“Many voters like to go with the ‘devil they know’. In this case, neither (Gillard nor Abbott) really fit that bill. Many voters may … see Bob Brown as the “devil they know” and a hedging option if they are not convinced by the Labor or Liberal offering,”

Rowland Insights July 20th 2010

“Remember that there are 3 independents currently in the House of Representatives. The Greens may pick up one or two more in the inner-city seats …. that raises the possibility of a hung parliament and a minority Government. With the Greens hoping to pick up some Senate seats, they could have the balance of power in both Houses.”

Rowland Insights July 20th 2010

“A plague o’ both your Houses…”

Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 1592

“… democracy is the winner, tonight…”

with apologies to footballers everywhere

“Never underestimate the intelligence of the Australian electorate…”

Bob Hawke

Labor may well crawl back into Government, but they have had their majority stripped away with strong swings against them in NSW, Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. At the same time there were swings towards Labor in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.

The debate as to what caused this double hung parliament will go on for some time. One commentator probably was the most correct when he suggested that every theory has a grain of truth to it. The trends were regionally based and can be linked to issues such as the Mining Tax, asylum seekers, an aversion to waste and debt, frustration at the lack of competence of some State administrations affecting the Labor brand.

While many are saying that voters were influenced by disappointment in the way Kevin Rudd was removed from the Prime Ministership, the evidence is not convincing. The public polls show clearly that the Labor vote was considerably weaker until Rudd was removed. Gillard saved the party from certain disaster. Moreover, in Rudd’s own electorate of Griffith, his personal vote suffered a 9.0% swing, and his Two Party Preferred vote dropped by 4.1%.

The election campaign was frustrating to watch as the Leaders tried desperately to maintain their discipline and the policy initiatives trickled out without a definitive statement of vision or purpose. ‘Moving Forward’ and ‘Real Action’ are almost interchangeable for their lack of meaning. Anecdotal evidence is that voters were frustrated from a lack of purpose in addressing major policy concerns. The only real point of difference was on Broadband. The rest was a race to the bottom – the lowest common denominator on issues such as asylum seekers, climate change, gay marriage.

The gross result of this confusion was an uncertainty across the country about who to back. The Greens recorded historically high votes across the nation – 11.4% and higher in the Senate (but still lower than the 15% the polls were suggesting). Family First also did well in Queensland and South Australia, recording small but significant votes of 3%- 4%. Labor candidates with suppressed primary votes were hoping to utilise the 80% of Green preferences that flowed to Labor to overtake the higher Liberal vote. Family First preferences often put the Liberal candidates out of reach for Labor, so those ALP candidates that did not work hard in their electorates over the last three years found themselves too far behind.

The Senate outcome is likely to be Labor 31, Coalition 34, Greens 9, Xenophon 1 and the return of the DLP 1. To win a vote in the Senate, 39 votes are required. The Greens therefore hold the absolute balance of power from 1 July next year.

In the House of Representatives, the net result was a balance of seats between the major parties that means neither can command an outright majority. The latest count is that of the 150 lower house seats on offer, Labor have 72, the Liberals/Nationals have 71, there are 3 independents, 1 Green and 3 still undecided (Hasluck WA, Brisbane QLD, Denison TAS). Labor is behind in all 3, the Liberals will pick up 2 and there may be another independent.

What happens from here?

The magic number is 76 – that is the minimum number to achieve a majority of the 150 votes. If the Liberals achieve 73 seats, they may be able to form a minority Government with the support of the three independents who were all National Party members in the past. While they represent electorates that have been traditionally conservative, their policy and political agendas may not necessarily equate to support for Tony Abbott. If the Liberal Coalition have less than 73 seats, they cannot form a majority.

Labor would need to win both Hasluck and Brisbane to be able to form a majority without the conservative independents. This seems unlikely on current counting. That means that Julia Gillard will be focusing on winning the support of at least two of the conservative independents. If she manages to win over all three, the final balance of seats to Liberal or Labor becomes academic and Gillard will be able to form a government before final declarations which are not due until the week beginning 6 September.

In the meantime, the Caretaker conventions continue. Gillard and her Ministers continue to operate as a Government, but cannot make any significant decisions without the bi-partisan endorsement of the Coalition.

What does it mean for Queensland?

Labor got a hiding in Queensland. The primary vote plummeted to 34% (when 42% is normally required to win the majority of seats), with the LNP achieving a very respectable 47%. The Greens were a little under the national average with 10.4%. The 6 seats lost (9 if you count those made notionally Labor by the redistribution) included seats not expected to fall which held Gillard back from retaining a majority. Longman, Forde, Bonner and Brisbane were all seats that could have been held by Labor in the same way that Moreton and Petrie were retained.

This was a Federal Election, not a State election, but the voting patterns are consistent with current polling on the Bligh Government. If these trends in Two Party Preferred swings hold to March 2012, the balance of seats in the Queensland Parliament would be almost exactly reversed with a transfer of 18 seats providing the LNP with an absolute majority. If the Green vote is similarly high in the State election, however, the result for Labor could be worse as Optional Preferential voting would see many Green votes exhaust without preferencing Labor.

Labor’s brand is becoming as tainted in Queensland as it is in New South Wales. With Anna Bligh’s dissatisfaction rating sitting at 70%, it’s not surprising that the rumour mills are churning with disenchantment. No obvious moves are yet afoot, and the Premier is standing her ground and not conceding any policy changes, but unless there is substantial improvement in these numbers there will be dozens of ALP members of Parliament worrying about their future career options.

Watch this space….

This is Australia’s first hung parliament since World War II and the result of what most political experts have described as poorly run campaigns, by both major parties – void of clear actionable policy that addresses the current issues, and carves out a path for Australia plans for the future. The latest analysis gives Labor 72 seats, the Coalition 70, the Greens 1 and 3 independents, with three seats still in doubt. Therefore, most analysts agree that neither party will have the 76 seats in the 150 seat house to form a government that has the confidence of the House of Representatives.

Consequently, Australia’s political fate rests on the shoulders of three sitting independent MPs who are yet to show any signs of aligning their allegiance to either party, Australia therefore is a nation in limbo. The uncertainty and disillusionment that clouded the campaigns of both parties continues, a sentiment that saw the Greens gain a record number of 11.4% votes and informal votes increase to a new record high of 5.64%.

Even if Julia Gillard or Tony Abbot manage to form a government, it is unlikely to last the normal three year full-term of Government. The issues that will eventually decide the election are yet to be clearly determined – the media, the independents and the parties themselves, each have different views. With this in mind, a hung parliament is hardly surprising and a final result looks more than a week away.

On Monday night close to a million Australian viewers tuned in to see Labor’s candidate, the incumbent PM, Julia Gillard front a live in-studio audience and a healthy number of very active twitter followers on Q & A, a popular weekly discussion program on Australian TV station, the ABC.

It seems Australian’s are in fact not interested in what should be the issues crucial to Australia’s future and critical to this election, such as the flailing health system, stance on immigration and education among a number of others. Instead, what should have been THE opportunity for Labor to reiterate their policies and strengthen their credentials, turned quickly into a revealing discussion into our current Prime Minister’s private life – Gillard explained why she is yet to be married or have children, her unique Australian accent and whether she’s had elocution lessons, her atheism and how she copes living with red hair???

As Australia continues to feel its way through a global economy still reeling from the aftermath of a global financial crisis it seems we are missing the point and dancing around the real issues before we head to the polls. And, the funny thing is our election candidates and their parties are dancing with us.

Following the one-to-one interview on ABC’s Q & A on earlier in the week the election moved to Australia’s largest RSL club (Returned Serviceman’s League) in Rooty Hill on Wednesday night. With pokie machines out-front, a hand selected audience of apparently undecided voters were given the opportunity to quiz both leaders; Ms Gillard first, followed by Mr Abbott (or Mr Rabbit as the PM calls him).

Marginal seats and second preference votes remain up for grabs and the audience was hostile towards Ms Gillard, with difficult questions again surrounding the Labor party stance on gay marriage. In the end all Mr Abbott had to do was get down to the audience’s level, which he did, literally jumping down off the stage to stand amongst the people and 74% of online viewers awarded the night to the Coalition.

8 days to go and the policy differences continue to emerge but with the Coalition planning to put a stop to the A$43bn National Broadband Network and refusing to submit their policies to the Treasury for costings, the sums don’t yet match up.

Those living in New York City might have seen the awkward sight in downtown Manhattan in September 2009: a little Dutch Village including (of course!) a windmill right at the Bowling Green. ‘New Amsterdam’, as the village was named, was part of a large scale public diplomacy campaign of the Dutch government to celebrate that 400 years ago the Dutch founded New York City.

For several weeks, not too far from Ground Zero, the Dutch staged an extensive $10 million dollars campaign to promote the Netherlands among Americans as a liberal and tolerant country. The Dutch like New Yorkers to believe that the open-minded spirit of NYC today finds its origins in the liberal attitudes of the Dutch that founded New Amsterdam in 1609.

What a difference a year makes….
Only one year after the Dutch NY400 festivities, on September 11, 2010 the New Yorkers will be presented a image of the Netherlands that is opposite to the open-minded and liberal sprit image portrayed in 2009.
Geert Wilders, the ultranationalist Dutch politician who has suggested banning the Koran as hate speech, is speaking at Ground Zero on 9/11, as part of a rally against the Islamic community center being built nearby.  The speech provides an international stage for Wilders to express his controversial ideas about Islam, a key issue in his political program in the Netherlands which has given him great popularity: his political party the Party for Freedom (PVV) was one of the winners in June’s elections.

The impact on coalition talks
The timing of Wilders’ speech at Ground Zero is precarious, as Wilders is currently one of the main negotiators in the formal coalition talks between the Christian-Democrats (CDA) and the Conservative-Liberals (VVD) in shaping a minority government with the support of Wilder’s PVV. Within the Christian-Democrats Party, a fierce war is going on between its members on the issue of Wilders: “Should a democratic party with its main principle the Freedom of Religion, be cooperating with a party that aims to limit the Freedom of Religion, in this case Islam?”. The growing struggle within the Christian-Democratic party is putting a large pressure on party leader Maxime Verhagen. Wilders planned speech on 9/11 definitely won’t help.

Struggling diplomats
Besides national politicians also the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is struggling with the possible participation of an ultranationalist party in Dutch government. Rumor has it that out of fear of a negative impact on the Netherlands’ international reputation, diplomats are instructed to downsize the importance of Wilders in the Netherlands. This again caused fury among national politicians and of course, Mr. Wilders himself.

A country image that will last

It’s an interesting case to see how hard it is to build up and maintain a country’s reputation. Would the $10 million dollars spent in 2009 prove now to be a valuable investment as it might have created kind of ‘buffer’ for the Dutch reputation that can bounce of current negative sentiments towards the Netherlands? Or would it just be wasted efforts due to the activity of one single man?

Bottom-line probably is that although it might just be windmills, tulips or weed, at least the Netherlands does have such a strong and recognizable image that this cannot be simply faded out by whatever Dutchmen….

According to the Labor Party website the Gillard Government is delivering a National Health and Hospitals Network, to provide better health and better hospitals for Australian working families which would be the most significant reform to Australia’s health and hospitals system since the introduction of Medicare in the early 1970’s. They claim it will make sure more hospital beds are available, provide more doctors and nurses, and make it easier to receive high quality GP and primary care services closer to home.

To ensure the system’s funding is sustainable into the future, the Labor Government says it will provide a minimum of $15.6 billion in top-up funds for public hospitals over the next decade.

This week the Coalition (Liberal Opposition) announced their plans for Australian Healthcare promising to deliver a $3.6 billion ‘beds and boards’ policy on public hospitals that will make a difference by directly tying increased funding to the delivery of more services. They also promise to reduce centralised bureaucracy and allow hospitals to better respond to the needs of patients and hospital staff.

The Coalition says they will provide $90.7 million over four years towards the establishment and operation of a community controlled public hospitals. They say they will provide funding of $3.1 billion for 2,800 new public hospital beds over the next four years, their election promise is to deliver 1,500 more beds than under the Rudd-Gillard Government’s National Health and Hospital Networks plan which they say will go a long way towards meeting the AMA’s 85 per cent occupancy benchmarks. This commitment to 2,800 beds includes our previous announcement of $832 million for 800 sub-acute and acute mental health beds.

Reflecting the decision to remove Kevin Rudd from office the Government received a bounce in their poll numbers. The mining industry and Government called an amnesty on their respective attack ads and for a short while it looked like the Labor Government would sweep to victory and a second term on the 21st August.

However the last week of the election campaign has seen the polls swing in favour of the Coalition. The election remains close and with two weeks to go the marginal seats, particularly in Queensland and New South Wales are set to play a major part in the final outcome.

In the end Julia won on points, but it was Tony who’d narrowed the expectations gap and off they went to the marginal seats where the sniping continued around climate change, immigration figures and cost of living pressures.

Then, late on Tuesday night Channel Nine broke the news of the first election scandal. It was revealed that as Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Gillard had argued against a rise in cash for age pensions and parental leave because ”old people never vote for us”. The responses from Labor HQ appeared disingenuous whilst Tony Abbott, who’d fought his own party for an increase in paid parental leave was able to tout himself as the only leader looking after families.

Labor were quick to point the finger at the newly deposed ex-PM Kevin Rudd as the source of the leaks, but both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader were keeping quiet, preferring to continue a campaign of ‘issues and substance’.

The biggest issue of the week? Julia’s front cover issue of the classic, must-read mag, The Australian Women’s Weekly, of course.

In her speech at the University of Queensland in spite of the student protesters, Ms Gillard announced the formation of a ‘Citizens Assembly’, with participants representative of the wider population. Their remit would be to gather together evidence of support from Australians for action on Climate Change and report in 12 months time. Malcolm Turnbull, the deposed opposition leader who’d once stood in support of the Labor party’s Emission Trading Scheme, tweeted not long after the announcement, questioning the distinction between the proposed Assembly and Parliament itself. Who knows?

The Prime Minister also promised to impose tougher emissions standards which would ensure energy generation is ‘cleaner and greener’. She called for a 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 and promised that the Labor Government would spend $1 billion over 10 years to make it easier to connect renewable energy projects to the electricity grid.

The campaign took a break yesterday, 22nd July, for the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader to attend the funeral of digger Nathan Bewes, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on July 9. With Afghanistan on the agenda, the Liberals resumed the campaign this morning by questioning, former PM, Kevin Rudd’s suitability for involvement in a new Government as it was reported that as Prime Minister he had often delegated responsibility of the National Security Committee of the Cabinet to his 31-year-old Chief-of-Staff.

Other issues that continue to draw focus in the campaign include border security, health and education, but whilst media monitors report that by their count, Kevin Rudd was mentioned 18,312 times across radio, press and TV it would appear that Ms Gillard and even Mr Abbott are going to have to do more to make the headlines.

This is the stuff of which nations are built.

To help us better understand the policies of each leader, one national debate has been called for this Sunday evening. Then we’ll hear the promises and policies of the Labor and Liberal leaders. Gillard’s promise to clamp down on population growth goes head-to-head with Tony Abbot’s call for billions of dollars of savings. Finally – substance!

Yet before we rush to embrace this vision of democracy in action, there’s been a fly in the soup. A real big, popular, crowd-pleasing fly in the soup.

Channel Ten is now home to one of the highest ranked shows in television history. “Master Chef” is a reality competition program where aspiring cooks compete for the ultimate prize – adoration from millions of strangers and gushing acceptance on broadcast television. (Amazingly in a USA survey, high school students were asked how they would fund their retirement – 50% said with the winnings of a reality TV show.)

But here’s the conundrum. “Master Chef” is on at 7:30 pm and that’s the time the debate was scheduled. What to do? National politics and the future of Australia, or the conclusion of a cook-off?

To satisfy the national appetite, the debate time has been changed. So now we can have our debate and eat it too.

In the last two thousand years so much has changed, and yet so little. Saturday I watched “Gladiator” again and am reminded of the Roman senator’s comments as Russell Crowe prepared for a nation-winning battle:

I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they’ll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they’ll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it’s the sand of the coliseum. He’ll bring them death – and they will love him for it. – The Gladiator

In two thousand years what’s changed? Perhaps now it isn’t “bring them death” but instead “bring them death by chocolate.”

The last election and the way in which Labor swept to victory was historic and it came after the previous government under John Howard had twice bucked the usual rule of Australian politics for governments to lose support over time. The Coalition’s vote and parliamentary majority increased at both the 2001 and 2004 elections, the latter election seeing Labor’s support collapse in critical mortgage belt seats. The 2004 result left the Labor Party needing a swing of 5% to achieve government at the 2007 election.

In the end the 2-party preferred swing to Labor was a massive 5.4%, which amongst post-war swings is beaten only by the 7.4% swing achieved by the Coalition under Malcolm Fraser in 1975, and the 7.1% swing as Gough Whitlam took Labor close to victory in 1969. The Howard government fought to the end, with several of the government’s 11-year marginal seat members hanging on in tight contests, delivering Labor a smaller majority than might otherwise have been expected.

The Rudd government dominated the opposition post election and in its first twelve months, took on issues such as national reconciliation and climate change that the Howard government had stubbornly refused to address.

For Kevin Rudd, the turning point in opinion polls came at the end of 2009, when the government became involved in an extended stand-off with rescued asylum seekers. The debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) also reached a pitch at the end of 2009. A compromise was reached with the opposition to pass the legislation, but the Coalition split, and Malcolm Turnbull lost his place as opposition leader in the aftermath.

The defeat of the CPRS was followed by the failure of the Copenhagen climate change conference. By early this year, Tony Abbott’s message that the CPRS was just a ‘great big new tax’ and the fallout from ‘Climate-gate’ was gaining traction. Rudd’s ratings fell further following Cabinet’s decision to abandon any attempt to implement the CPRS before 2013 whilst another beast in the Resources Super Profits Tax fired up the mining industry in opposition to the government. As the Labor Party’s vote started to track down in the wake of the Prime Ministers personal approval ratings, factional leaders acted on growing unease in the caucus.

In the space of a few hours, the final sitting day of the Parliament, 24th June, saw Julia Gillard supplant Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. Now it is the electorate’s turn to decide whether the next occupant of the vacant Lodge will be Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott and we’re yet to see whether boundary changes and an unhappy Queensland (in mourning for their boy Rudd) will play a role in the outcome.

Whether I return from my holiday in La Douce France and may welcome a new government is still questionable. Many people believe that VVD leader Mark Rutte is working on an electoral risky adventure with the purple-plus negotiations. According to a recent poll only eight percent of VVD voters think it is a good idea of Rutte trying to form a coalition with PvdA, D66 and the Greens.

Team captain Rutte has enough experienced players on the bench to form a decent government. The only problem is that his players are not a team. Where the Dutch national team has showed to be a unity – yes, we are in the World Cup final  - in the Dutch parliament this is far to look for.
The Netherlands has many technical qualities, both individually and collectively, according to the Brazilian superstar Kaka. Defending your goal (‘don’t let the budget deficit go up further’), controlling the midfield (‘avoid further polarization of Dutch society’) and go on the offensive (‘the creation of new jobs’) will only succeed if you work as a team…

It is once again questionable if Rutte has the charisma to make a real team of his purple-plus players. A new name for a possible VVD premiership has been mentioned already: Ivo Opstelten, former mayor of Rotterdam. It was Opstelten who was responsible for bringing the Grand Start of the Tour de France to Rotterdam. This could lead to an interesting combination of two former majors in one team; Opstelten together with Job Cohen, the former mayor of Amsterdam. Cohen brought this very year the Start of the Giro d’Italia to Amsterdam to compete with Rotterdam’s Tour de France and put the Dutch capital in the spotlights.

Let’s hope this won’t lead to a two-star duel comparable to the Spanish Pedro – Torres incident in yesterday’s World Cup semi-final. In that game Pedro Rodríguez squandered an opportunity to add a second goal against Germany because, instead of passing the ball to his team mate Torres, he wanted to be the big star of the team and missed…