Howard Years Come to an End
Published November 26, 2007
As you may have heard, the Howard years are over in Australia. Eleven and a half years of conservative reign destroyed by the Ruddslide (sic). And, adding insult to injury, this election has made history, with John Howard set to lose his own seat of Bennelong in the parliament to former ABC journalist Maxine McKew. Howard’s since 1974, Labor for the first time, and the seat of the second PM ever to lose his seat.
So how is it that Kevin Rudd, right, managed to be so effective, with some seats racking up double figure swings against the incumbent government? Many commentators are trying to figure out the turning point but as with a fine game of chess, there is rarely a single move that was key to victory. Even if you can pick a handful of blunders or masterful plays.
Of particular note, this election has defied conventional wisdom that Australian governments do not lose in economic good times. Especially to a party behind in the polls as better economic managers.
As Andrew Charlton pointed out in book Ozonomics, John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello have presided over and taken credit for a booming economy that owes more to the radical reforms of the Hawke-Keating years than to their own. And the polls show they have successfully painted themselves as ingenious economic managers. This myth has served them well for many years and, in elections gone past, has often side-lined much of the community’s discontent in other areas.
And yet, the key issues that the election were won on, consisted of the Health, the Economy, Industrial Relations and the Environment, and Education. In that order. So, either these issues were considered more important than the national finances or Rudd had clawed back economic credibility. Perhaps the answer is a little of both.
The large swing in votes did appear to come from Green preferences. That is, a lot of people voted 1 for the Greens and 2 for Labor. And the Coalition did pick up some new seats in Western Australia, where the mining boom has benefited from last year's industrial relations reform. Perhaps the simple economic management idea was not good enough.
Hugh Mackay suggests in Advance Australia.... Where?, Australian's became disengaged in civic life during the 1990s as a response to the economic boom and turned their attention to home renovations in place of politics. He calls this the “Dreamy Period,” and what has changed is people are suddenly waking up to new challenges:
- Massively inflated house prices with climbing interest rates.
- Climate change and low carbon economy.
- Skills shortages in trades, maths and sciences.
- Rapid technological change and the information society.
Of course, the Liberal party has trailed in opinion polls ever since their removal of unfair dismissal laws, and Labor has been way out in front all year since Kevin Rudd took over as leader. So the result is not so surprising.
What will this mean for Australia in the world? Well, he's planning to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq, but not Afghanistan. And you'll get to see him in Bali after he ratifies Kyoto.
Jonathan Scanlan is a graduate and aspiring columnist who is currently enrolled in an education degree.
- Howard Years Come to an End
- Published: November 26, 2007
- Type: News
- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Politics: Elections and Candidates, Politics: Government, Politics: International
- Writer: Jonathan Scanlan
- Jonathan Scanlan's BC Writer page
- Jonathan Scanlan's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
Jonathan. Sorry mate, I didn't see that you'd posted this. Good piece.
It was interesting that a lot of young people, including many first-time federal voters (my son among them) voted for the Greens, either in the lower house and or the senate or both.
But as one young guy intending to vote Greens said in the queue behind me as we were lining up to vote: "I'm glad the preferences go to Labor, 'cause I'd be really worried if they actually got into power".
That shows foresight aplenty, I reckon. One day, though, they will be a really viable force in Australian politics. People are already listening.
Maxine McKew....aka Giant Killer
Doc, if he does start that nonsense, I'll be starting up a group called Labor Voters for a Constitutional Monarchy.
It's worked well for us, so why change it? Why go down the American route, which always seems fraught to me and doesn't seem to provide a genuine democracy (in the modern sense of the word). Too much power in the hands of the President. CM provides good checks and balances, because in the executive branch, unlike the President of the US, the Queen has no real power and must defer to the wishes of the PM.
The Sir John Kerr debacle was a one-off, I believe, and considering that it ended a crisis of supply and only led to an election where the people voted overwhelmingly to get rid of Whitlam, there can't be a lot of cause for complaint.
"Maxine McKew....aka Giant Killer"
She was helped by a redistribition of electoral borders that pushed Howard's seat of Bennelong into a couple of blue-collar areas with a strong history of Labor voting.
Where once McKew would have needed a swing of about 19 per cent to wrest control from Howard (in a one-time blue-riband Liberal seat he'd held for 33 years), she only needed 4.5 per cent thanks to the redistribution, and it was a close-run thing and a real reflection of the swing across the country. It was decided in the end by what might be regarded in the great scheme of things as a handful of votes - as she readily admits.
Nevertheless, Howard goes down in history with the unpopular Stanley Melbourne Bruce, who lost his own seat in the 1929 election after also tinkering with Australia's industrial relations laws, as only the second sitting PM to be booted out of office at the same time as losing his own seat in parliament.
A good thing too, because if he'd held it, he would've retired anyway and sooner or later, there would have been a by-election in Bennelong.
What is really sad about all this is that all the defeated Libs, now trying to pick up the pieces of one of the most astounding defeats in Australian electoral history, are today now blaming the running of their campaign and the mistakes they made in selling their message for the loss.
It still hasn't sunk in to the deluded fools that it was their policies people didn't like. WorkChoices being the main one. I would have thought the emphatic nature of their defeat might have been the clue they needed.
Moral of that last bit of the story: politicians never learn their lessons.
Howard's crime wasn't just that he stayed too long.
It was that he introduced policies (and refused to bring on others) that went against everything this country stands for - mainly, that is a fair go for everyone.
STM, #5:
[orchestrates standing ovation]
Well said. I love Australia.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/71337)
Well, Stan, looks like someone's beaten you to it...
One interesting little bit of fallout from this election - which the BBC (of course!) brought up - is that Rudd, like his Labor predecessor as PM, Paul Keating, is a republican - that is, he's in favour of removing the Queen as head of state and having a president. It'll be interesting to see if he pursues this, although I doubt he would want to do so in his first term.