91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳

By Pip Hinman The big business press has been playing up incoming PM John Howard's "mandate" to encourage him to fast-track the deregulation of the labour market and micro-economic "reform" (as well as dump many of his pre-election promises). But some election analysts have conceded that the swing to the Coalition is not all it is being cracked up to be. The Liberals and Labor each scored 38.7% of the primary vote. Together with the Nationals' 8.1%, the Coalition scored just 46.8% of the primary vote. This is obviously not an "overwhelming mandate", and yet Howard claims he has been given the go-ahead to do what he wants, including selling off one-third of Telstra. The Liberals' primary vote rose by only 2.2% nationally and the Nationals by only 1%. (The Nationals are now barely out-polling the Democrats). The major swing was against Labor — its primary vote went down by 6.2%. In other words, the electorate was more enthusiastic about punishing Labor than rewarding the Coalition. Much of the swing away from Labor went to the Democrats (who doubled their vote in both houses), particularly in the Senate, where there was a strong push to limit the Coalition's influence. Labor needed only a 0.5% swing against it to lose government. Labor's primary vote dropped in NSW (the only remaining Labor state) by 8.9% (14 seats lost); in Queensland by 7.6% (lost all but two seats); in Western Australia by 4.5% and in South Australia by 4.1%. Even in Victoria, where Labor had hoped to capitalise on the "Kennett factor", the swing against it was 3.6%. In Tasmania, the swing was 2.5%. In Blaxland, there was a swing of nearly 10% against Paul Keating. Between four and six Labor ministers lost their seats. The vote against the Liberals in the Senate was biggest in Victoria and Western Australia, the two states where Liberal state governments have made headway with their neo-liberal and industrial deregulation agenda. While counting continues in the Senate, the balance of power looks likely to remain with the minor parties — the Democrats (with possibly seven senators) and the Greens (possibly two) — which the electorate perceives as a sort of "insurance" against the excesses of the two major parties. According to Democrat leader Cheryl Kernot, there was a 3% swing from the Liberals to the Democrats in the Senate. The most obvious reason for the Senate result, in policy terms, is the overwhelming public opposition to the sale of Telstra. This was the most publicised of the Coalition's "reforms", but Howard avoided a backlash against him by claiming that Labor wanted to sell all of Telstra and not just one third. Far from giving Howard a mandate to sell a third of it, the Senate vote proves the opposite is true. Howard's "mandate" is phoney. The Coalition has been able to take government only because of the undemocratic electoral system, which favours the two big business parties. The Australian's David Butler was forced to admit that small swings can give record bonuses in terms of seats. "Mr Howard did not achieve the greatest percentage point swing in Australian history [4%] but he can boast of having almost made the largest number of [seats] ...", he wrote. The 2.2% rise in the Coalition's primary vote gave it a 48-seat majority in a House of Representatives of 148 seats. Yet, Howard did not win a bigger share of the two-party preferred vote — which includes the preference distribution — than the Coalition's 1975 or 1977 victories, at which Fraser also gained a Senate majority. Howard is seeking to capitalise on the desertion by 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of the blue-collar vote from Labor to the Coalition. There were swings of up to 10% away from Labor in some of Sydney's western suburbs. However, these demoralised former Labor voters, whom Howard now calls his "battlers", are less likely to support him after a term of Coalition anti-worker "reforms". Howard, on election night, informed us that the Coalition was not elected "to be a pale imitation of the government we have replaced". Yet appearing as a pale imitation is exactly what his campaign strategists knew would win him the election. Howard remained tight-lipped about the detail of the Coalition's policies and their full agenda, deliberately allowing the similarities between the policies of the two major parties to dominate the news headlines. For instance, the price tag — $460 million — for the environment package was played up, rather than the Coalition's pledge to scrap Labor's three-mines uranium policy. Only the vaguest of outlines on micro-economic and industrial relations "reforms" were let slip in order to avoid the 1993 GST election fiasco. This, and Howard's promise that workers' take-home wages would be no less under a Coalition government, were enough to swing many alienated Labor voters. Howard's strategy meant that much of the Coalition's real agenda did not get put to the vote. The image of Howard as a caring, concerned fellow, in touch with people's everyday concerns, will quickly vanish as the Coalition moves to implement its neo-liberal, anti-worker measures. The Coalition's industrial relations policies will leave workers, especially those with little bargaining power, much worse off. The fast-tracking of individual contracts while easing unions out of involvement in the negotiations will also erode award conditions. The reintroduction of Sections 45D and E of the Trade Practices Act, outlawing union solidarity actions, will make it more difficult for unions (whose numbers have dwindled under 13 years of Labor government) to fight back, and the planned changes to unfair dismissal legislation, allowing bosses free rein to sack employees, will make life much harder for the majority of people. The Coalition won the election because many people, fed up with Labor's slower version of micro-economic reform, saw no other way to express their dissatisfaction but to give their vote to the Coalition. The opposition to the Keating government's attacks on working people is no mandate for even worse attacks.