writes Phil Arnold.
Recently there’s been a rush of political analysts to offer explanations for the seemingly inexplicable: polls showing the federal Coalition falling behind the Labor Party opposition in every state but Western Australia, and the man against whom successive Labor prime ministers failed to gain even a modicum of traction when he was opposition leader, demonstrably failing to gain the confidence of the electorate as Prime Minister.
The truth is that the likelihood of Tony Abbott presiding over a one-term federal government increases by the month – a suggestion that has political pundits scratching their heads and holders of marginal conservative seats looking decidedly twitchy.
The most frequent and oft repeated explanations for this political conundrum are the unpopularity of a budget regarded by both sides of the political divide as grossly unfair, and the string of broken promises from a Prime Minister who, when in opposition, made huge political capital out of the broken promises of the Gillard and Rudd led governments.
But, in truth, neither of these explanation stands up under close scrutiny. Other governments have survived unpopular policy decisions: Hawke’s tariff cuts and floating of the dollar, Keating’s interest rate rises and recession we had to have, and Howard’s GST. As for broken promises, the electorate has long ceased to regard the promises of politicians with anything other than well-founded scepticism. Even the most politically naïve could predict the explanations used to justify the abandonment of such hand-on-heart guarantees.
So, if not these, what? The genesis of the Abbott Government’s poor standing can be found in the reason it was elected in the first place. It was not out of any belief that Abbott was the answer to an electorate’s prayers. He didn’t inspire with the physical presence and rhetoric of Whitlam or Menzies, nor was he carried to power on a wave of voter adoration as was Hawke. He didn’t even beguile the electorate with the cheeky, larrikin charm of Keating or the perceived stability of Howard.
No. Abbott gained the prime ministership as a direct result of the electorate’s determination to dispose of a Labor government perceived as incompetent and addicted to suicidal in-fighting. The fact is, that Labor committed political harakiri and Abbott was the proverbial “drover’s dog” waiting to step into the breach.
That, as opposition leader, he played the Labor government for the political suckers they were (and with rare skill and single-minded determination), is undeniable. But so too is the fact that Labor’s fate was sealed well before the election, and a reversal of its fortunes was beyond contemplation.
The truth is, that the Australian electorate is, if not politically astute, certainly more capable of corporate pragmatism than many political commentators give them credit for. In this case, they were perfectly prepared to suffer the short-term agony of an unpopular prime minister in order to rid themselves of a troublesome incumbent, knowing full well that three years is a mere blink of an eye in political terms.
And it’s not too great a stretch of the imagination to further suggest that the same electorate deliberately minimised the potential for long-term damage by depriving Abbott of the senate majority necessary to pursue an unpopular political agenda.
There are precedents that support this proposition. In 1975 and 1977 the electorate elected the unpopular Malcolm Fraser as prime minister in successive landslide victories. They did so not out of any love for Fraser. Like Abbott, he just happened to be the opposition leader at a time when the electorate was determined to rid itself of a government they perceived as incompetent.
Similarly, John Howard, having ousted the Keating Labor government in 1996, in an election that saw the Labor Party reduced to its lowest primary vote in more than 60 years, only just held onto power at the end of his first term when Kim Beasley, as Labor Leader, won the popular vote but not a majority of seats in an electoral anomaly. It was perhaps only the so-called Tampa crisis, when the Norwegian ship entered Australian waters carrying a boatload of rescued asylum seekers, that saved him from defeat three years later.
Now, despite Abbott’s attempts as prime minister to bolster his electoral popularity with a succession of hairy-chested foreign policy responses, the electorate still refuses to see him as anything other than a short-term and expedient way of replacing a Labor government that was beyond redemption. The voters made up their minds about Abbott even before he was opposition leader. They’ve never liked him. They’ve never trusted him. They’ve never wanted him. And, unless the Liberal Party can come up with a popular and credible alternative, it will be consigned to political oblivion as quickly and decisively as its Labor Party predecessors.
Phil Arnold is a freelance writer, composer, teacher and musician living in Sydney. View his full profile here.
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