Being in a government is very much like walking on a tightrope, with the abyss of irrelevance below and gusts of wind buffeting you from both sides, sometimes all at once.
For Prime Minister Gillard it is even harder, because she has to carry on her shoulders the deadweight of the shattered reputation of the Rudd Government, as well as the expectations of the independents who keep Labor in power.
Now Ms Gillard has made matters worse, the polls suggest, by adding a heavy policy burden to complicate her perilous position. And the May Budget did not help.
Yet, as they say, the night looks darkest before the dawn.
The next election, barring unforeseen deaths or accidents among Labor or independent ranks or a piece of Wilkie madness, is a long way away – at least two more budgets away – and previous PMs have shown the way. The best of them, of course, was John Howard. The pattern goes like this. You get in, then you do all the bad stuff and get your difficult ideas on the table. You allow everyone to vent, critique, carp and complain and you watch the polls go south…but do you worry?
No, you don’t worry, because you know that when you have got all the bad stuff out of the way and when everyone has got off their chest whatever was ailing them, then you have plenty of time to turn things around – in quiet political water.
If you want to see a long-term view of the two-party preferred vote, go
here. It is an interesting and educational picture. For example, using the slider provided, have a look at the party shares of the vote in late 1997, say in October, or in mid-1998 or, getting closer, in mid-2001, or mid-2005 or mid-2007. It did not look for him, but John Howard held his nerve and followed the rope to the other side, safely. I think Julia Gillard can match Howard as a tight-rope walker.
After the initial stormy reactions to new ideas and new policies, the waters quieten down, because ultimately (most) Australians are reasonable, conservative people, who know what is good for them. Once they have had their gripes heard, they start to focus on what is really being proposed and usually, especially with a few sweeteners from the government, the policy ideas that once attracted so much fire and ire tend to become almost like good friends. Familiarity dulls the initial dislike and will quell the (almost) irrational fear of the unknown that is actually at the root of people’s reaction to the carbon tax, for example.
I suspect that Ms Gillard understands this pattern well and that she and Greg Combet will have no trouble selling the carbon tax now that the compensation package is on the table and the unknowns gradually become known. And now, of course, Mr Abbott and his colleagues are politically impotent in both Federal chambers, leaving the News Limited Empire as the last true opposition.
On that topic, honestly, when did The Australian become a subsidiary of the League of Rights? The contents of the paper are more Hansonite than Pauline Hanson and the few shreds of quality journalism left become less and less visible under a mountain of fear-driven drivel penned by the usual suspects, interspersed with the endless melodrama of the Royal family and its hangers on. Thank goodness for The Financial Review, where at least one can see facts propping up the proffered opinions, by and large.
Turning back to our main subject, once in quiet water and once the sweeteners are in – and once the Government looks like it actually runs government and can manage the Parliament, in the second half of 2011, the polls will turn around, slowly at first and somewhat hesitantly, but after the 2012 budget it will become obvious that not only is this Government going to make it to the next election, but that it might actually win the next one. Odds, anyone?
Patrick Callioni is a former senior public servant, with the Queensland and Australian Governments, and is now the Managing Director of consulting company, Enterprise Intelligence Pty Ltd, which specialises in helping business to do business with government and vice-versa. www.enterpriseintelligence.net.au.
