As William and Possum have been reporting, the “shock” Galaxy poll is out, and inevitably it’s the story of the day. There’s a bit of a parable about the manufacture of news here – as the way “media insiders” drip feed out the teaser stories and feed the rumour mill about a swing to the LNP and create a bit of a vibe reinforced by its designation as having “shock” value ensures that the Courier-Mail gets its money worth.
I’d make two points about the poll. The first is that it’s probably a reasonable read of the default state of public opinion, as people begin to focus not so much on the choice but on the ALP’s record. Labor faces two challenges – real problems with its record and the inability to articulate a political narrative that makes sense about where to go from here.
The contrast between the two health stories in the news today is exemplary. Queensland Health is an open sore, and the disturbing stories about the rape of a nurse in February 2008 which have resurfaced today – as a result of a report into the incident being released – exemplify the political problems this causes. It’s very hard to believe that a Minister on his game wouldn’t have flagged the coincidence in timing between the report’s release and the election as signalling major problems. Stephen Robertson never looks in control of his department, and the lack of any strategic policy thinking is reflected both in the catch up game he’s constantly playing in responding to horror stories and the capture of the debate by every interest group in town.
To put it simply, there’s no political direction or leadership in health. A Minister like Peter Beattie would be kicking heads. A Premier like Peter Beattie wouldn’t have allowed the drift to continue. But Anna Bligh is hampered by the circumstances of her elevation. The complex factional maneouvrings allowing her – as a member of the left – to become leader ruled out her having the authority to really reshape the cabinet. And she hasn’t done the crazybrave thing and seized it anyway. She should have. It would be preferable to the morass that useless Ministers have dragged Labor into. The LNP released a touchy feely policy about having “patient advocates” in hospitals to solve the waiting list problem. This is more or less meaningless. But while Beattie had communicated a strategy to resolve the issues in health successfully before the last election, the Bligh government simply hasn’t. That’s one of the reasons why Kevin Rudd covered his bases with the threat to take over hospitals in the federal election campaign.
Having made that point, my second observation is that as I’ve been arguing consistently, campaigns matter in Queensland. After what’s increasingly looking like a scrappy start, Labor will be thankful that a poll showing the election level pegging is out there. It will focus minds, and it will increase the intensity of the spotlight on Lawrence Springborg, and thus make it more difficult for the LNP to rely on the protest vote. And as my distinguished psephological colleagues point out, it’s actually very hard for Labor to lose.
When I was in the tally room on the night of the election in September 2006, the mood among Labor folk wasn’t euphoric. It was more like relief at having snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat. 2006′s effort was a superb Labor campaign. For a whole range of reasons, it’s still entirely possible that the LNP will write its own defeat into history, and write itself off as a historical footnote in the saga of conservative politics. But if I were advising Anna Bligh, I wouldn’t count on that. With the maestro gone, and many of the better campaign players on the Labor side from elections past having moved on, Labor will really have to work much harder for a convincing victory. A narrow victory would not be a good omen at all – and would make it more or less impossible for the Queensland ALP as currently configured to get the momentum it needs to really re-establish itself as a viable government in the next term. Labor needs to be looking at 50+ seats. That’s eminently doable, but doing it on the back of the structural problems and leadership vacuum that plague the LNP isn’t going to be enough.
20 Comments
They have hardly gone out of their way to explain the Global Financial Crisis and the effects on the Queensland budget much yet. This has allowed the Nationals to create a fanciful story based on nothing more than hot air.
Yep, but I’m concerned we’re seeing the Hawker Britton style of micro-managed campaign – themes developed over time, basically each day mapped out to a script. I’m not sure that’s the best way to play it. I think there’s been a bit of political snoozing since Beattie left the scene. I really do think they need to acknowledge the fact that service delivery is still in many ways terrible. They just play defence on health. They’ve got no real story about where it’s going. Robertson is also a terrible communicator, and I think a crap minister. You can have a meeting and decide the theme of the election is the GFC but that doesn’t erase the “been there for eleven years” issue and the real problems both in politics and political strategy that have been evident.
Well they are going to have to get a bit of momentum and quicken the pace a bit it has been a very slowmoving campaign up until now with most of the action coming from individuals on the extremities.
I suspect people haven’t really started focusing much on it so far. A lot of what has happened to date may wash out as noise. But I do think Labor needs to show more flexibility in the campaign, and lay out an agenda above and beyond the one issue. Beattie wasn’t necessarily trusted all that much last time in areas like health and water, but there was a sense that he was a strong leader and if he put his mind to it, could get things moving.
The GFC is a good campaign theme because it resonates with sentiment that’s already out there. But the sentiment that the health system is a shemozzle and Labor haven’t done much more than stop it from further deterioration is strong too. It has to be addressed one way or another.
The Labor mob need to think beyond election day, and focus on the size of the victory and what needs to be done to reinvigorate the government. The factional deals which have seen useles ministers stay in place haven’t helped Bligh sell the idea that this is a renewed administration, and attempts to set out a vision for the future – like Q2 or whatever it was called – flopped big time.
Q2 from what I’ve read was probably valuable in that it established that Springborg is neither a planner or setter of goals. More a fly by the seat of the pants and whatever will be will be according to Hansard. But the Smart State stuff was easier for me to get my head around as a concept with it’s purpose of broadening the economy and a big reliance on technological innovation to create jobs.
Scott Prasser has an analysis here:
[The issue at this election is that Labor, which has ruled the state since 1989 except for a brief Coalition interregnum from 1996 to 1998, has to take responsibility for much that is not right. Queensland's inadequate infrastructure, poorly performing education system, haemorrhaging public hospitals, rising government deficits, outdated governance, compromised and politicised public service and weak parliamentary system are Labor's problems. For Labor's Anna Bligh the challenge is not just to win a fifth term but to win well. Otherwise her tenure as Premier will be limited and she will not have the authority to reform her Government or to make the tough decisions the state needs].
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25111816-7583,00.html
Sean Parnell here:
At this stage of a campaign, voters are making judgments on personalities and perceptions, and won’t necessarily consider policies unless things gets tight.
While Peter Beattie was the consummate campaigner, Bligh’s performance is directly linked to her confidence. And given that incumbents normally beat the challengers in the first week, she might have reason to worry.
The future of this 11-year Government depends on Bligh either putting the Labor campaign back on track or finding her own way forward.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25112840-5017272,00.html
This is a fine thing: even the fanbois acknowledging Labor is crap, crap that once had a showman that could Sell High Concept. Q2? That’s code for Premier Kaiser isn’t it? Good thing it sank then.
And Parnell’s post-mortem forgets the embarassing own goal that was Bligh’s eCampaign launch, a crack in the bow frgoing down
I think Mark you are under-estimating how things have changed in the last few months. Service deliverey is a boom-time issue. People now are more worried about jobs. What Labor needs to do now is translate the stimulus package to the local level and make the point that only Labor is committed to putting the money in.
I mentioned this on another thread but looks like the thread had already ‘died’.
Why are these two polls “shocks”? They fit in with what Newspoll and Galaxy were saying in the second half of last year (Labor 50-53%). People might have been confused by the 57-43 Newspoll, but looks like that one was an outlier.
I also think the pendulum is less useful this time, due to the margins in some marginal seats blowing out since 2001. I think we’ll see fairly inconsistent swings, with the LNP doing well in some seats higher up the pendulum, yet not winning seats the pendulum predicts they should. The LNP probably has a better chance of winning a seat like Albert (13%) than, say, Ashgrove (8%).
They will have even more reason to worry about jobs if Springborg declares jobs denecessary. Sorry, he’s already done that.
Poor Liddy Clarke the Ministerial scalp claimed by Springborg for taking a bottle of wine on a plane in 2006 would appreciate this story.
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2009/02/27/53801_gold-coast-news.html
Oops 2004 even
Jobs will become the main issue if this behaviour is repeated too often.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25111781-952,00.html
The punters are putting their hard-earned on Labor increasingly. Centrebet is now Labor 1.34 and LNP 3.15. Labor was about 2/1 on when the election was called and now they’re 3/1 on.
Piping Shrike @ 9 – yep, for sure, but it’s interesting to see health as the one issue in the Galaxy Poll where the LNP is favoured over Labor – and it’s the sort of issue that should be “natural” for the ALP. It may well be that it doesn’t have as much issue salience as the economy/jobs, but it’s still an open sore that needs a bit more than a bandaid. I expect they’ll say something like “now the Feds are on our side, and Rudd has a plan, things will improve”.
Above and beyond that, I think Anna needs to articulate a vision for what she’d like the state to be and where she’d like it to go – tempered to the exigencies of the GFC obviously. steve is right I think to contrast Beattie’s Smart State with Kaiser’s Q2.
The other point to note here is that if Q2 was about establishing a point of difference with the LNP, then it’s less of a positive and digestible message than Smart State was.
Mark – who do you consider to be “Labor’s campaign maestros”?
Cheers
Alex
Mark (16), I think on health there is also a “Doctor Death” angle in Queensland. If they played their cards right they should be able to kill two birds (infrastructure and jobs) with one stone.
At the moment Labor is too soft on the spending stimulus issue. They should go in hard and stop being defensive on debt. The LNP cannot talk about what the right need to, i.e. spending cuts. Lets see some blood!
@17 – some of the folk who were associated with Hawker Britton and worked on the last campaign who had backgrounds at the top of the Qld ALP.
@18 – yep!
As a loyal Labor soldier for more than 15 years I want the QLD Labor Party to be rooted good and proper. Does that answer your question Mark?