So the Prime Minister, her party far behind in the polls, the media constantly attacking her and wondering when she’ll be dumped for Kevin Rudd, spent the week in western Sydney talking about fixing two problems that don’t exist — the rorting of 457 visas and the surging crime problem in western Sydney.
The result, perversely, may well be successful in the short term.
After a dreadful start to the year in which all of 2012’s hard work was undone, if Julia Gillard had persisted with business-as-usual politics she might as well have packed her things and invited Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott round to the Lodge for a cuppa and a chat as to which of them would like to move in first. She needed a circuit-breaker, and she needed to find a way to route around a press gallery that had concluded she was finished and was point blank refusing to report what she was saying.
So, first she switched to campaign mode. That negated some of the capacity of the press gallery to block the Prime Minister’s messaging; she spent the week aiming at the evening news bulletins in Sydney, and scored stories every night, even if they weren’t always positive. Then she switched topics: that we’ve just spent several days discussing 457 visas and gun crime is testament to a rare success on Labor’s part of shaping the political conversation.
It doesn’t much matter that media types (like me) were pointing out the implicit xenophobia and lack of substance to the attack on 457 visas, or that backbenchers were privately complaining about how disgraceful the campaign was (“the death spiral of a suicide cult”, said one). That sort of nuance is filtered out long before the message reaches disengaged and uninterested voters.
Indeed, if one didn’t know any better, one would suggest the Prime Minister had reached into the bag of tricks of John Howard, who would rhetorically embrace populist positions full well knowing the ensuing fury from the Left would sustain the issue on the national agenda for days at a time. To watch Abbott having to defend 457 visas — and he didn’t do a bad job in terms of his messaging — was to be reminded of Kim Beazley perennially being forced to react to yet another gambit by John Howard.
Another issue, in Queensland, is ripe for similar treatment. Last week, Wayne Swan immediately spotted the potential to attack the Queensland government’s new health policy around the privatisation and outsourcing of health services. “Patients don’t really care who delivers their services,” Lawrence Springborg declared at the time. Maybe, maybe not. But patients don’t vote. Voters vote. And they hate privatisation, with a passion, especially in Queensland. Ask Anna Bligh.
“The Prime Minister has so far this year articulated an economic strategy that accepts the challenge posed by a high currency in an open economy …”
Then the Newman government released part of Peter Costello’s Commission of Audit report, a highly expensive document that concluded the government should privatise everything it could, the sort of suggestion that can’t be made by just any overpaid consultant, but which requires a former Treasurer and, ahem, lobbyist to make.
Used effectively, privatisation could be an invaluable campaign weapon for federal Labor that might nullify any swing against the government in Queensland, given Queenslanders are already unhappy about Newman’s assault on public services and the Moonlight State-type level of governance that has rapidly emerged under the LNP.
Coincidentally, the week also saw an “orderly transition” in Victoria. One man’s midnight assassination is another’s etc etc. Plainly, at least according to Abbott, Ted Baillieu woke up on Wednesday and didn’t feel like being premier any more and advised his partyroom accordingly; they regretfully accepted his resignation and elected another leader. No factions, no poll-induced pressure, no long-awaited revenge for snubbed powerbrokers, nothing in any way to suggest any parallels of any kind with Kevin Rudd. Or, for that matter, Labor “accepting” the vote of Craig Thomson while he was under investigation for rorts before he entered politics; that’s not at all like accepting the vote of Geoff Shaw, the aggressive Christian fundamentalist under investigation for rorts while he’s been in politcs.
Voters may not see that truth, unfortunately. The net result may well be that any Liberal hopes of knocking off Darren Cheeseman, Mike Symon or Laura Smyth in Victoria are dashed.
That just leaves Tasmania, where Labor is at risk of losing one or two seats, and NSW, where western Sydney is the key. The logic of Gillard’s western Sydney campaign makes ever more electoral sense.
But even if successful, the Prime Minister’s strategy this week carries a major risk. It may generate short-term gains in the electorates where Labor needs them the most. But what is the long-term cost? By adopting a populist, xenophobic line on an aspect of immigration, what message is Labor sending to traditional support bases like ethnic communities and progressive voters? And what message is Labor sending more broadly about its commitment to an open economy?
The Prime Minister has so far this year articulated an economic strategy that accepts the challenge posed by a high currency in an open economy, and in doing so the government has presented its best, most coherent economic message since it was elected. But indulging in the sort of populist rhetoric we’ve seen this week, even if it works in the short term, might have serious repercussions in years to come, both for the party’s support and for its very identity.
hello bernard, not a bad article in most respects BUT dont you even get it, the 457 VISA SYSTEM IS BEING RORTED IN A BIG WAY END OF STORY ,ifyou as one of crikeys leading journos dont know this than you are obviously not doing your job and your research properly
I heard about a new road, gangs, innovation centre and 475 visas with some informed commentary about the need for public transport rather than roads and the rest has been media commentary on whether Gillard’s visit will turn her fortunes around rather than actually what she did or said there ie more about the journalists than the visit. But then I live in Victoria in a safe seat so I suppose the visit was not intended to target me. But it would have been nice to get a bit of a summary of her visit.
As for 457 visas: I am not sure this will have a negative impact on the people you think it might affect, Bernard. 457 visa holders are not migrants (although quite a few migrants may have arrived in Australia as 457 visa holders). They are temporary workers and the argument can be cast as employers not training, apprenticing or recruiting locals but taking the easy option of bringing someone in whom they don’t have to train and this argument can appeal to migrants as well as long-settled Australians looking for work. Not saying I agree with a campaign like this, just think it could resonate in the community.
And it can be a wedge against Abbott because under Howard, 457s were used to bring in workers who undercut Australian wages, to complement Workchoices.
The PM’s statements re 457 visas are not xenophobic. 457 visa holders are not being demonised. Criticism is aimed at those employers who use 457 visas not to overcome a labour shortage but to bypass the local labour market to obtain cheap and compliant labour. And no government spokesmen accused 457 visa holders of bringing typhoid into the country, throwing their children into the ocean or of being potential criminals who needed to be watched by the police.
Bernard’s reflections are always worthwhile but they glide over the deeper facts. Why some Labor MP would be silly enough to sabotage the government with “the death spiral of a suicide cult” response to the 457 announcement is a mystery. True, as Bernard reflects, when the MSM wants you gone it is hard to get a good story. Gillard, of course, did not “undo” all the good week of the previous year. MSM undid it with outrageous beat ups like “crisis” and “chaos” for the quite orderly resignation of two ministers who had wanted to go. But how silly can an ALP politician get to think that the pressures leading to defeat are “suicidal”. When MSM wants you gone, there is no way out. Rudd would also be gone (and does he want a glorious defeat?) and so would a very reasonable replacement for Gillard, such as Greg Combet.
The deeper problems are signalled by that great big grown up performance of Mark Latham, who identified Rudd’s monthly essay and Swan’s attack on mining giants for their attempt to control Australia as two bits of evidence that the Labor Party did not realise that it should still be committed to Neo-liberalism. After all, “free markets still rule”. Latham inadvertently advertised just how little he grown up. Free markets rule in areas like computers, TVs, electronics etc, etc. In other areas cartels and monopolies distort market outcomes so that they do not increase welfare to general welfare. If Latham really wants to grow up, he should read Joseph Stiglitz on “Inequality” and his essay “Freefall”. But that would be a step to far. Certainly Murdoch would react with as much venom to policy based on economics as Stglitz sees it as he has to faint whispers from Labor.
The other deep bit is that 345 Visas are calculated to deliver powerless employees to all sorts of industries whose presence and competition among Australian workers over the fewer positions available, once 457 employees have filled many, means that wages have risen far less than they might for Australian employees and unemployment has remained higher than it would have been. This explains to the Emma Alberici’s of the world why it pays for employers to get 457 employees. Proof? That’s hard, since it is hard to point to the outcomes we would have if 457 visas had been issued with more care to ensure that skilled Australian workers got first preference.
Bernard glides over these issues of power i Australian society but they need to be addressed.
Hi Bernard
On my reading you have always done well to walk the middle line on politics and reporting. Of late all your articles seem to have the the same theme, that just maybe this time, there is a positive politically for Julia hidden somewhere in here in the latest political debacle.
We have been reading this (not from you) in some shape of form for the last couple of years – the brilliant political Slipper strategy, the brilliant political misogyny speech, malaysia solution….
you may be right and iI may be wrong, and regardless of which side’s policies you prefer, surely Julia and team must go down as the most inept political strategists/mangers of all time. The problem with your idea above is that it requires a starting point of a least some credibility (in the real world, not the cheersquad world) of which there is currently little to none.
i’m a a labour voter, and even i am now begging – Julia for the good of the party, please do the honourable thing. The PM has failed to take the people with her on anything, this is the PM’s job, not to be a clever union or back room operator, or clever negotiator as we keep getting told.