Labor needs the Greens. It seems to calculate that the Greens have no choice about preferencing them. That might once have seemed logical, but it is by no means certain when Labor’s defence policies are anathema to many Greens, when Labor policies on refugees and immigration are indistinguishable from the coalition’s, and when their climate change and environment policies are deliberately constructed to be only a smidgeon more engaged than the opposition’s.
This week the prime minister, Anthony Albanese let slip his last opportunity to call an election this year. With the statutory requirements of a minimum 32 days from the day of calling an election, it would have been on Saturday December 22. Despite some vague speculation, not visibly encouraged by the government, it had seemed for months unlikely that Albanese was planning to ambush the opposition, or to take advantage of favourable opinion polls, so far as such things existed. He’s not a creature of impulse or rushes of blood. Waiting is more a matter of lack of guts rather than shrewd judgement.
So, it has seemed a bit curious that the government is nonetheless in plain election mode. Albanese has been putting out policies and programs, for example in relation to irrigation schemes in Tasmania, and a reduction in HECS debt for university graduates. No doubt he will return to these, and other policies he announces during the campaign proper, and voters may hear them repeatedly during the campaign. Indeed, in my opinion, it is a good thing that parties announce policies earlier rather than later, and in chapters, or by subject matter rather than all at once in a few weeks before the vote.
Yet it is curious that important policy, intended to win votes, is being announced in the dying days of the 2024 political season, with two months of politically dead time – until about January 27 — following soon after. Voters are rarely focused on political controversies in December unless an election is imminent, and, during January only a natural, national or international disaster – such as floods, bushfires, earthquakes – are likely to distract from Christmas, holidays, the beach and the cricket. For much the same reason it is difficult to get parties mobilised for elections announced in January, and this has the practical effect of ruling out much of February for polling days.
The advantage, such as it is, of November and early December announcements is that they can be said to have been put through the expenditure review process and thus to be committed policy, rather than pie in the sky promises of what will happen after the election, which is to say if a Labor government is returned. Appearance in the mid-year forecasts (often as Cabinet expenditure decisions made but not yet announced) is claimed to be evidence of such regularity. It will also be suggested, and may even be true, that these decisions follow extensive research, consultation, and discussion between departments and Cabinet. Thus, it is claimed, they cannot be said to be mere election goodies selected as bribes or inducements by campaign staff rather than products of the regular processes of professional government.
Ministers have been doubly reviewing programs and expenditure for some time, looking particularly for some kitty from reduced or abolished programs, for fresh or repackaged announcements. They are doing it in case there is a a pre-election budget. But any savings or fresh policy initiatives found during this process will see ministers looking carefully about whether they should be held back as election announcements or be part of the budget fodder, the political advantage of which may well fade before voters go to the polls. In recent decades there has never been much of a bounce in post-budget opinion polls, particularly the supposed benefits not due to come on stream before a later date.
Treasury secretary, Ken Henry, once remarked the election season leads to an uncommon prevalence of frankly bad policy proposals, often neither in the nation’s economic interest, nor, often, likely to achieve the social or other ends that their champions will claim. All the more so in the very modern age as some parties are failing to put policies up for independent estimates of cost, or, sometimes, to fail to announce detailed policies.
Election window is closing
Strictly Albanese could defer a House of Representatives election until September 27 next year. But he could do that only at the cost of having to call a half-senate election before May 24. Two close count elections in one-year are more than anyone wants, so that the final practical date for a simultaneous half-senate and House of Representatives election would be May 24. And that would doom him, or the next government, either to having an early house election next time in 2026 rather than 2027 simply so as to get the senate and representatives election timetable synchronised again.
If Albanese wants a double dissolution – and he could lay the groundwork for a bigger menu of doubly rejected bills in coming weeks — it must occur before late March, because, under the Constitution, a double dissolution cannot be called in the last six months of the last possible expiry date of the House of Representatives – in September. It is hard to imagine that Labor would find itself in a better position after a double dissolution, whether by comparison with the coalition, or as against the Greens and independents. Polls suggest Labor would be better off if only half the senate is up for election.
As I read the Australian polls over the next year, I will look particularly at whether and to what extent the vote for the Greens changes. It was firmly asserted by one pollster recently that the Greens had done their dash and were losing popularity. That was far from self-evident from his figures. It is true that Labor has been mounting a big attack on the character and competence of the Greens, including over Israel, AUKUS and housing. But these are issues in which Green positions more closely align with the view of the majority than Labor does, and I am not sure that Labor is cutting through if its aim and its purpose is primarily to damage or reduce the Green vote.
Do the Greens know where Labor wants to go, and do they still have many common goals?
It is quite true that Green candidates have been winning inner-city seats from Labor, and have become, in effect, terribly similar to the old Labor left factions in acting as a ginger group to Labor. Among those threatened by the rise of the Greens has been Albanese himself, particularly since he has ceased to fly the old left flag. He has thus gone out of his way to distinguish Labor positions in key areas from ones promoted by the Greens. He attaches, for example, much enthusiasm for industry and mining projects that employ people, arguing that the Greens attachment to climate change ideology is indifferent to the practical impact of their policies, if implemented on jobs and regional prosperity. He argues that the Greens “play politics” with their votes in the senate, often making impossible and impractical demands as the price of their consent, and sometimes voting with the coalition to kill good policies altogether. Heaven forfend that a political party would engage in politics!
Labor needs the Greens and might be taking its support too much for granted. Labor’s primary vote is falling. Labor is holding on to government because support for the Greens become preferences given to Labor. Labor seems to calculate that the Greens have no choice about preferencing them. That might once have seemed logical, but it is by no means certain when Labor’s defence policies are anathema to many Greens, when Labor policies on refugees and immigration are indistinguishable from the coalition’s, and when their climate change and environment policies are deliberately constructed to be only a smidgeon more engaged than the opposition’s. The more so given the government’s deliberate restriction of anti-corruption activities, the repudiation of open government and the compulsive secrecy affecting every area of government. It is not an alliance with which Greens necessarily identify. And only in a limited sense do they see themselves as having shared purpose.
Where the Greens have it all over Albanese, and most of the Labor frontbench, is in their communications strategies. Albanese is very weak in explaining what the government is doing and why, how they think that particular policies will work, and why their proposals are better, or better on balance than alternative ideas put forward. He tends to shy from descriptions of the problem, and to concentrate instead on assumptions that Labor proposals, often ad hoc ones, are self-evidently best and that any attempt to change, improve, and sometimes positively brand, its proposals is purely obstructionist, and for perverse motives.
By contrast, the Greens, and the teal independents, such as David Pocock, are better and calmer in describing the problem, in putting into the public square their views on how it is best addressed, and in criticising the measures proposed by Labor. This will usually include claims that the government is not spending enough money on the problem. That’s a populist refrain given that the Greens do not have to juggle the whole Budget. But in many cases the Greens critique is principled, and better calculated to appeal to key constituencies than piecemeal Labor measures. Voters concerned by their incapacity to buy housing, for example, might well acknowledge that Labor has announced policies spending many billions to alleviate the problem. But they are entitled to wonder whether these measures have actually reduced the size of a problem growing inexorably bigger each year or have made any serious difference to the building labour force (at least 50,000 to 100,000 people short and unable to be reduced with immigration). Or to the supply of land, and the balance of new developments containing affordable housing.
A smug and comfortable party needs a lot more desperation and humility
The Greens, in short, have the appearance of having a better understanding of the problem, and see the issues from the point of view of those suffering, rather than a whole-of-government position. To Labor chagrin, they are explicitly positing themselves as the party of the renting class. By definition that reinforces their appeal to younger voters and runs the risk of painting Labor as a party of the comfortably housed, unwilling to take any step which might depress the value of their home.
I am not necessarily adopting the Greens position by comparison with that of Labor. Labor has the advantage of incumbency and access to public service advice. The Greens sometimes seem proudly an amateur show, purist and uncorrupted by the many accommodations and compromises any governing party must make to survive.
The Greens, addressing their constituencies, are doing a better job of explaining and arguing their position, both to the general public and to the potential voters they are addressing. They often positively benefit from the disdain of commentators who take seriously only the big political players. Some Greens constituencies were once core Labor constituencies. Labor’s inability to take these constituencies for granted are not mere results of faults of style or good public relations tactics. They ae products of the compulsive secrecy of party councils, the leader’s unwillingness to explain, and sell, his strategies, and to describe how they tie in with other party policies and programs. Labor is also handicapped by a public perception, by no means unjustified, that Labor gives privileged access to big lobbies and only grudging access to members of the public and their representatives, and that they have already, only three years in, become all too comfortable with the perks and trappings of office.
Being in government is a privilege held on leasehold rather than freehold. The lease comes up for review every three years and Labor strategists would be mad to think that some automatic tick is in prospect. It’s time they got serious.
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
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