This story was published in Crikey today. It’s partly a promo for this blog, but it’s also a reflection on the state of the election as at the end of Week Three. So feel free to discuss anything to do with the trajectory the campaign’s been on here.
Something funny happened on the way to Queensland’s polling day. The idea that there might actually be a contest in a very uninspiring campaign started to take hold of observers’ minds somewhere around the middle of the second week, after all the madness of the Borg’s Barry White impressions, Anna Bligh’s talk like a pirate day on Cairns FM and the Warwick Capper and Pauline Hanson circus in Beaudesert subsided.
The mood in the Labor camp went from confidence about a narrow majority through calculating what would happen in the event of a hung parliament to the realisation that there was an imminent danger of an LNP majority government.
But no one much else noticed.
One of the most common observations about the campaign is its lack of intensity. Voters aren’t engaging, it’s not being thrashed out around the water cooler, and resigned apathy might be the phrase best suited to the election vibe.
There are some parallels here with the federal election in 2007. A big swing has crept up out of nowhere, ready to sweep aside a long term government. Voters have closed their ears to the incumbents. But the passion, however muted, that did accompany the Kevin07 bandwagon is nowhere to be found.
The absent centre in the middle of the storm is an intriguing phenomenon. It’s left Labor little to do but to conjure up the ultimate scare campaign — “Look! We’re going to lose! Think about what you’re doing!”… but as those who remember similar sentiments in the mouths of federal Liberal Ministers in 2007 might recall, that doesn’t work either. It’s dismissed as impression management, or, well, the voters have stopped listening, so … join the dots. All very postmodern.
How did things reach this pass?
There are a range of obvious explanations — the perils of long term incumbency, the determination of conservatives to unite for one last push at victory because the precipice lies ahead, and so forth. The Labor campaign has been sorely missing Peter Beattie’s skills. There’s a plausible strategic concept, but no deftness of execution, and in a parable of the Bligh government, no political cut through in the messages. Labor has no story to tell about why things are stuffed, and when it became obvious that the Global Financial Crisis was actually safely in Kevin Rudd’s hands, according to voters, no capacity to explain away or shift blame for all the accumulated ills of over a decade’s worth of service delivery gripes.
It hasn’t helped that Anna Bligh’s presentation has been far from assured, and that Lawrence Springborg really just had to avoid the usual campaign implosion voters had come to expect.
When Cyclone Hamish stormed its way in, it didn’t really blow the election off course, because no one was watching the winds of political change build anyway.
Nevertheless, something very interesting is building for March 21, and it’s all being resolutely documented, deconstructed and debated at Pineapple Party Time. The rest of the nation might care to tune in, because the eddies of the flood tide that’s threatening Captain Bligh’s ship of state will set some waves rolling in national politics for some time to come.
77 Comments
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C’mon guys. Don’t turn this into a pro-life/pro-choice blog. There are plenty of other forums to have that discussion.
Emily’s list is a labor women’s network. It uses money raised from women to donate to female ALP candidates who support its platform. Just like religious groups do for candidates they favour and plenty of other political interest groups too.
Otherwise abortion is not a leading issue in this campaign. As it should be.
@52 Can u name any religious groups that contractualy bind their funding to how candidates vote (the little funding they would have)?
Scott,
Yet Susan is also correct in her assertions. It is also unclear from the web home page who are the major sponsors.
http://www.emilyslist.org.au/about_us/about_us.asp
@54 Individual women mate. They hold fund raising events and individual women donate their money to the organisation. It’s not a shadowy organisation and is quite upfront about what it does. Stop trying to beat it into a conspiracy, it’s not.
@53 Susan please be realistic and not hysterical. If I got money from some right-to-life organisation by saying i’d support it’s proposed legislation then voted against it – what would you expect it do? Give me more money next time round? Emily’s list supports female, ALP, candidates that agree with it’s platform. Just like *every* other political action group. If you want a witch-hunt into that then I reckon we end up with a policeman and an AEC official in every church service, CWA and Rotary Club meeting in the country.
This stupid conversation over nothing has gone far enough.
Scot,
If you honestly believe that $25 donations from individuals is the core funding of Emily’s List then, I’ve got this Bridge to sell you.
Give me a call, I’m waiting now.
Exclisuve Brethen who support the conservatives, the various cult groups, like Danny’s, who support Costello and other conservative, the church who back Abbott.
Out of this they got a ban on RU486, and bans on funding for termination and family planning to overseas organisations.
Then there is the ultimate fringe party the DLP.
Deaths thru back yard abortions are always higher under conservative govts, restricting a woman’s right to choose doesn’t decrease abortions, it just leads to more deaths of women from botched backyard jobs.
And what the fanatics fail to realise is that these deaths of so many women have prevented them giving birth to other babies had they had access to safe legal services.
I wonder how many other fundamentalists besides the NLP candidate for Cleveland, who is a teacher at a Bible College and has seven kids. have infiltrated the NLP? In actual fact have the Libs and Nats united with Family First?
Growler, just because you’ve only got $25 to donate, doesn’t mean that’s all everyone else is worth.
Can you name a high profile feminist hedge fund then that might be donating all this money? What sort of conspiracy are you alleging? It’s ridiculous, that’s what it is.
And have you seen the example of the Obama campaign, which raised hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars by doing exactly that (small individual nickel-and-dime donations). And that Catch The Fire Ministry fella, such a nice bloke that.
And as Castle says, it’s not exactly absent on the other side either. And I reckon it’s far more sleazy in the Exclusive Brethren influence peddling anyway.
This discussion really is extraneous to the topic of the post. Abortion laws haven’t surfaced in any significant way, and Emily’s List isn’t a conspiracy.
Please take this debate – if that’s what it is – to the open thread and address the whole course of the campaign, as people were invited to do so in the post.
Thanks.
Voters as swinging away from Bligh as the media and the public are finaly paying attention to her daily scandals. They are also seeing this new LNP out and about and they look very viable. The swing is on.
- Name one other organisation that makes candidates funding on a contractual basis of how you vote
But voters were polishing their bats for Howard over a year before the date, all the polls showed he was gone it was just a matter of whether they were right.
I don’t think the polls have been as harsh on Anna and the nationals attracted a lot of negative attention over their takeover of the libs.
That being so there does not seem to be an impression that there is a lot of the risk in switching to the nationals as there was in NSW changing to Debnam.
castle – There was a difference in that Rudd was certainly a much more popular opposition leader. Though it’s worth observing that the baseball bats weren’t actually being swung at Howard himself but at the party and the government.
If you look at the polls in Queensland, last year Labor was on 60% 2PP in Jan-March Newspoll. After the LNP was formed, the trend has been away from the ALP. I think the two Newspolls at the end of last year were outliers. Galaxy at the same time was finding something fairly similar to what we have now – about even. The ALP didn’t go for an early election in December because their own polls were telling them a story very much at variance from Newspoll.
So the presentation of the opposition as a viable alternative govt is what is making the difference as opposed to the incoherent mess the nats and libs presented at the previous election.
There are those similarities with 07 in that the alternative govt does not look like too much of a risk, but I still think that Howard and co were gone a long way before 07.
Though I can see what you are saying in that some commentators and the libs, especially Abbott, didn’t believe what the polls were saying as they weren’t getting that feedback from people, even though their own private polling showed a swing on.
It still may be very close, a similar swing as in 07 against the incumbent govt should see Anna squeak in. Would be good to see Anna elected as the first female premier but may not be.
Yes, I don’t think the bar for a viable alternative government was set very high, castle, and I think those of us who follow those things thought it was well above where the voters have placed it.
I think it’ll be really interesting in the last week to see if there’s any movement in the vote.
I also think Labor has to get a majority – none of the governing with the independents scenarios seem all that plausible to me.
My view was always that they were more or less gone in 04, and only Latham saved them. WorkChoices doomed them.
But I also think the Queensland ALP’s been living on borrowed time since about 05. There was huge dissatisfaction with the record in the 06 state election – only the Coalition implosion enabled Beattie to pull a final rabbit out of the hat. So I see public opinion reverting to a sort of “you’ve had x years, why are scandals/messes/incompetence still around” position. That’s reflected too I think in the lack of credit Labor is getting for what really has been a big turnaround in infrastructure.
I have just deleted numerous comments which ignored Mark’s injunction at #60, which I now repeat:
Wiiliam,,
Which open post would that be?
Granted that this might be made clearer, but the “campaign updates” threads succeeded what were earlier explicitly identified as open threads. However, I would go one further than Mark and argue that you and others were being off the topic not just of the post, but of the entire site. If I allowed it to keep going, we would have had a huge rancorous argument with no relevance to the Queensland election.
Thanks William!
William,
Can’t argue with you, because you make no sense.
Why not say the topic is not one for discussion on this blog. It would make things a lot clearer to those who think the site is about free flowing debate and discussion.
Isn’t that what I did say?
The site is about the Queensland election, like it says at the top of the page.
I should qualify the first part of that. I would have no beef with comments about abortion if they related directly to the election. Yours didn’t – not even a little bit.
Apparently, some people think the topic is an election issue. It’s good to know blogmeeisters are better informed and have superior knowledge.
The point is, GG, that it’s hardly central to the campaign. I don’t think anyone could make a persuasive argument that it is. It’s a question of moderation – discussion of topical posts flows better and has a better chance of producing something interesting if it’s on topic. Open threads are available for those who want to raise their own topics.
There is no support for oldies in this or in any other forum. Last Fed. elec. night saw Bligh gushing away about the gratitude she and Rudd had for the oldies. I have a commission flat and the recycled cigarette smoke is affecting me. H.C. invited me to ‘just move’; Premier’s Dept chided me for not referring to ‘ honourable’ Ministers and two lines on how to address them in the future, and the health dept. sent me brochures on how to stop smoking. We’ll probably get a hefty dose of oldie bullshit today. Trouble is, it works. Give the remaining drongoes a bridge run, meat pies and a wasteful firework show and the consensus will be that we have a wonderful, caring lady premier. Bah, humbugs! Love, Les Johns.
Abortion hurts both vulnerable women (who may have already suffered abuse, rape, incest) and their unborn children. There are plenty of stories which back up this stance, of first hand experience with abortion (http://www.womensforumaustralia.com/). What is with the govt that it can’t use some of these funds to support those of us who would love to adopt overseas children in developing countries ($1000′s+) but can’t afford it.? And BTW, there are Christians who have chosen to raise several children, because they value children and the blessings they bring, esp in US where adoption is so much easier. With the rise in infertility rates (15% population), there are plenty of us who would love to adopt those unborn children and give them a home! Why doesn’t the govt provide real choices for women and give them the opportunity to adopt. We are such an anti-adoption country! As Deborah Lee Furness (who’s been campaigning to overhaul Australia’s adoption procedures) has said, “Adopting children should be a right, not a trauma…” What about the children’s right to be born, to experience life and to be protected in utero, to be born in a safe environment, to be raised in a safe and loving home? There are options for women, but we’re just not giving women these options. I know (from a friend who tried to adopt out her child in Australia, and experienced great opposition) how hard it is for women to pursue such options, when they do choose to adopt, rather than keep their child or abort. Why aren’t we providing more true, humane, options for both women and their unborn children?
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