Federal Labor feels bitter and cheated that a Government can be tipped out of office merely by a protest vote even when the Opposition has not developed a set of policies. It is not just the Queensland result that worries Federal Labor, but the resemblance to its own situation. The Federal Opposition, it argues, is like the Queensland coalition _ bereft of policies.
It appears to be asking a question in a way that suggests it has no answer: how can the voters elect a party with no policies over a party with policies? But the question does have an answer. People will vote for a party with no policies when the Government conduct and policies are so objectionable that they prefer the unknown to the devil they know.
Mr Keating imagines that voters will prefer his “”big picture” to the lack of vision and picture being presented by John Howard. Not so. If Queensland is any guide people do not care about big pictures if the detailed management is wrong _ if tollways are being built against community wishes; if interest rates rise; if special interest groups are given benefits through government spending over the broad interest; if economic management appears to allow one recession to drift into another with precious little time between them.
To have one recession may be regarded as a misfortune; to have two looks like carelessness.
It is simply not the case that any Opposition can sit there with no policies and take government. That can only happen if the other side allows it to happen with poor performance and poor policies _ allowing some rub-off between the state and federal levels.
Federal Employment Minister Simon Crean expressed alarm yesterday that Opposition political parties were capable of taking power without telling voters what their policies were, as if it were somehow the voters’ or Opposition’s fault. He said, correctly, that people were entitled to know what the Opposition stood for, but that governments that were unpopular or doing unpopular things could get almost turfed out of office with Oppositions not offering any effective alternative. If people wanted to protest, they would do it, regardless of what they got in return.
It seems, though, that Mr Crean fails to draw a distinction between a government that is unpopular through its own fault and one that does unpopular things which still retains the respect of the voters because those things are necessary.
An Opposition has two functions. One is to provide an alternative government; the other is to oppose and criticise the existing government. The emphasis will vary from time to time. It will depend on the relative strength of the Opposition and Government and what they see as the mood of the voters at the time. The disinclination of the Coalition (in Queensland and federally) to emphasise the alternative-government role, therefore, is not entirely divorced from the Government’s performance. Moreover, an Opposition is entitled to emphasise the role that best suits the times.
If the Crean view is a permanent feature of the Australian political landscape, government would change virtually every term as lazy Oppositions wait for government to fall into their lap. Experience shows to the contrary.