BY SUE BOLAND
Just before Christmas, most newspaper columnists were writing off Labor's chances in the next federal election. It had no alternative policies, it was crippled by electoral rorting allegations and it had not a hope. Now, after stunning Labor victories in WA and Queensland, they're singing quite a different tune and Kim Beazley's got a smile on his face.
And the Coalition's nightmare hasn't ended yet. South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory all go to the polls in the next 18 months, as does the federal government itself.
What can we read into the result of the WA and Queensland state elections? In particular, in Queensland, why did the conservative vote collapse, and why did the ALP capture the protest vote?
Protest vote
The votes in the two states were clearly votes against the economic "rationalist" policies of the major parties.
This was even the case in the vote for Pauline Hanson's One Nation, which shrugged off splits, claims of dictatorial internal functioning and public revelations of corruption to capture a substantial part of the protest vote, especially in the country and regional areas.
A large section of the National Party's traditional constituency in rural and regional areas is hurting because of two decades of cuts to services and economic deregulation — and the National Party can no longer blame that pain on city-based, trade union-linked Labor, as it did in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Until the WA election, John Howard had thought that had been successful in placating disenchantment with the Coalition parties. The butchering of the Coalition vote in the 1999 Victorian state election was put down to anger with former premier Jeff Kennett.
What was interesting about the Queensland result was that the protest vote didn't only go to the anti-economic "rationalist" parties of the right (One Nation) or the left (the Greens, sundry independents). It also went to Labor, resulting in the ALP winning seats that it hasn't held for decades.
There are two main reasons why the ALP attracted the support of disaffected Coalition voters in Queensland.
Since his minority Labor government was elected in 1998, Peter Beattie has cleverly cultivated the image of sticking up for Queenslanders against the heartless federal government on fuel prices, the GST, dairy farmers and national competition policy. Last year, Beattie even threatened that the Queensland government would unilaterally pull out of national competition policy.
His anti-Canberra posturing was a big part of his victory. According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald on February 19, daily tracking of voters' opinions by Labor pollster John Utting found that concern about petrol prices tripled in importance in the two weeks leading up to the Queensland elections.
Beattie's efforts were able to undercut some of Pauline Hanson's base of support amongst disgruntled National Party voters, and, being federal issues, Beattie didn't have to commit a state Labor government to doing anything to reverse them.
Big business backs Labor
The other factor underlying Beattie's victory was that big business backed his return. Brisbane's only daily newspaper, the Courier Mail, endorsed the re-election of a Labor government, as did the Townsville Bulletin and the Toowoomba Chronicle. Several business leaders, such as the Australian Industry Group's Queensland director David Whiting, were quoted in the February 6 Australian Financial Review calling for the return of stable majority government to Queensland, and stating that the Labor Party was the best chance of achieving that.
Queensland isn't the only place where business is cosying up to Labor. Membership of the WA Labor Business Roundtable has doubled since October, with Woodside Petroleum and Wesfarmers joining up.
Former federal Labor parliamentarian Stephen Loosley wrote in the Daily Telegraph on February 18 that, since the election of the WA Labor government on February 10, business leaders were showing an increased interest in the ALP, with 600 of them packing out a $1100-a-plate dinner in Sydney. Loosley wrote that federal leader Kim Beazley's number one task was to "win influential business support to generate the kind of broad momentum that changes governments in Australia".
Australian Electoral Commission funding figures for 1999-2000 showed that the ALP had attracted more in corporate donations than the Coalition — $29.5 million compared to $23.4 million.
Some sectors of big business are clearly getting nervous about the ability of the Coalition parties to retain enough voter support to continue the neo-liberal agenda. While big business would rather a Coalition government, it might be safer for them to have a Labor government that is able to continue economic deregulation, even if it is at a slower pace.
Given that all the major parties are on the nose with significant 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of voters (in WA, the combined vote of the major parties was the lowest in 50 years at about 70% of the vote), will the ALP be able to pose enough of an alternative to the Coalition to win the popular vote and simultaneously retain enough business confidence to get its money and endorsement?
It is too early to tell yet. Labor leader Kim Beazley is doing a valiant job trying to present policy differences from the Coalition government when there are no fundamental differences.
But Beazley doesn't have the Beattie "Blame Canberra" option for his campaign. Unlike the Queensland premier, if Beazley continues to attack the federal government over fuel excise, or anything else, voters will expect a Labor government to reverse the excise increase.
The extent of Beazley's straining was on display during his "listening" tour of northern NSW in the week between the WA and Queensland state elections. (Labor and Coalition politicians always seem to have "listening" but funnily enough never "doing" tours.)
During the trip, Beazley released a few snippets of policy — which revealed nothing more than how little federal Labor is promising to do if it is elected.
On most of the issues which have disenchanted voters — fuel excise, dairy deregulation, GST rollback and the environment — Beazley only promises to establish committees, inquiries, summits and ombudspeople to make recommendations to a Labor government, all of which are promises that have very low price tags.
During his "listening" tour, Beazley did not promise to reverse one single Coalition policy.
The excuse which Beazley used for only advocating the amendment, and not the reversal, of Coalition policies was that the state of the budget is only revealed by Treasury 10 days before an election, so the Labor Party can't commit itself to anything before then. Good one, Kim.
What Beazley is banking on is that the Coalition will so upset voters, is just so loathed, that it will be impossible for the Labor Party to lose the next federal election — which is exactly the tactic employed by Howard in 1996 to beat the hated Paul Keating.
But Beazley's refusal to commit a Labor government to reversing any of the government's policies is hardly likely to inspire an electorate which is disenchanted with all politicians and political parties. If a Beazley-led Labor government is elected this year, as looks increasingly likely, it won't retain voter support for very long unless it reverses the Howard government policies which are causing widespread misery. And there's not much chance of that.