The Queensland premier, Campbell Newman, did more than enough all by himself to lose the state election in a catastrophe for the conservative side of politics almost without precedent in Australian history. A few years ago, Queensland voters decisively rejected the Bligh government and the Labor Party, reducing it to a rump of just seven members in an 89-seat parliament. On Saturday, voters decided, in an even greater swing of the pendulum, that they wanted Labor back. Or, at the least, no more of Newman and his, and his party's style of politics. Labor seems set to have 45 seats - a 400 per cent increase on its performance last time. The premier has suffered the further ignominy of losing his own seat, and has now announced that he is out of politics altogether. Experts and commentators had predicted that Labor would significantly improve its position, but few had expected a swing of the size achieved, and the return to the Treasury benches it means.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The result is even more disastrous for the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. The more so as he tries to "reboot" his government after a host of own-goals over recent months. Newman had acquired his own deep unpopularity, if after pursuing policies, ideology, and a style of arrogant disregard for public opinion amazingly similar to Abbott's. But Abbott helped drag him down. He helped create general despair about the state of the coalition at national as well as state level. The campaign took place as Abbott was trying to impose higher health charges, and higher university fees, amid scenes of backflips and the appearance of chaos in leadership and administration. In that context, giving a knighthood to Prince Philip was unimportant of itself, but an impressive sign of Abbott's wilfulness, poor judgment, political tin ear and lack of understanding of the electorate, as well as of refusal to admit error or to learn from past ones. That stumble sucked all of the oxygen from the political air. When Newman might have been wooing voters or Abbott and his government making decisions that actually mattered, all they were talking about, and all the public was talking about, was the prime minister's epic brainstorm.
What will worry Abbott's colleagues, as much as further signs of chronic misjudgment, is that many of Newman's problems with voters bore a very close resemblance to the problems of the federal government.
Here was a premier who went to election, last time, with little more than slogans, vague reassurances and promises that there would be no significant changes or cuts. Here was a leader who knew that the wave he was cresting was anger and resentment of the government in power, not a sudden attraction to the ideas of the other side. Here was a leader who said one thing and immediately did other things, in spite of the mileage they had gained from broken promises and disappointed hopes. Here was a team whose economic policies were driven by convictions about a reduced size of government, not experience of what was possible. One so keen to impose its solutions that it could not be bothered explaining the problem as it saw it, convincing and carrying the electorate along the way, or responding to evidence and public opinion. A government surrounded by cronies, yet resistant to any demands for transparency and due process. A government in love with a self-image of toughness and strength of purpose, but which had come to think they were shown by recklessness, arrogance and refusal to listen.
Some will read into the result a fecklessness in a moody and fickle electorate. They will claim it is now too hard to get voters to accept necessary sacrifice. They are deluding themselves. The political careers of Hawke, Keating and Howard show that Australians will work with, make sacrifices about, and vote for reform, even with immediate hardship, if they are in on the secret, partners in the process, and believe in the fairness of the methods. This is not a communications issue, but it is a persuasion issue. The problems of Tony Abbott, the Government, and brand Liberal result from the belief they can shortcut the difficult but fundamental political processes of debate, argument, persuasion and informed public assent.
For Abbott himself, the evidence suggests the disease incurable, the prognosis fatal. For the brand, the quicker and tidier a transition the better, before the epidemic spreads further.
