The coming Oz election thread ...

Three more years of THIS? Please, no!

The new Howard

Up until now seen as a conviction politician, the Prime Minister is taking the path of ruthless pragmatism in pursuit of a fourth term next Saturday, says national affairs editor Mike Steketee
October 02, 2004

YOU could call it collateral damage: when John Howard raised last week the option of pre-emptive strikes against terrorists overseas, other countries suddenly started paying attention to Australia's election campaign.

..With the stakes so high for the Prime Minister, offending a few million people overseas who do not get a vote in next Saturday's election and raising the old spectre of boorish Australians trying to bully countries in the region is just too bad.

..If he can attract votes by spending money yet to arrive in the Government's coffers but which Treasury says should be available during the next four years, touch wood, cross your fingers, then he will do it. If an Opposition policy even hints at appealing to voters, he is prepared to match it or neutralise it. Throwing money at problems before the 2001 election worked, so he is doing it again, except on a scale many times larger -- in fact, greater than anything previously seen in Australia.

If voters have memories of 17 per cent mortgage rates under the Hawke government -- as many do and as the Liberals are reminding them in their television advertising -- and if the focus groups used by parties to tap into the minds of voters are worried about interest rates rising, as they are, then Howard certainly is not going to let the opportunity pass.

..The fact that economists say that a return to interest rates at these levels is inconceivable and that the Coalition's spending from the budget surplus is more likely to feed into higher interest rates than Labor's policies, is irrelevant. What matters is what the voters believe and reinforcing those beliefs.

..Howard is funding election promises mainly by running down the surplus. By contrast, to try to establish its economic credentials, Labor was identifying offsetting savings for most of its new spending, although Latham is putting his fingers into the surplus till as well.

Though the effect on interest rates of either approach is not necessarily large, it would be greater under the Coalition's policies than Labor's.

..Howard has elevated the relationship with the US to a new plane but at the cost of a commitment to a war in Iraq based on false premises and with dangerous consequences for the Middle East and the fight against terrorism. He is the first of the three main original partners of the coalition of the willing to face election but is lucky that Australia has suffered no casualties and that Iraq looks likely to swing votes mainly in safe Liberal and Labor seats.

.. etc ...

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10942668%5E28737,00.html

Global warming still leaves PM cold
By Stephanie Peatling, Environment Reporter
October 2, 2004

Australia and the United States are now the only two developed countries refusing to sign the Kyoto protocol, after Russia's cabinet announced on Thursday it had approved ratifying the environmental treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

As the election campaign enters its final week, the Government's rejection of the protocol highlights the key policy difference between the Coalition and Labor on the environment.

.. But the Prime Minister, John Howard, yesterday maintained his strong opposition to the protocol, saying "failure to ratify is a measure to protect the interests of Australian companies".

"Our thesis is, and it's a matter of common sense, that we're going to rely on coal and gas and oil predominantly for the forseeable future," Mr Howard said. "If you care about the environment you've got to do something to reduce the emissions coming from the use of those energy sources."

..The Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, was quick to stress a Labor government would ratify the protocol and join the global emissions trading program as part of a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"We're at risk of losing our national icons, our natural assets, and [that is] all the more reason for Australia to follow the international pattern, become part of Kyoto, become part of the effort against global warming," Mr Latham said.

The Democrats, Greens and environment groups all called on Mr Howard to change his mind.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/01/1096527941123.html

With just 6 days to go, here's how Michelle Grattan sees the campaign:

Spellbound voters await a final trick
Federal Politics
By Michelle Grattan/Sunday AGE
October 3, 2004

'We're really in the trenches in this one now," says a senior Liberal. "It might be an arm wrestle all the way - or there might be some fireworks."

The last days of this extraordinary campaign will be tough and unpredictable, driven by hope, fear and all-round uncertainty.

.. The polls are frustratingly unhelpful about how it will end. Friday's Reuters Poll Trend, summarising the main polls, put the Coalition and Labor on 50-50, on a two-party preferred basis. In the Sydney marginal seat of Parramatta one poll has Liberal Ross Cameron holding on - in the other he's losing.

... Howard's campaign has been all scares and giveaways, both delivered in excess. The scares will reach new heights in the next few days, as the Liberals intensify their claims of what a tyro Labor PM would do to your interest rates.

Latham's bold policies are tapping self-interest and emotion. Old and sick and fearful of not being able to get a hospital bed? Labor will take care of you. Younger and healthy, but with aged parents? Don't fret - Latham will look after them. Envious of those wealthy parents with kids at King's College or Melbourne Grammar? They'll lose out, and your kid's school will gain.

... While the furious debate about interest rates, spending, costings, health, education and tax will continue this week, the environment will also take centre stage, when both sides release their policies on Tasmania's old-growth forests.

... Going into the final week, one Labor strategist says of the campaign: "There are a lot of cross currents. There is not one obvious fault line through the electorate." He predicts that we could be just as uncertain about the result on Friday night as we are now.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/02/1096527989015.html?oneclick=true

... and Terry Lane, totally cynical about the bribes, dishonesty & lack of vision, goes nostalgic on us .... recalling the idealism of Gough's campaign in 1972:

All the democracy money can buy
Perspective
By Terry Lane
October 3, 2004

Here we are, six days out from the federal election, and we at No. 5 are still waiting for our bribe.

... while I am feeling left out, the thought occurs to me that there will be youngsters going to the polls for the first time who, in the absence of any experience to the contrary, think that this is the essence of our version of democracy - government by the consent of the bribed.

... On November 13, 1972, in the Blacktown Civic Centre, Edward Gough Whitlam delivered his election campaign speech. "Men and women of Australia . . ." he said, and followed up with a 14,000-word blueprint for a new and different Australia.

... the Whitlam speech is a long description of a better nation in which education is accessible to all, school children receive free dental care, we join Malaysia and Thailand in creating a neutral South-East Asia, we establish diplomatic relations with China, conscription is abolished, public transport is rebuilt to reach the new outer suburbs, every city home is connected to the sewer, health care is funded by a national insurance scheme, productive assets and companies are kept in Australian ownership, a prices justification tribunal keeps watch on prices to match the control on wages, a council of the arts is proposed, and so on.

Whitlam promised a confident nation that uses its prosperity to buy civilisation and modernity. His speech barely mentions the Tories, except to ask, rhetorically, if we want another 23 years just like the previous 23. There is no looking back or insulting his political opponents. They are yesterday's people.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/02/1096527984837.html

<sniff> Now I've gone all nostalgic, too!
My hero!
To think that was as good as it gets!
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah ...

Five days to go & more contradictory poll results. The AGE puts the Coalition in front this morning ... but no doubt other pollsters will say the opposite.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for both parties' final environment statements. <tap tap tap> Apparently both are waiting for the other side to be first! The final (?) bribe, to win over those green-ish swinging voters. And to undermine that big Green preference flow to Labor, in the Lib's case. It will be very interesting to see how Labor approaches this: Will they sell out the loggers (unionists) in Tassie to enhance their green credentials?

Also, apparently there are many "greens are dangerous kooks" advertisements to be run in the media this week by the Libs. A bit of aversion therapy for those dangerous "doctors' wives"?

Major parties head off to the forests
By Jason Koutsoukis, Meaghan Shaw/the AGE
October 4, 2004


Both major parties will use this last week before the federal election to announce an end to clear-felling in Tasmania's old-growth forests.

Prime Minister John Howard is expected to start the bidding for the forest vote tomorrow in the marginal, Labor-held seats of Bass and Braddon.

...Most of the old-growth forests, where logging is taking place, are within Braddon in the north-west corner of the state. There are 10,000 sawmilling jobs at risk.

"The jobs issue is very sensitive here. It does play a huge part in how people will vote and, if our policy impacts on logging jobs in any way, there is going to be some backlash," one Liberal source said. "But the same applies to the Labor Party so, in the end, I think both parties' forest policies may cancel each other out to some extent."

..The parties had been in a "Mexican stand-off" on the forests issue, with Labor anxious to see what Mr Howard was promising before risking the loss of its seats in Tasmania by announcing green-friendly policies that would lose local jobs.

But a senior Labor source yesterday said that Labor was no longer concerned about "going first" with the announcement, and that a satisfactory deal had been reached that would not offend Tasmanian voters.

.. Opposition Leader Mark Latham yesterday said Labor had a policy that was strong on conservation but also had regard for the Tasmanian economy.

"Through good policy I think you can convert the traditional argument about the environment and the economy - which is sort of win-lose - into a win-win outcome, where you have got the preservation of the mighty Tasmanian forests, but also a sustainable development approach with the forest industry," he told the Seven Network.

... Greens leader Bob Brown said the forest issue would be a "litmus test". He told Network Ten the Government was lagging behind Labor on the environment but said "Labor chainsaws" were cutting down the Tasmanian forests.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/03/1096741899938.html?oneclick=true

I found this morning's article, written by professor of politics at La Trobe University, Robert Manne, really interesting. How the the challenge of Latham has changed Howard's approach & motives - trying to be Robert Menzies & Gough Whitlam at the one time. (!) It certainly put the bribes, his famous visit to the under-dogs of Footscray, etc., into a more understandable context.

A battle between the populists
October 4, 2004

The PM's populism, and his place in history, has been challenged by Mark Latham, writes Robert Manne.

One of the most curious features of the current election campaign auction - where the bids of both main parties go up daily - is the attempt by the Prime Minister to play the role of Robert Menzies at one moment and of Gough Whitlam at the next.

..... What is going on? A close acquaintance of the Prime Minister recently explained to me that Howard is obsessed by his role in history. If he loses this election, he will assume his place alongside Lyons, Fraser and Hawke. If he wins, he will become the second-longest-serving prime minister, trailing behind only Menzies. Nothing now matters more to Howard than power. It is a passion that is almost carnal. He is gripped by fear of failure.

... For two years - between the November 2001 election and the elevation of Latham - Howard dominated Australian politics as he never had before, using this dominance to draw Australia into a foreign policy of automatic support for US actions in the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq.

With the arrival of Latham, the period of unchallenged Howard mastery ended. Latham replicated, although more palely, Howard's conservative populist cultural agenda. He threatened Howard in the economic sphere, with what might be called a social-democratic populism of his own. If Tampa was a major turning point in recent politics, Latham's first significant act as Labor leader - his wrong-footing of Howard over parliamentarians' superannuation - was a minor turning point.

... During the current election campaign, Labor has moved from an earlier succession of small-scale populist gestures - over threats to pharmaceutical costs in the US free trade agreement and conspicuous support for the victims of James Hardie - to a string of popular welfare measures, which climaxed last week with the wonderful, if affordable, Whitlamite king-hit - a kind of Tampa in reverse - universal, free hospital care for the elderly. ....

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/03/1096741896956.html

(... on the orgy of Liberal bribe-spending, the fast shrinking deficit & credibility depletion. It'd be funny if it wasn't so irresponsible.)

Latham pledges to save trees and jobs
Last Update: Monday, October 4, 2004. 9:26pm (AEST)/ABC online

... Latham says if Labor is elected it will appoint a panel of experts to assess Tasmania's high conservation forests, including the Tarkine and the Styx to determine whether they need protecting.

The panel will report by September next year and until then there will be an immediate end to clearing of native vegetation, and no extension of any existing logging operations.

In a meeting with timber workers and the industry, Mr Latham said he was committed to a sustainable forest industry, promising an $800 million fund to look at new job opportunities.

... Mr Latham denies the money is compenstaion for job losses, promising his policy will have no net affect on employment in the industry.


The Greens have welcomed Labor's policy, with leader Bob Brown describing it as a breakthrough.

"In terms of expectations, I was holding my breath back in March when Mark and I went for a walk in the forests and today's a remarkable outcome," he said.

"There's been a lot of heartache in Tasmania over this. There's been a lot of people who have put many, many years into this and they have to be saluted, and there's a good feeling that we are moving to one of the great conservation results in this nation's history." ...


... Policy under fire

However the reaction to the package was not all positive, with Prime Minister John Howard accusing Mr Latham of selling out the workers of Tasmania in order to win Greens preferences.

"It's a grubby preference deal and if he can break his word to the workers of Tasmania why should any Australian believe any promise he makes to them at any stage during this election campaign," he said.





FULL ABC REPORT including VIDEO & AUDIO links:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1212801.htm

Hi, Oz-ites. Are we getting close to the finish-line? I hope that each of yall will take the time to predict how you think your election WILL turn out vs how you think it SHOULD turn out.
(johnboy sighs deeply and says Howard).
Please keep us apprised of a trend as returns come in. Thanks & good luck to yall. rjb

Sadly, I think the current government will get back in.....

Disastrously (proving that Australia is a bunch of F*****G morons), I think the current government will get back in.

The current (media) wisdom seems to be that Latham, despite running a far better campaign than expected, needs 3 more years experience before he's "ready to lead". However, I don't think Howard is a shoe in, by any means. I really think it's too close to call. A big increase in Greens votes. I'm remaining quietly optimistic that enough voters will be sick enough of Howard to opt for change.

John Howard, the unionists' (& loggers) friend. Latham, the friend of old growth forests. How very, very strange.

Just 3 days to go!