Oz Politics Blog

Bernard Lagan’s book, Loner: Inside a Labor tragedy is chewing through the column inches. I have yet to buy a copy, let alone read it. Yet, with the amount that has been written, I feel I know it.

Margo Kingston has Senator Faulkner’s speech from the book launch. It was thoughtful, considered, and well worth reading. But then I am a sucker for the finely crafted speech, and this one was superb.

I know that to follow custom I should stand up here and say how much I enjoyed reading this book. I’m sorry, Bernie. I have to honestly say that I did not enjoy reading this book one little bit.

It’s not that the book is bad. The opposite! In fact, it was because the book so sharply describes some of Federal Labor’s most difficult days that I found it such a profoundly depressing read. Why, I wondered, couldn’t we have had a chronicler who dulled the agony with numbing detail and tedious prose?

There are far too many gems to deal with them all. One throw away line that particularly tickled me was Faulkner’s prediction Loner would do well in the market place. Possibly because “Labor’s history sell better than those about the conservatives. Of course, it may simply be because tragedies sell better than farce.”

Another was Faulkner’s coded warning on Latham’s own soon-to-be-published diaries.

Diaries are like that: they reflect the opinions, the blind spots and biases of those who keep them. Historians using diaries as sources should be aware that they are no more accurate or truthful than the person making the entry. Even Henri Petain, hardly a paradigm of virtue himself, said that to write a memoir “is to speak ill of everybody except oneself”.

Or to quote Bridget Jones, “Everyone knows diaries are just full of crap.”

Over at the SMH Peter Hartcher gets stuck into the subject.

Everything Mark Latham has done since losing last year’s federal election has vindicated the electorate’s decision to reject him.

Now he has again given aid and comfort to John Howard by petulantly and vindictively disparaging the party that trusted him with its highest office.

In fact, his latest comments are so puerile and show such total lack of self-reflection that anyone reading them can only feel Australia dodged a bullet in deciding not to elect him prime minister.

In the Age, Michelle Grattan and Misha Schubert examine the fall-out for Beazley. Apparently Latham described Labor as “beyond repair”, and Beazley as a “stand-for-nothing” leader. This prompted Harry Quick, a Tasmanian backbencher, to call publicly for strong leadership and a better candidate to replace Beazley. According to Grattan and Schubert,

Although the numbers are not there to replace Mr Beazley, Mr Latham’s bitter attack has reinforced the anger of the old Latham group in the caucus, who feel done down by last week’s reshuffle.

In the Australian, Steve Lewis and Brad Norington reflect on Faulkner’s harshest criticisms, directed to the toxic culture of the NSW Labor machine and its impact on the young Latham. The fall-out for Beazley is a theme that Lewis and Norington also take up.

Opposition frontbencher Robert McClelland said Labor could enhance its appeal to middle Australia if it tackled the entrenched views of teachers’ unions.

“The Latham period is a lesson that unless any leader has the courage to take on and override narrow sectional interests, the party will inevitably fail to win elections,” Mr McClelland said.

In a passing reference to Chifley’s famous 1949 speech, Faulkner noted the light on the hill, and the shadows beneath, are both part of Labor’s past. Yet Quick, McClelland and other insiders demonstrate Labor is still arguing about the ideological location of the hill where the light is.

I am looking forward to reading Loner.

Update: Others who have blogged on this include Public Opinion, Liam (+1), SSR, Tim Blair, and The Daily Slander.

Update #2: A fantastic analytical piece from Paul Kelly in the Australian on 2 July 2005.

Peter Brent from Mumble claimed in Saturday’s Fin Review that the conventional wisdom is wrong about Beazley’s re-election chances.

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley can reshuffle to his heart’s content, he’s still unlikely to win the next election, whenever it is. The government is too entrenched, the required swing (about 5 per cent) is all but insurmountable, Prime Minister John Howard’s grip is too firm and Labor stands for nothing.

That’s the accepted wisdom. But it’s wrong. It’s the coalition that will struggle at the next election.

Elections rarely turn on all those things commentators talk about.

One overriding rule that is rarely acknowledged is that young governments find re-election easy, while old ones find it increasingly difficult.

His thesis, put simply, is that age wearies. The electorate tires of the government of the day. Brent used the analogy of the seven year itch, noting that the average term of government since 1970 was around seven years.

Of the 21 governments elected since 1970 (ignoring incumbents), 18 made it to a second term. Of those, 10 won a third term. Of that group, only three made it into a fourth term. Just one of those made it five in a row and none made it to six.

That represents success rates, respectively, of 86 per cent, 56 per cent, 30 per cent, 33 per cent and zero. It’s called electoral gravity: re-election just gets harder.

Brent concluded, “on the question of likelihood, the evidence points in one direction. Labor will probably win the next federal election”.

I am less convinced.

Brent chose 1970 as his starting point because it “can be seen as the beginning of modern politics, with reasonably fair boundaries and bipartisan professionalism”. But as every statistician knows, the selection of a starting point is critical to any trend analysis. If Brent went back just one Liberal government his central thesis would have failed, as the following graph shows.

While the lines in the above graph for Whitlam and Fraser are consistent with Brent’s ageing-government come fed-up-electorate thesis, the lines for Menzies and Howard are not. Even the Hawke-Keating years are problematic for Brent’s thesis.

Brent’s analysis fails to factor in the impact of the economy on electoral cycles. There is a large literature on the impact of the economy on electoral cycles, and econometric models are often used to predict election outcomes. Election outcomes are not just about probability, they are also about performance.

Furthermore, Brent undersold the conventional wisdom. While the size of Howard’s margin is one element, there are others. A fuller rendition of the conventional wisdom would have noted that Prime Ministers who are recession-free and debacle-free usually win elections.

For my money, you cannot go past the betting market for an accurate assessment of Beazley’s chances of winning the next Federal election. The punters at Centrebet rate his chances at 36 per cent and the punters at IASbet have it at 40 per cent. It is competitive, but it is a long way from “Labor will probably win the next federal election”.

The Northern Territory election result has been declared, confirming the make-up of the new Parliament: 19 Labor, 4 County Liberals, and 2 independents.

The Country Liberal party has chosen Jodeen Carney as its leader and another woman, Fay Miller, as its deputy. Carney’s Alice Springs based seat of Araluen was the only seat to experience a swing to the Country Liberal Party at the recent election. Although that swing is explained in the following from Anthony Green.

Araluen was one of the new electorates created for the 1983 election when the Parliament was expanded. It has moved around over the years, originally covering central Alice Springs, shifting westwards for the 1987 and 1990 elections before returning to the centre in 1994. The electorate was held from 1986 until 2001 by former government Minister Eric Poole. On his retirement, two Independents contested the seat, well-known local councillor Meredith Campbell and ex-CLP candidate Tony Bohning. The CLP’s primary vote fell 27%, the swing after preferences was 17.1%, with new CLP candidate Jodeen Carney elected with a majority of only 134 votes.

The independents did not run in 2005, allowing Carney to recapture the CLP heartland.

This week Prime Minister John Howard should announce a new front bench following the retirement of Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson. Contrary to early speculation of large scale movement, the signs are that this should be minimalist ministerial reshuffle. One National will be elevated to Cabinet. The favourite is Peter McGauran, currently the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs. If McGauran is promoted there will be a series of consequential movements: a National Parliamentary Secretary should be elevated to the outer Ministry, and a National backbencher should become a Parliamentary Secretary.

Bernard Lagan will release his biography on Mark Latham, Loner: Inside a Labor tragedy. The book is being launched by Senator John Faulkner on Wednesday. To help set the climate for the release of what promises to be a highly inflammatory tell-all book, Latham apparently criticised Kim Beazley, saying he is not worthy to lead Labor, and claimed Labor is a spent force in Australian politics.

Beazley is taking heat over his recent restructure, in which many ex-Latham supporters did poorly. Zero sum games are always difficult. Apparently Simon Crean was furious at being demoted to regional development from the key economic portfolio of trade. The talented Bob McMullan and Craig Emerson remain unhappily on the backbench as under performing individuals remain in the shadow ministry.

And just to prove as much things change they stay the same, Glenn Milne is still spruiking for Peter Costello. It was interesting to compare Milne’s assessment with Michelle Grattan’s.

PS Trevor Smith’s op ed piece in today’s Australian is an interesting analysis.

At the moment, Labor’s best prospects of winning appear to rest with a recession, a monumental mistake by the Coalition, or Howard’s likely successor, Peter Costello, being extremely unpopular with voters.

But Labor has an opportunity. It needs to admit that its historical supporter base and its potential supporter base are culturally conservative. Labor must choose. It can continue the way it has in recent times, allowing itself to be dominated by an inner-metropolitan, latte-sipping minority and avoiding hard questions. Alternatively, it can seek to represent the mainstream.

While I agree with Smith that middle Australia is where elections are won or lost, all political parties must produce broad church coalitions to win government. There are no single constituency paths to government.

I have decided to replace the side bar with two navigation bars: one at the top of the page and the other at the bottom. The idea was to simplify things. I need to keep a wide screen format for the graphs and tables I regularly publish. But with the sidebar, it was too wide. I am still playing with other aspects of the layout (like the blog roll). As always, comments are welcome.

Update - 2 July 2005 - Version 0.2.1 of the wordpress theme is here.