<< back to archive index Date: 15th October Election Shock Why Howard won, what went wrong with the Democrats, and what needs to be done John Howard won the election and all progressive people were horrified by the magnitude of his victory. If you believe the economic view of history it is easy. Howard had a tax policy which made everyone speculate in real estate. Add to this the globalisation of the world, and money poured into property. So everyone is in debt with property mortgages. Comfortable but not relaxed. Terrified of losing the house or the new-found wealth. A scare campaign on interest rates was very effective, as past Labor governments had make mistakes. Howard has benefited from world economic prosperity (which governments always take credit for). He has also allowed foreign takeovers, which means ‘investment’ money flows in, and will flow out. It is not well known that the Aussie dollar used to follow the gold price, but now more than half our gold miners are foreign owned. Howard has everyone scared. And not just about mortgages. They are scared of terrorists, since Australia followed the US policy of unprovoked aggression, which it calls ‘pre-emptive strikes’. The US and the UK have the upside that they will control the world’s oil. Australia has no such upside. We are the mugs who went along with the only upside to hope the US will look after sycophantic allies. The Iraqis cannot understand why we are attacking them. After all, they only bought our wheat and sheep. So we have to give away our civil rights, waste money and time on security, and live in fear. John Howard, who put us in this untenable position avoided talk about the war and toughed it out. The media did not persist with their questions on this, though it is dominating the US Election. ‘Why not ours?’ you may ask. Perhaps no casualties and no terrorist attacks (yet) made us able to ignore it. The use of advertising needs to be mentioned as an abuse of incumbency. Did I see government- sponsored ads at $160 million? This figure does not include ads for Australian Federal Police to get you to report unusual events (and remember any left parcel could blow you to eternity). Howard also offered $6 billion to various interest groups in marginal seats- no overarching policy, but targeted to get votes. Labor did not have a real vision. No commitment to public education, just for a bit less money to a few rich schools. No commitment to Medicare that might take money from the ridiculous private health insurance scheme. No commitment to bring back troops. Support for over 75s to get health care, (at the expense of under 45s?) It was a bit ‘me too’ with pork barrelled promises, Iraq policy, and defence done by security rather than a change in foreign policy. Howard said he would ‘rotate troops’ and ‘not cut and run’, which defused these concerns. Labor admits it has a problem and has approached it very healthily. They are used to blood letting after election failures. (The loss of Senator John Faulkner is actually a tragedy for those of us who try to get State Committees functioning as well and getting as many answers as the Federal ones do). The Greens are claiming victory, which is a bit brave in that their vote went up less than the Democrats went down, and was much less than many hopeful polls predicted. The electorate may not trust the Greens, although they have an iconic figure in Bob Brown. Brown is seen to have a vision (not that it got much publicity). Perhaps the distrust is because the Greens are seen as too radical or composed of factions, the environmentalists or the urban professionals who may once have been Democrats, and the Left who deserted conservative Labor. Their coherence is still untried under pressure. There is a niche for the Democrats. People are sick of a wimpy, poll-driven Labor party unable to get a vision, or not courageous enough to articulate it against polls or vested interests, and the perceived radicalness of the Greens. But there is a clamour for a more bold approach, and merely being a staging point between the majors, or a mitigator of a conservative agenda will not do. The Democrats may have been the first with the concept of a cross bench that kept people accountable, but everyone took to the concept, and the Democrat proportion of the non-major vote has gone down steadily from 76% in 1976 to 10.5% in 2004. As the biggest of the non-majors with a split ticket to the majors the Democrats have survived by being the biggest of an increasing number of fragmented groups. This has mitigated the effect of a falling primary vote, but a lack of attention to that reality has reached its logical conclusion and must now be addressed. A genteel approach has been shown to fail. It is now, ‘No Pain, No Gain!’

home | about | ace at work | issues & projects | media | links | sitemap

updated: November 21, 2004