IIn announcing an election for March 13, Paul Keating has shown again his fundamental political style. Attack is the best form of defence, and surprise is the best form of attack.
Having allowed mutterings about a pre-Christmas poll to keep the Opposition needlessly on its toes, he then allowed everyone to relax a while by saying that Parliament would sit as scheduled on February 23. This made everyone think that an April or May election was most likely.
Mr Keating gave the minimum notice and made his announcement on a Sunday, catching everyone on the hop. It is a Prime Minister’s prerogative under the Westminster system to select the date, and Mr Keating got the maximum advantage of that power. He has toyed with the election date like a cat with a mouse. And now he has sprung, quickly and decisively.
Tactically, the Opposition is slightly on the back foot. Though prepared policy-wise, organisationally its national machine has to now crank itself up to book advertising time, arrange meetings and co-ordinate shadow Ministers’ appearances. On the ground, non-sitting challengers in individual seats who have been sweating on a pre-Christmas poll and then a February poll have now to quickly re-ignite enthusiasm among their teams of volunteers who a week ago had assumed they could rest until April or May.
Mr Keating’s election-timing tactics have to be admired for their ingenuity. They may help Labor a little.
Of more importance is the insight the tactics give us into the way Mr Keating plays his politics. We can expect more use of the maxims “”Attack as the best form of defence”, and “”Surprise as the best form of attack.”
As usual, the protagonists in this election have stated it is the most important election in memory. Mr Keating was good enough to acknowledge that yesterday, but none the less affirmed his belief in the proposition.
The importance of an election can only be judged after the event, not during it. Elections that change government are usually the historically important ones. And that is how history will judge this election. If the Coalition wins, the election will be significant. If it does not it will not be _ the more so because like Gough Whitlam in 1972 and Robert Menzies in 1949, the Opposition is offering a radical program of change. The difference, perhaps, is that the electorate today is less receptive to radical change.
Radical change comes with either optimism or desperation. There is little optimism and things are bad, but not completely desperate.
Dr Hewson’s offers four quite dramatic changes for Australians, each with the same underlying philosophy. The changes are in tax, health, workplace and public spending. They will affect every Australian. Dr Hewson says for the better; Mr Keating for the worse.
Both leaders says the main issues are unemployment and the economy. That is not so. The main issue is the extent of the role of the state in Australian society. Labor, though One Nation and other policies, sees the state as a vehicle to promote economic well-being. The Coalition sees the individual as the source of wealth generation. There is nothing much new in that. A Menzies-Calwell, Fraser-Hayden or a Hawke-Peacock election had similar lines. The difference now is that the Coalition sees the state as a menace preventing the creation of wealth.
Thus the Coalition’s policies are aimed at cutting the state’s role.
In tax, its consumption tax will cut the state’s role in redistributing wealth from high income-earners to low- or zero-earners will be reduced. In health, the state’s insurance scheme will be dismantled. In industrial relations, individuals not a state tribunal will set wages and conditions. In social-welfare it will cut the amount the state gives to those who cannot or will not generate their own wealth.
It argues that individuals and markets are more efficient wealth creators and wealth distributors than state-controlled or -regulated institutions.
The Cold War may be dead. Communism may be dead. But the fundamental clash in ideology is still with us and will underlie this election.
The clash of ideologies always gives rise to a clash of fear and promise, especially at election time. When the right is in power, it instills the fear that the state will take away through tax hard-earned savings or investments. When Labor is in power, it instills the fear that the others will take away just and equitable help from the state. And, of course, both are right. When the right is in opposition it promises individuals the chance to keep more of the wealth they earn. When Labor is in Opposition it offers a more just distribution of the nation’s wealth. On that count, this election will be no different from previous ones.
However, in this election the Coalition goes a step further. It is not just a question of cutting taxes and cutting welfare. It wants to cut the role of the state in a host of other endeavours. It does not want the state to have any role in enterprise, but wants private enterprise to have a great role in providing goods and services to the state. It does so on the ground of efficiency. It says experience shows individual enterprise to be more efficient and therefore the greater its role, the wealthier the whole nation will be.
The linchpin of a reduced state role for the Coalition is the elimination of a state tribunal compulsorily deciding wages and work conditions for the bulk of community. This is more an article of faith than a promise to the electorate. It will take a long time for it to generate extra wealth, and in the immediate future it will result in some people losing income. Labor has naturally started a fear campaign based on it.
It makes this election unusual. Usually fear campaigns are based on the unstated. “”Labor will introduce a wealth tax, or tax your home or whatever.”” The reply is, “”No we won’t.” Or, “”The Liberals will take away family support payments.” And the answer is: “”No we won’t.”
In this election, however, Labor has been able to establish a fear campaign on stated Opposition policy. “”The Liberals will tax your shoes and take away your industrial award; it says so on Page X of the Fightback policy.”
The publication of a radical program by the Opposition well before the election date will make this an unusual campaign.
Dr Hewson intended by the publication of Fightback to make this election a campaign about fulfilling Australia’s potential, of fulfilling Australia’s promise. However, he has achieved exactly the opposite. The election will not be a competition of promises, but a competition of fears.
And there is a further irony. The Coalition usually concentrates on the individual and Labor on the collective. But in this competition of fears, the Coalition says that if Labor continues the country as a whole will get in a worse state and we will be collectively worse off, while Labor has focused on the individual: you will have to pay tax on üyour shoes and you will lose üyour holiday loading.
Dr Hewson sought to provide what people after the 1990 wanted: steadfastness _ a politician who said what he meant and didn’t change his mind. By 1993, however, that message had changed, and Dr Hewson has not read the change properly. In calling for steadfastness, the people were really calling for certainty, after so many years of upheaval. But Dr Hewson has offered only much more change.
In doing so, he has played not so much into Labor’s hands, but into Mr Keating’s. Bob Hawke was not the sort of politician to deal with Fightback, and he didn’t. Paul Keating is. As a politician of attack and surprise he will do much better at a fixed, upfront target like Fightback, than dealing with a less solid, variable target, like, say, Andrew Peacock.
After Labor’s respectable loss in Western Australia, Mr Keating knows that fear is a powerful weapon. Jeff Kennett’s heavy-handed application of the new industrial-relations regime has enabled Labor to play that up. Clearly, the momentum of fear had to be seized upon before the new Liberal Western Australian Premier, Richard Court, shows that the new IR regime can be introduced more sensibly.
Paul Keating is an opportunist and a risk-taker, an attacker and a surpriser. They are great political skills. The calling of the election the way he has, even on a Sunday, is just another example. Anzac Day was an opportunity to raise the risky republican debate. Christine Wallace’s biography of Hewson was enabled a risky personal attack.
We can expect more of it in the next five weeks. The power of attack and surprise is that they focus on the other side’s weakness, not your own.