Just where is the political “centre-ground”?

The Liberal Party’s shadow minister for education, Christopher Pyne, who has been around long enough now that he could reasonably be called a senior Liberal
has written a piece for the Sydney Institute suggesting his party should be “tacking to the centre of the political spectrum.”

He also states that “The Liberal Party as reformed in 2008 is more pragmatic and more in the political centre than the one that faced the voters on 24 November, 2007.” That statement is fairly non-controversial, mostly because the previous government was by far the most conservative in Australia’s post-war history.

Mr Pyne’s piece is a reasonable one which ends by emphasising the strong level of community support for environment groups and causes, and calls for the Liberals to “lead on solutions to the issue of climate change”.

But it also highlights just how elusive the so-called “political centre” can be. Political terms like Left and Right often obscure as much as they reveal, but they can still be useful in the right context as a quick short-hand. But the term the “political centre” is far less useful and can be much more misleading.

Throughout the Howard era, and particularly in its final two terms, we were repeatedly told that Mr Howard has captured the middle ground, and his government represented the political centre.

Yet now it is accepted wisdom that the Liberals have to move back to the centre, because they sere so far to the right. Now Kevin Rudd is seen as representing the Centre, even though he is still characterised (by the Right) as being to the Left. 

Most people do not pay close attention to policy detail, and make their voting decisions on overall impressions or on one or two key issues. Talking about “moving to the centre” makes sense when it is used in the way Mr Pyne has, but it really just a non-threatening way of saying ‘being less right-wing’ or ‘being more left-wing’.

One could argue that the centre is wherever the government of the day is, but that bears no relevance to whether the government is left-wing or right-wing. It is a somewhat misleading way for governments and their supporters to create the impression that the majority of the public supports the government on every issue.

By definition, whoever gets the majority of the votes could be said to have the majority of the country supporting them – (although neither the Coalition through its latest time in office nor the newly elected Labor government ever obtained over 50 per cent of the primary vote). But the vast majority of voters are not heavily ideological, and have a diversity of views on issues which do not fit neatly into a Left/Right framework – let alone a Left/Centre/Right framework.

It is by no means automatic that a position midway between the nominal Left and Right is a majority position. On a heavily polarised issue, the centre can be a very lonely place to be – a political no-man’s land copping artillery fire from both sides.