The Leader of the Opposition, John Howard, will have to engage in a delicate balancing act over the next few months. A merely negative campaign against the Government is not likely to be enough to defeat the Government. On the other hand, the danger of presenting a detailed program upon which the Coalition would fight an election was made quite apparent in the 1993 election. It is going to take great political skill to avoid being painted as carping or only negative while at the same time delivering enough policy upon which to base a campaign without being accused of being too scant on detail. There are enough holes, broken promises, unreliable promises and dishonesty in the Budget to provide some ammunition against the Government, but that is not enough. Nor is it enough to merely say the Coalition will cut back the public sector and hand back the wealth to individuals.
Treasurer Ralph Willis has often repeated that public spending cannot be contracted any more without cutting programs. Leaving aside the Government’s hypocrisy in stating this yet still providing for a 1.4 per cent public-service-wide cut, there is some truth in this. There are no more substantial gains to be made by salami-slicing. Merely plucking an “”efficiency dividend” figure will leave Mr Howard open to the question: where will the cuts be made? Which programs will be cut? And if he answers with any detail, it will result in self-interested groups kicking up an electorally damaging noise. To date the Opposition has revamped in general terms four major policy areas.
On tax it has abandoned the GST. On industrial relations, it has changed from pushing everyone out of the award system and forcing them to opt in if they want to a system of leaving everyone in but giving them genuine choice of opting-out. It has committed itself to retaining Medicare as a universal net. And it has committed itself to a national-retirement-savings scheme whereas before it was content with a voluntary scheme that left much of the workforce uncovered. That leaves large slabs of public spending untouched: especially in social welfare, education and employment programs. It also leaves the present tax regime as is. At present, it leaves the Coalition with a lack-lustre set of policies _ polices that lack imagination.
It boils down to saying: “”We can manage the economy better than you”. The success of that strategy relies on the economy looking sick and on people feeling so negative about Paul Keating that they “”may as well give the other lot a go”. It is a risky strategy against someone with Mr Keating’s skills. Mr Keating is quite capable of turning a negative campaign against Mr Howard on the economic front and capable of pulling together some themes of national identity, family security and long-term vision that appeal to enough young people and women that Mr Howard’s concentration on the economy will seem irrelevant and uninspired. The Coalition cannot assume that there are enough negatives about this Government that electoral victory will fall into its lap.
Nor can its assume that economics alone will determine the result. The Coalition has been singularly weak at the vision thing; it severely underestimates its importance in election campaigns. Many people vote on feeling as much as thinking. There is a Catch-22 here. The Australian economy is the most important issue and the Government’s poor running of it has left Australia in appalling debt. But the Coalition will not get a chance to do something about it if it runs an election campaign on economics alone, allowing the Government to win on other issues.