nimh wrote:So after studying the
ABC Interactive Election Map, I gather that the decisive factor was a strikingly above-average swing to Labor in rural districts, and mixed districts with small towns? In Queensland and South Australia especially, and New South Wales as well?
Seems like Labor actually only booked modest gains in comparison in the cosmopolitan urban centres and its stronghold Victoria. I also read somewhere that the swing toward Labor was bigger the further 'outland' from the cities you went, I think.
Are these mixed/rural areas districts that have gone to Labor for the first time? Or did they use to be Labor in the past as well, but were just temporarily lured to the Liberals for the past decade under Howard?
What has made the swing so strong in semi-rural areas and small towns - was there something in Howards' policies during his last term that pissed people off there in particular? I read something about how it was new employment / workplace laws that specifically made "laborers" turn away from Howard en masse?
To what extent am I misreading the maps and has it more been suburbia that swung to Labor?
Did Rudd target rural/small-town or suburban voters in some way especially in his campaign?
Sorry if some of these questions were already dealt with earlier in this thread (those employment laws for example, I guess were already discussed), feel free to refer me back...
I must say, I'm really impressed with your efforts to comprehend the swing to Labor, nimh.
While I'm no Antony Green (ABC election guru) this swing has been attributed to the rejection of Howard's policies by those who have been called "Howard's battlers". These were the (lower paid) Australian workers who defected to Howard & the Liberals from Labor early on & continued supporting Howard despite an ever increasing number of reasons to reject him. (Like our much-opposed involvement in Iraq, the AWB scandal, the treatment of asylum seekers, David Hicks, over zealous "security" measures that threatened civil liberties, etc, etc, etc, etc, ect! You would have to read over months & months of this thread to grasp the full horror of what has happened to this country under Howard.)
So, despite all the arguments for removing the Howard government, his "battlers" believed he was working in their interests, was on their side. At the last election he promised to keep interest rates at record lows - suggesting that Labor would send them spiralling to dangerous levels. This at a time when Australians apparently had "never had it so good", a time of "record prosperity", as a result of the mining boom & a huge increase in trade with Asia. But the prosperity wasn't equally shared - some people were very much better off while others (like his "battlers") were genuinely struggling to make ends meet.
At the last election, with a remarkable landslide victory, the Liberals gained control of both houses of parliament. The opposition was decimated. Howard took advantage of this situation by by introducing his
WorkChoices "reforms" - which were not part of his election platform. And which impacted
hugely on lower paid workers. He continued to argue, with incredible insensitivity, that Australians had never been so well off & failed to acknowledge the evidence of increasing hardship for lower paid Australians. This was followed by a number of interest rate rises, which clearly, he had no power to contain, despite his promise..
So, to cut a long story short, he lost this election because his power base, his "battlers", completely lost faith in him. They deserted him in droves. In both the rural & the country areas. In urban areas these people often reside in "safe" Labor electorates, so the much increased vote to Labor would not change the anticipated result. The outskirts of the major cities (the satellite towns) are now areas of major financial difficulty. A lot of mortgage & credit stress out there, along with high levels of unemployment, or precarious employment. The voting changes in the rural areas you mentioned are much more noticeable because these are traditional conservative strongholds.
In a nutshell, it was hubris which brought Howard undone. After the 2004 election victory, which gave him control of both houses, he thought he could do ANYTHING & get away with it. By implementing his IR policies he made the worst mistake a politician can make - taking his power base for granted.
. We can sing, "Keep the red flag flying here," and perhaps he'll just think we're singing a christmas song..
