Labor no chance in a double-dissolution election
CHRISTINE Milne has been reading far too much into the most recent Newspoll. As she challenged Tony Abbott to “bring it on” when referring to a double dissolution I could not help but think this was dangerously false bravado. When Tanya Plibersek filled the screen and delivered a similar threat, I got really concerned.
Newspoll captures the mood of the nation at a given point in time. Last weekend the government would have lost an election by a considerable margin, and that is all well and good up to a point — there was no election. Moreover, elections are held only after a minimum five-week campaign where Labor and the Greens will be massively outspent by the Liberal and Nationals parties, let alone the Clive Palmer spectre now lurking in the foreground of Australian politics.
Such a campaign would feature millions of dollars in advertising Labor’s failures in economic management. While those claims would no doubt be highly exaggerated, it would be impossible to camouflage the political ineptitude and downright stupidity of the Rudd and Gillard prime ministerships. The images of that incompetence are still vividly imprinted on the minds of voters and the 53 per cent-47 per cent two-party preferred result in Newspoll would be reversed in the first few weeks of any election campaign held any time soon.
Labor will not win an election held this year and would do well to chloroform those who push this envelope too far.
Fortunately for Labor, the government does not want an election either because it would lose seats all over the country while recording a narrow victory. No one should be too shocked at the government’s predicament after a tough budget. As Martin O’Shannessy, the Newspoll boss, pointed out on my show on Sky News this week, the Hawke government dropped 6 per cent in the polls after a tough 1986 budget but won an election just over a year later.
Perhaps even more telling is that after the 1996 election the Howard-Costello horror budget saw their government drop by a similar amount in the polls. Howard won the 1998 election very narrowly despite losing the two-party preferred vote.
Abbott will not want to go down in history as the PM who failed to win a second term.
The 6 per cent drop in support for his government is in line with the two previous comparisons. Unfortunately for our PM his own ratings have taken an extraordinary tumble. To be trailing Bill Shorten in the preferred prime minister stakes must be galling.
Shorten has made a modest beginning to his tenure as Opposition Leader. He has thus far, and it must be conceded that these are very early days, been less than inspiring. Like Abbott as opposition leader, he is opposed to everything. Given a deeply unpopular and inequitable budget, Shorten legitimately can oppose many of the cuts but eventually he must lay his own cards on the table. The out years present a huge budget problem and he must tell Australia soon what he would do as opposed to what he refuses to allow the government to do.
No doubt the government must look at July 1 and yearn for its early arrival. The new Senate inevitably will be friendlier to them than the old. There will be eight senators on the crossbenches and the government, in the absence of support from the Greens or Labor, will need six of them to pass legislation. This is where Palmer becomes so important. If his four senators say no, then no it will be. Any hopes held by the government this group of four will break up any time soon appear to be forlorn at best.
Dio Wang from Western Australia works for Palmer and will be financially dependent on him when he fails to be re-elected in six years — and fail he will.
Jacqui Lambie from Tasmania is a former spurned Liberal whose capacity to spit out nasty rhetoric is the most impressive talent she appears to have.
Then there is Glenn Lazarus, who seems a fundamentally decent fellow but is quite obviously seriously out of his depth. He is the likeliest to break away from his boss, but it won’t happen in time to save any measure in this budget.
The brilliant work done by Mike Willesee on the Seven Network a couple of weeks ago demonstrated a level of dependence on Palmer from these three that was almost sickening. Ricky Muir’s level of dependence on Palmer was actually sickening.
There is something of the fairytale in Muir’s election last September. He nominated for the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party and did not believe he had a hope in Hades of election. Then came along Glenn Druery, the vote whisperer, who puts together an amazing preference swap deal, and this poor bloke is elected. I can fully understand that Muir knew little of politics then, but the but the Willesee show proved he had failed to even read a newspaper in the past six months. You can be sure of two things: (a) he will never do another interview and (b) he will be totally reliant on Palmer.
With the other four crossbenchers the government will do very well. David Leyonhjelm from NSW is so right wing he believes in privatising all schools and hospitals.
I can’t imagine a cut he won’t vote for.
Bob Day from South Australia is a deeply conservative man who should naturally lean towards the government.
Nick Xenophon will do what he usually does — make grand speeches about the weaknesses of the two major parties before supporting the government on nearly all of its budget measures.
John Madigan, the DLP senator from Victoria, may provide the government with some difficulties. He is intelligent, articulate and has a heart. He sees himself as a protector of the battlers, and measures such as co-payments and cuts to family allowances may prove a bridge too far for him.
