I don’t want to jump too far ahead. The recent flurry of polls in favour of Kevin Rudd is obviously a honeymoon with a fade to follow. But I have been surprised by the strength of the bounce and you just never know. As I’ve argued many times, Julia Gillard never gained traction for one simple reason: she was seen as illegitimate, robbing the rightful PM of his job and being elected only by the fiat of five Australians. All of the attacks about her being a liar and untrustworthy gained traction owing to this one fact. Public discord was never directly about the carbon price or any other policy. If this is true then Labor under Rudd can virtually return to its pre-Gillard polling position before punters make a new judgement about who to vote for.
It also means that the success of Tony Abbott’s negative campaign for the past two years was a sublimation of discomfort about Gillard, not policy-related. If this is true, Mr Abbott needs a “Plan B”.
We all know that Mr Abbott is running a small target strategy based upon a few key messages: Labor leadership instability; stop the boats; surpluses in the DNA; scrap the carbon and mining taxes and streamline the NBN. Let’s run through each.
1. Labor leadership instability
Unquestionably still the major issue of the campaign. And one that will resonate with core and swing voters. But not one that can be pushed overly hard. Mr Abbott cannot be seen to be overly negative, it is not enough to get elected, and it is his Achilles heal in-so-far-as it matches his character. I would equate this with Mark Latham’s attempt to shed his bovver-boy image in the 2004. It worked for awhile but the electorate saw through to his character and did not like it. This is a major danger for Tony Abbott. As I’ve argued for a year, Abbott should be the visionary leader, leave the head-kicking to someone else.
2. Stop the boats
If it were up to me I’d accept all of those innovative and driven enough to become a refugee but I understand that’s not the way the nation ticks. The AFR has a story on what is the likely outcome:
With Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to fly to Jakarta on Thursday for long-scheduled leadership talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the government is considering measures including stripping work rights from those who have had their refugee applications rejected, funding a processing centre in Indonesia, and toughening the assessment criteria for asylum seekers.
There’s obviously some solution in the pipeline involving co-operation with our neighbours, which will sit better with most centrist Australians than simply turning regugees around at sea and hoping the buggers don’t drown. Personally, if offered a choice between processing refugees in Indonesia and the Pacfiic Islands, I’d take the latter where we can more easily control conditions.
3. Surpluses in the DNA
I’m not sure why Tony Abbott persists with this line. Joe Hockey gave a great speech at CEDA recently (being the visionary leader again) in which he occupied new ground for the LNP on not being obsessed with austerity. It is quite obvious that Rudd is going to wedge Abbott on this issue by talking up the end of the China boom and Australia’s coming economic adjustment. And he is going to find support in a weak and possibly weakening economy in the second half. Yet the LNP leader is out at every opportunity reminding Australians that he loves to cut spending. Bad idea.
4. Scrap the carbon and mining taxes
The carbon tax is a dead issue in my view. It’s in, it’s harmless, we’ve adapted, move on. Australian pragmatism has killed it. Yet Tony is painted into a corner on the issue and MUST go to an extraordinarily wasteful second election to dump a tax we’ve adapted to on an issue that most Australians remain committed to. This could become quite toxic for Mr Abbott.
On the mining tax, scrapping it will appeal to the purists. And potentially, a deteriorating Chinese economy offers the chance to argue that now is not the time to be taxing our only competitive sector. But again, if Labor’s woes under Gillard stemmed from her illegitimacy then this tax can simply be left in place without any damage to Rudd. It’s a profit-based tax so won’t hurt when times are tough. Moreover, if Rudd adopts the line of “shared sacrifice” as a way through the post-China boom economy, mining will have to pay its share. Australian pragmatism is again in Rudd’s corner.
5. Streamline the NBN
My view is that the public is committed to this policy. It is Australia’s only great legacy of the mining boom. In an environment of a deteriorating economy – reliant upon productivity gains and disciplined public deficits for growth – cutting this project halfway through makes little sense and is an easy argument to win.
In short, if the asylum-seeker issue is neutralised, then Rudd holds most of the cards in the the election that Abbott wants to fight. That’s not to say that the polity won’t just shove Labor out on the back of its tortured leadership path. That’s still the most likely outcome. But if it offers a second chance to Labor via Rudd, then it has Gonski and the NDIS as well. Mr Abbott has pie-the-sky rivers the to the desert and a pile of White Papers. If doesn’t have a “Plan B” then the man who’s judgement it was to base the LNP’s entire campaign on Labor’s failings is going to take some heat. All or nothing gambits are not the stuff of Prime Ministers.
