the Trade Union movement in Victoria and the personnel they can bring to the whole political operation, whether that be state or federal elections, or just campaigning on issues.

However, the most important reason why Victoria views itself differently, and why we have a different perspective on Australian politics, is one that’s not really talked about in Victoria. And is very little understood by the rest of the country. It is principally because we don’t have a mining industry of any note in Victoria. We have the Kirkland gold mine near Bendigo and there are other deposits, but it’s not a big mining state by any stretch.

If you look at mineral exports in Australia, 70 per cent of mineral exports come from Western Australia and Queensland combined. Iron ore, coal, petroleum, gold, almost none of that is in Victoria. Some gold, but very little of it. So, there is a conversation in Western Australia, Queensland and NSW about the mining industry, regional towns, employment, blue-collar workers, traditional industries and so on. But this does not permeate the conversation in Victoria. The Victorian conversation is more about social issues.

When you look at the contribution of the various states to GDP and our export markets, Western Australia exports roughly $170 billion and imports less than $50 billion. Queensland exports $105 billion and imports less than $70 billion. Victoria exports $57 billion and imports $115 billion – so that it has a very big trade deficit.

You find the political conversation in Victoria is very different. The psychology in Victoria is very different. We don’t talk as much about imports and exports in Victoria, as they do in other states; we don’t talk about mining approvals, enterprise, exporting to other countries, or the effect of the Chinese bans in relation to our mining exports. We do in relation to farming products but, essentially, trade is not a huge debating point within Victoria.

For example, Joel Fitzgibbons’ arguments about what Labor needs to do to speak beyond inner city left wingers, are regarded as quaint, a sort of throwback, a relic of the 1950s. There’s certainly a sneering contempt in Victoria for people like Fitzgibbons and his views. A lot of Victorians, particularly in the inner city, Green areas and so on, view Fitzgibbons and his views and traditional blue-collar labour workers as people who really need to be rescued from the mines and put in jobs somewhere safe and secure in the inner city, where there’s clean air and clean water.

So, the view from Victoria is very, very different. Debates about the GST, bans, problems with mines and so on are not much part of the discourse for Victorians. It might be page one in most other states, but it’s page 17 here, if at all. That plays very heavily into federal elections here. You look at Western Australia, where ore and gold exports exceed $90 billion, or coal and copper in Queensland at over $40 billion, and NSW with copper, gold and coal over $25 billion, these are big exports. In Victoria, mining exports are not among our top ten exports. Our biggest export here is meat at about $2 billion a year.

Statistically, you can see why mining is not part of the Victorian conversation. This does play heavily, therefore, into federal elections, and there is a corollary between the size of the mining industry and the size of the Coalition vote in various states.

Let’s look at the last federal election, in 2019. The result was almost identical, by the way, to 2016. The Coalition won one extra seat and Labor lost one seat and there was one more independent. The number of seats went from 150 to 151. So, the Coalition won one, an independent won one, and Labor lost one. Go to the biggest mining state, which is Western Australia. In Western Australia, we’ve got 11 seats and Labor have five; in Queensland, the Coalition has 23 seats and Labor have only six, with one independent. So, you’ve got 34 seats as opposed to 11 in Queensland and Western Australia alone.

This means Fitzgibbons’ arguments about what Labor needs to do are spot on. Labor needs to win seats in Queensland and Western Australia to win the next federal election. And it won’t win them by talking about inner city, green issues, such as renewable energy and windmills. Labor needs to give some reassurance to blue-collar, traditional voters, that their jobs are safe under a Labor government. This is why Fitzgibbons’ road map is essentially the road map to Labor victory. The good news for the Coalition is, Fitzgibbon will not be elected Labor Party leader.

At the next federal election, on balance, Albanese is likely to lose but this is by no means certain. In Victoria, the Coalition has 15 seats and Labor 21, it’s roughly 50/50 in NSW, 20 to the Coalition and 24 to Labor. At the last federal election, there were two big issues – tax was one and the other was the Adani mine in Queensland.

Former Greens leader Bob Brown ought to be knighted by the Coalition. Bob Brown led the convoy of mining hate into Queensland, like one of those Mad Max moments. There was a swing of 4.3 per cent to the Coalition, which is a huge number when the vote to the Coalition across the nation was 1.2 per cent. Why? Because what Bob Brown did helped concentrate the minds of Queenslanders on the importance of the mining industry to that state. When mining magnates Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart ran a fierce campaign against the mining tax back in 2010, Western Australians rose up against the Labor government, because they saw the mining industry threatened.

None of that is relevant in Victoria. So, my main point today is that the underbelly of Victorian politics is different from the rest of the country, and it’s why we view the rest of the country differently.

Let me now make a few other points, albeit in a very cursory, superficial way, in no particular order, but just points of interests. What is the national mood in Australia at the minute? And of course, in politics, the mood changes from time to time. As someone famously said, the time suited John Howard in 1996, but it didn’t suit him in 1987. The national mood does change.

My assessment is that the national mood at the minute is one of risk aversion, a gravitation towards politicians that show empathy. The success of incumbent governments is a flight to risk aversion by voters who don’t know how the opposition might deal with Covid. But they’re sure about how the incumbents have dealt with Covid. They can see what’s happened internationally and they think Australia has done incredibly well, which it has. There is a gravitation towards governments and political leaders that are showing empathy, because there is an enormous feeling of insecurity amongst Australians at the minute and risk aversion.

Any government or opposition that comes to an election at the minute, offering massive changes to the way in which the country operates, will face defeat. This is one of the reasons the Western Australian Liberal Party will face defeat with an unusual and ambitious policy in relation to coal mining. It’s not something that plays well with an electorate that is fundamentally risk averse.

The Labor Party leadership is another topic of interest. The truth of the matter is that, within the Labor Party, you actually only need 50.1 per cent to change the leader. Rudd changed the rules. Those rules can be changed again by the caucus, to a leadership vote of 50 and to get rid of the plebiscite amongst the members. That would mean the ballot could be decided quickly rather than extend over a 3-4 month period. That having been said, my guess is that Albanese will retain the leadership, for the reason that the challengers can’t agree on who the challenger should be.

There’s five or six candidates, and we know who they all are. We know who some of their running mates are. But there doesn’t seem to be a consensus around it.

The right are not united so, even with a majority, you will not find Bill Shorten’s group, for example, voting for Richard Marles in the leadership. While there are 49 right votes, Marles couldn’t guarantee himself 49 votes. Tanya Plibersek, who’s in the left, has got to challenge someone from the right or that will split the left vote and make the whole thing very messy. So, the left are not united either.

We are in a position where no one seems to be able to command a majority against Albanese. So, unless he does something dastardly, I can see him staying there. In due course, he’ll do what every embattled leader does, which is declare that an election could be held as early as September. That will scare off any potential challengers because a leadership challenge before an election usually doesn’t go well.  It went well for Labor in 1983 but normally it doesn’t go well.

Obviously, the controversy over rape allegations in Parliament House are a very serious political issue and personal tragedy for the people involved. The government has to manage these issues, and we don’t know where they will ultimately end. The Covid crisis has also focused people’s attention on the whole issue of federal-state relations, and federalism in this country. There have been massive calls for Morrison to take over the powers of the states. He could have tried that, but it would have led to a constitutional bloodbath and been damaging for him and for the states.

Instead, Morrison embarked on the National Cabinet. It has a lot of critics and has often allowed the prime minister to be portrayed as a bit toothless in the face of decisions that need to be made. Premiers are the ones making the border closure decisions. Yet, by and large, you judge Australia by the results and the results have been extremely good.

There are two other brief things worth a mention. The first is the role of the media in Australian politics today and public debate. This has changed dramatically since Gerard and I started in politics many, many years ago. Why? The answer is because of social media. Public demonstrations are a very effective and powerful weapon: the right does not demonstrate, the left do and very publicly. This then bleeds into Instagram, Facebook, and all of social media.

The media these days are desperate for visual images, not a policy paper extracted in the Financial Review, but immediate pictures. That’s what creates news more than anything else and the left understands this. This is why they’re always demonstrating about global warming, gay marriage, refugees. Their demonstrations are incredibly theatrical. Remember the climate change demonstrations with a decorated the Eiffel Tower some years ago. I don’t know how a council approved that, but obviously the local Parisian council did.

These demonstrations are free and create a massive amount of public debate that then bleeds into online, television, radio and print. The old days of intellectual debates about policy issues get diluted by the immediacy and the power of pictures, and that’s what creates news. To take a difficult point, the media this afternoon have published a blurry picture of the unfortunate woman that committed suicide last year, and a blurry picture of the alleged male politician. That has now taken over a lot of the social media this afternoon.

The centre right of Australian politics and world politics have to consider all this. We are on the backfoot on issues all over the world. It’s largely to do with the power of social media, and the left’s control of power and social media, whether it’s through big tech or Twitter. And we’ve seen what Twitter has done in recent times, particularly with people like Donald Trump.

Finally, in relation to election issues, you can usually boil down the result of the federal election to one or two issues that basically dominate the national discourse and are the most influential in an election. If you look at 2019, it was tax and in Queensland and some of Western Australia and New South Wales, mining and Adani. If you look at 2016, it was Medicare; if you look at 2013 it was Abbott stopping the boats and the secondary issue was the dysfunction of the Labor government. In 2010, as in 1998 and 1984, it was a government facing a second term. and nearly all federal governments get second terms in this country.

If you go back to 2007, the Howard Government had basically expired after 11 years. There’s a cycle of Australian politics – after 10 or more years, you’re on notice. Rudd portrayed himself as Howard light and won that election. So, for Morrison, he needs to focus back on the economy and the very good job that he and Josh Frydenberg have done managing the national economy. The message is that they are the best for maintaining control over the budget and debt, they’re the best party for growth and, at the same time, that the mining industry is incredibly important to Australia.  They cannot let Labor off the hook by running dead on Paris or coal.

Without mining as part of the debate, at the end of this year or earlier next year, the Coalition will find itself losing seats in Western Australia and Queensland. It can’t afford to do that with only 76 seats. It’s pretty much status quo at the minute in the polls, but the PM needs to focus back on the issues where the Coalition wins elections.

My final point is this. The Coalition tends to win elections when they’re on their home turf. Tax, the economy, national security are Coalition historic issues; health and education are historic issues for the Labor Party. If you are batting on your turf, you’ve got a much better chance of winning; if you’re defending on the other person’s turf, you’ve got a much bigger chance of losing. The federal elections of 2016 and 2019 were perfect examples of that sort of campaign. Turnbull in 2016 let the national debate become how we were going to destroy and sell Medicare; in 2019, Morrison and Frydenberg after a disastrous period at the end 2018 wrestled the debate back to tax and Adani and ended up winning the election.