Does it matter who wins tomorrow’s Victorian state election? Does it matter which party wins any state election?
Essentially, state governments are in the business of managing — or in the case of the NSW Labor government, mismanaging — service delivery. Even when they are ideologically driven, like the Kennett government, the primary focus of their ideology is on budgets and services.
The good thing about modern state politics is that the voters explicitly understand that state elections are not a battle of ideas, but a referendum on which party is the most efficient manager of public resources.
So yes, of course it matters, but for very different reasons.
In the case of Victoria tomorrow, the stakes are lower because competent management is the likely result no matter which side wins. Only a hung parliament could complicate that stability.
In the case of NSW, next March, grossly incompetent management will end the tenure of the current government, but there’s little evidence that the other mob can fix the mess.
That is a state election that really matters.
From a purely selfish point of view, yes it matters to my business. The wind energy sector in Victoria has come to a complete standstill until it is known whether wind farm developments will be viable (as is the case currently) or not (as will be if the Libs’ anti windfarm policy is implemented).
It’s a mistake to say the NSW ALP Govt is grossly incompetent. They are extraordinarily competent at feather nesting, nepotism, bias, and systemic corruption. Not for them the brown paper bags. No it’s through the front door Part 3A state significant fast track, repeal of planning and natural heritage laws for these boys and girls.
The incompetent bit comes with the misallocation of otherwise intelligent but compromised people to job roles they are not trained for – you only need so many back room political hacks and relatives of same, and probably none in a real PUBLIC SERVICE. But they intelligent they are. They’ve annexed a whole state for 10 years, vertically integrated, with mates in every ngo sector, let alone govt dept, fearful of the machine.
This anonymous editorialist repeats the ‘end of ideology’ nonsense. Left wing parties support the redistribution of resources from the wealthy to the less privileged, normally thru a stronger state. Right wing parties support the accumulation of wealth by the strongest, normally thru a weakened state.
So Labor and more clearly the Greens would, for example, give fewer subsidies to private schools over time, while the Liberals increase subsidies to private schools, hospitals, transport, etc.
The Victorian State election matters very much beyond the mechanics of managing capitalism, as should be evident of the further right wing ideology introduced by the WA Liberal-National Government.
I’ve been no fan of NSW Labor. I’ve already been so astonished in 2003 and 2007, when voters keep returning them to power, that I really would not be surprised if they do the same thing again in 2011 despite all the bluster we hear. NSW voters and the Labor party are like one of those dysfunctional love hate couples you know, your friend keeps saying, “This time I’ve really had it” and you just say, “Yeah, whatever.”
And yet, to give them their due, governing a state is far harder than governing federally. Most of the state policy areas are prosaic and do not make good six o’clock news. Only scandals, corruption, policy failures, and conflicts with Canberra ever make the papers.
The people typically found in Canberra would not be able to do it any better. There just isn’t time in state government for all the posturing, all the doorstops, the “on message” coordination, the Question Time-Wasting. Two thirds of what goes on outside your door is governed by the state, but it receives less than ten per cent of the media attention, and even that only when it slips up.
Without the state governments, Canberra would not be able to look like anything other than the flop it is. Very few federal governments (and not the current one) have really been able to handle the genuine federal issues for which it was created. Things like trade, defence, taxation, banking, and corporations law. Look what a hash they keep making of boat people–18 years and they still can’t make Gerry Hand’s detention policy work without enormous expenditure, constant ministerial intervention, high court battles, and international scandal, all of this over a few thousand boat people a year.
Far easier to put those in the too-hard basket, make some noises and slogans for the electorate, and interfere in state issues like … taking over 60 per cent of hospital funding. Set it up by starving them of funds, and then you can look like saviours by riding in with the billions of dollars in grants that you’ve withheld up until now. Interfere with rail, schools, green loans, whatever, and no matter how stupidly you do it, the state governments will somehow make it work.
I think NSW Labor government has fallen far short of requirements, and it’s way past time for it to go. But still, if I had to choose between NSW Labor and Federal Labor, I’d put my confidence in the Keneally government far ahead of the Gillard one.