In 1993, John Hewson should have won against a Labor government that had done a lot but run out of steam, just promising more of the same (which wasn't reflecting all that well in the economy) and having wasted too much time on a messy leadership transition. But Paul Keating won by a negative campaign based entirely on fear of tax changes. Of course it was disingenuous - a GST was never going to be a disaster in the tax mix, and a smart man like Keating would have known it - but such is the appeal of retaining government that we got another Labor term which no one thinks accomplished much, and bumbled along in un-satisfactory fashion.
The parallels with 2019 are pretty clear - the tax changes of Shorten would not have killed the economy or done much other than force some superannuation retirees to cut back on government funded cruise holidays - except the Keating figure has been replaced by a shallower, flim flam of a politician whose government hasn't achieved anything of importance at all. Keating's win came off a very low personal approval rating and was more the remarkable (even though not more admirable) for it. With Morrison, though he is nominally more popular, I just can't see that it is based on anything substantial. And politicians who win on negative campaigning do not get any lasting regard for having done so - Keating is remembered well for all of his reforming work pre 1993. Morrison has no such pre-existing high regard for his former ministerial roles.
There is every reason to expect a Morrison government to be a bumbling one - on my favourite topic, it is still going to be beset by internal conflict between climate change denying twits (less the key one of Abbott, thank God) and the moderates who have enough sense to not deny science but are caught in a bind as to how to pretend to be taking adequate action.
Arthur Sinodinos on the ABC election coverage made a telling point to this effect last night. While he continues to impress me as one of the sharper Liberal politicians, on climate change he appears to embody the attitude of the likely moderate majority of Liberals who know enough that climate change cannot be denied, but are prepared to not show convincing leadership on the issue while waiting for further public pressure to force them into more meaningful action.
With electorates as dumb as those in Queensland (I certainly predicted correctly that Adani would cost Labor votes here) that is a deeply uninspiring attitude.
Having said that, the conservatives such as those who live at Catallaxy are not going to be satisfied either - with the loss of Abbott as a key figure around whom denialism within the party can coalesce, it is hard to see how Morrison or his moderates could ever flip to the type of outright denialism that they want. I mean, to do so will be to show them siding with nutter Malcolm Roberts who (thanks, stupid Queenslanders) will resume a Senate seat; he at least serves the purpose of showing how old and eccentric you have to be to continue denying a clear scientific consensus. (Almost certainly, I would say, he gets in by virtue of recognition of Hanson's name on the "above the line" section of the Senate ballet paper; not due to his negative level charisma.)
On the other bright side - Clive Palmer's failure was pleasing enough. He is a deeply weird man.
So, overall, it's a Coalition win, but hardly a convincing one for any mandate for a strong, comprehensive conservative agenda, because Morrison simply didn't run on one. (I had to read an article this morning to remind me what they had promised, since it was so easy to miss it during the campaign.)
As for Labor: Shorten's concession and immediate resignation had a lot of dignity about it. For whatever reason, the Coalition voters who work around me all think highly of Anthony Albonese (and, as you would expect, given their treatment of Gillard) dislike Tanya Plibersek quite intensely. I don't have strong feelings either way - but I can see Plibersek facing an uphill battle given her somewhat Keating-like air of condescension in interviews. (I think she is smart and likely a very good operator when in power, though.)
I think that Albonese could do well against a bumbling Morrison government, so let's see if he gets the job.
Update: I read
Peter Brent after writing this post:
All those comparisons with 1993 are apt. A government widely expected
to meet its maker, possibly in a landslide, instead lifts its vote and
increases its seat tally. The opposition, laden with a big policy agenda
and a leader with presentational problems — who snubs the traditional
final-week National Press Club event and opts instead for direct
engagement with voters at rallies — is nonetheless expected to prevail.
Why? Because the opinion polls say he will. The polls, published and
internal, were even more spectacularly wrong this time than back then.
Right up to election day, Labor was confident of a number in at least
the high seventies. Liberals were sharing their pessimism with journos.
The lashings of eggs-on-face for the commentariat come from the polls....
During the campaign I spent a fair bit of time in this column
obsessing about likely preference flows making the difference, but it
turned out that what the pollsters got horribly wrong were the primary
votes.
Queensland not only repeated its proud tradition of underperforming
for Labor relative to survey-generated expectations, it also swung to
the government by (on current figures) around 2 per cent. The big
difference between surveyed and actual numbers in that fifth of the
country alone would account for the pollsters’ national misfire.
Labor won two-party-preferred majorities in Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria and the two territories.
I think he's right on his take on over-analysis of Labor's failings, too:
The good news is that conservative commentators who were only days
ago whingeing about the greed and irresponsibility of the voters have
had their faith in humanity restored. But for the rest of us, now is the
time to turn off the telly and newspapers and rediscover the joy of
books, because the unending prognoses of Labor doom will be too much to
bear.
The reheated stories of the blue-collar base, battlers, values, a
moribund party structure, estrangement from the silent majority, and how
the next Labor prime minister is not even in parliament. If you’re old
enough, you’ve read and heard it — and its equivalent applied to the
conservative side — a thousand times before.
The next polls should register jumps in the prime minister’s and the
Coalition’s fortunes, but in the longer term there is no reason to
believe this government will be any more liked by the public than it was
in the past.
Update 2:
Samantha Maiden thinks Arthur Sinodinos was hinting at moderate Liberals getting a better go on climate change as a result of the election -
Senator Sinodinos observed that “Morrison can’t sit still”.
“He
wants to do things. And, in fact, if anything, one of the challenges
when he was Treasurer, and Malcolm [Turnbull] was Prime Minister, is
there was this debate about, you know, how quickly we do certain things
because Scott was very keen to get on with certain things and Malcolm
was more cautious and wanted to weigh them up more.
“Now, I think
there’s still a case for being cautious when you’re doing big things,
but my point is that he is a leader who will want to get on and do
things. In fact, one of the things, I think, he will have to do is take
some of the elements of the Labor campaign and look at them and say,
‘Well, where were the issues that motivated some people to vote Labor,
and what can I do to and ameliorate – assuage those concerns?’.”
That is code for the Liberals doing more about climate change and energy policy.
The thing that he might want to do about climate policy, though, is support coal power stations.
