Last weekend’s election result proves many things. Behind the scenes, frank reckonings are under way. Some political stars will shine and inevitably others will be snuffed out.
First and foremost, Dan Andrews has been the most underestimated politician in Australia. He thrives on the gap between perception and reality.
Labor Party supporters cheer after the ABC projects an ALP win on November 26.Credit:Getty Images
The more the Murdoch media commentators and their disciples in parliament pursued the nonsense of the counter-productive “Dictator Dan” personal demonisation, the more they distracted themselves from the hard work of developing a credible policy agenda to present as an alternative government.
A bigger own goal Australian politics has not seen since the futile Joh for Canberra push in 1987, which achieved nought but for assuring Bob Hawke another term in office.
Just a few years ago, in the Abbott/Turnbull years, Liberal politicians would gleefully accuse ABC presenters of “living in a bubble”, being inner-city centric and out of touch with the concerns of the “real” Australia.
Pot, kettle. The insular trust circle between conservative politicians and columnists in the Murdoch papers and on Sky News resembles a parallel universe. Increasingly oblivious to the concerns of a younger, engaged and restless electorate, they refuse to acknowledge any evidence inconsistent with “their” world view.
It was their groupthink that enabled the return of the Andrews government just as much as any strategy hatched inside ALP headquarters. Blaming the voters for getting it wrong is a pathway to irrelevance. That the same critique persists even now after the ballot box delivered such an unambiguous result is beyond satire.
The more the Liberal campaign team amplified the unscientific obsessions of anti-vax conspiracists, the more unpalatable they became for the vast majority of voters who always inhabit the sensible centre. Their fixation on the pandemic inclined “gettable” undecided voters to stick with the government.
On top of the much documented and bewildering religious insurgency amidst their ranks, it is simple demographics that is slowly strangling the Liberal Party. Voters between age 18 and 22 were casting their first vote. Voters aged between 22 and 26 their second and anyone under 30 has only voted in elections resulting in a Dan Andrews government.
Some politicians grow in the job – both Dan Andrews and Anthony Albanese have. Conversely, some shrink under the spotlight. Matt/Matthew Guy toppled former opposition leader Michael O’Brien a year ago in a coup hatched with an impatient Tim Smith. O’Brien was replaced for lacking aggression. Matt Guy showed aggression and the voters turned away.
We will never know if O’Brien would have steered the Coalition to a more productive result. It could not possibly have been worse. All those complicit in the plot to throw out O’Brien need to be held to account if the Liberals are to return to relevance.
Michael Kroger, a long-time former Liberal Party branch president, has for many years provided astute insights into conservative thinking.
His commentary on Sky News on election night included re-prosecution of the discredited conspiracy theories about Dan Andrews back-breaking accident, with Peta Credlin nodding along approvingly.
Peta Credlin and Michael Kroger on Sky News on election night.Credit:Sky News
They both have valuable contributions to make to political discourse, but this was not one of them.
On the more measured coverage on ABC TV, shadow treasurer David Davis reinforced the already growing concerns of many colleagues that his use-by date has passed.
His inability to answer the most basic questions about his own costings in the last days of the campaign had already drawn attention to his performance for all the wrong reasons.
He must now make way for new blood and talented women in particular.
On Channel 7, viewers were treated to the mismatch of the year. A gracious Steve Bracks tried generously to explain to a bewildered and floundering Jeff Kennett why the Liberals were losing. Short of spelling out “… but Jeff you are the problem” he could not have done more. As long as Liberals are held enthralled by the mythology of Kennett they will keep losing.
Have the Greens peaked? Perpetually talking themselves up, claiming yet again that they would be in a coalition with the ALP, is akin to the “boy who cried wolf”. Their overall vote hardly shifted.
Leader Samantha Ratnam’s excited and premature election night proclamation of a “greenslide” has proven to be unjustified. In some electorates, their vote dropped. As their support base matures, so they need to as well. Are they activists or a party wanting to govern? It is not possible to be both.
The re-elected ALP government have much work to do. First and urgently, they need to reassert their integrity bona-fides by promising to abolish the group voting tickets that threatened to reduce the upper house to a circus.
They must reverse the budget squeeze on both the Ombudsman and IBAC. The Ombudsman’s current inquiry into the extent of the politicisation of the public service is vital. Recruiting people who share your values is understandable, rewarding party hacks is not.
Guarding against hubris and not becoming a monoculture will be the key to the success or failure of Dan Andrews’ third term.
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