Bad numbers hurting McKay

31 August 2019

 

Gladys Berejiklian has little room to move.  Just months ago, she won a general election in New South Wales, but not by much.  But it could’ve been worse.

She governs with a two-seat majority in the Lower House of State Parliament, meaning that it takes only a few people to hand a change of mind or disagree with her for her majority to be at risk, even if only temporarily.

But before the election, when she had a fairly comfortable majority, there were predictions that she’d lose that, if not lose the election altogether.  The ultimate result was a win with a narrow majority.  She therefore survived as Premier.

Since the election, though, things haven’t been exactly great for her.  The Liberal Party, which she’s led since early 2017, is divided over some issues.  Given that Liberals have the freedom to cross the floor in Parliament to vote against their party if they see fit, anybody crossing the floor could unsettle things.

Also, the Liberals are at odds with the Nationals on other issues.  Their formal partnership might seem a little unsettled after noises from John Barilaro, who leads the Nationals and is also Deputy Premier.  With the Nationals recently losing seats to minor players, Barilaro has made suggestions that he’d surrender the job of Deputy Premier if he can’t agree with the Liberals on issues troubling people in the bush.  As such, Berejiklian has her hands full.

The only saving grace for Berejiklian and the Liberal-National Coalition is that little competition seems forthcoming from their traditional rivals.

It helps the Coalition to see the Labor Party in poor shape nowadays.  Following defeats at both the NSW election in March and a Federal election in May, Labor definitely has problems of its own.  The Federal election in particular was awful for Labor, which lost in spite of predictions of victory in most opinion polls.

Despite the Coalition’s narrow majority in NSW, Labor isn’t positioned to take advantage of this.  One reason relates to numbers in the Lower House.

The March election saw the Coalition win 48 of 93 Lower House seats, as Labor came away with 36 seats.  Now led by Jodi McKay, Labor requires 11 extra seats for victory.  McKay has quite a mountain to climb.

This somehow reminds me of a similar gap in numbers between the Coalition and Labor after a general election in 1988.  Back then, there were 109 Lower House seats, with the Coalition holding 59 and Labor holding 43.  The Coalition didn’t have a big majority, but it probably appeared bigger than it was, because the Coalition was returning to office for the first time since 1976.

Both in 1988 and today, there are plenty of crossbenchers in the Lower House, and a big crossbench naturally makes things harder for the Opposition.

The Coalition in 1988 had a majority of only five Lower House seats, with seven crossbenchers.  Now it has a majority of two seats, with nine crossbenchers.

Having a handful of crossbenchers would be troubling enough for the Opposition Leader.  But having nine of them to deal with makes McKay’s job harder.

If McKay can take comfort from anything, it might be what Bob Carr achieved after becoming Labor leader in the wake of the 1988 election.  Critics believed that Carr never looked like a leader.  But three years later, Carr came incredibly close to winning an election, and he managed to do the job in 1995, beginning what’d be ten years as Premier.  Looking like something less than a good leader and having a big crossbench to deal with didn’t exactly hinder Carr.

At this early stage, I’m not sure that McKay looks like a good leader, but several years will pass before NSW goes to the polls, so she’s got time.

With a big crossbench of nine in the Lower House, these numbers will certainly be hurting McKay for the time being.  Labor is also having plenty of difficulties after two election defeats, even without an inflated crossbench.

How McKay fares will remain to be seen.  History is full of politicians arguably taking on leadership reluctantly, and going on to win one election after another, sometimes against the odds.  McKay has to be seen keeping Berejiklian honest, and time might pass before McKay shows whether she has the goods.

 

Dynamic duo won’t survive

25 August 2019

 

Two blokes in the Senate owe their careers to Nick Xenophon.  In fact, he’s more than just the reason why they’re in the Senate.  He’s why they didn’t have to face voters at the Federal election which took place three months ago.

Harsh though this judgement sounds, I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t think it correct, notwithstanding the possibility that things might change before the next election, which is due before the middle of 2022.

At first glance, you can’t see a link between Xenophon and two Senators in South Australia, Stirling Griff and Rex Patrick.  They represent a party called the Centre Alliance, along with Rebekha Sharkie from the House of Representatives.  Only when you know the history of the party do you see a link to Xenophon, a popular political figure from South Australia in his day.

For nearly a decade, Xenophon was clearly the figure for whom South Australians would vote when they couldn’t abide the major political parties.  Elected to State Parliament in South Australia in 1997, he caused quite a stir at the next election that he faced, in 2006.  Nearly one in every five South Australians voted for him and his mob in that State election in 2006 – only a few thousand votes separated his mob from the State Opposition.  Not only did Xenophon hold his seat, but his popularity was strong enough to get a running mate elected.  The following year, he ran for the Senate in a Federal election, and won a seat.  When he next faced the voters, in 2013, his mob actually finished second on primary votes in South Australia’s Senate contest, in front of the Labor Party.  His vote remained strong when the next Federal election came, in 2016, and his mob came away with three Senate seats.  Few politicians can boast a record like this.

Most Federal elections, including the election that happened this year, have six Senate seats up for grabs in each State – where there are twelve Senate seats.

Sometimes, however, there are double-dissolution elections, whereby all twelve Senate seats in each State go up for grabs.  The 2016 election was one of them.

Noting that Senators face the voters on the basis of half doing so at one election and the other half doing so at the next election, a decision was made regarding the Senators elected in each State in 2016.  The final six Senators to be declared elected in each State would face the voters at the next election, which happened this year, and the first six per State would face the voters at the election after.

Going back to Xenophon, his popularity in 2016 was such that he and Griff were among the first six Senators elected in South Australia.  They therefore had this year’s election off, and wouldn’t face the voters until 2022.  Another Senate seat also went their way, going to Skye Kakoschke-Moore.  Being one of the final six Senators elected in South Australia, she was due to face the voters this year.

During 2017, Xenophon suddenly quit the Senate to attempt a return to the South Australian Parliament, which was ultimately unsuccessful.  Chosen to complete the remainder of Xenophon’s term was Patrick, and this included skipping this year’s election.  With Xenophon now gone from Federal Parliament, the people from his mob ended up forming a party known as the Centre Alliance.

In 2018, Kakoschke-Moore was booted out of Federal Parliament on the grounds of suspected dual citizenship, which Federal politicians couldn’t have.  She then ran for the Centre Alliance as a Senate candidate in this year’s election.

But the Centre Alliance had a dreadful result in the election, polling only about 2.6 per cent of the Senate vote in South Australia.  This was only a mere fraction of the vote from the height of Xenophon’s popularity.

Griff and Patrick, currently among the Senate crossbenchers holding the balance of power and able to pass or block any legislation of the Morrison Government should they see fit, might consider themselves something of a dynamic duo.

But they wouldn’t have been in the Senate without Xenophon, while the showing of their party at this year’s election was terrible.  If either one of them had been facing the voters this year, he was a goner.  Unless they do something absolutely amazing over the next few years, they won’t survive in 2022.

Time will permit these blokes to make a difference.  But I suspect that one bloke will retire at the next election, and the other will fight, without success, at least should their recent election performance be repeated.  They both look gone.

 

Albanese leads without inspiring

11 August 2019

 

Much of the country would’ve been shocked to see the Liberal-National Coalition hold office at the Federal election in May.  For longer than probably everybody could remember, one opinion poll after another showed the Coalition heading for defeat.  Mind you, the Coalition’s win looks bigger than it really is, because the Coalition has a parliamentary majority of just three seats.

Few would’ve been more shocked at the May result than the Labor Party, which looked like winning the election after years of problems afflicting the Coalition parties.  Perhaps complacency set it on Labor.  We might never know.

In this sense, this loss might’ve been compared to elections when Labor actually was voted out of office.  I might be drawing a long bow, but I remember Labor being in a horrible state after losing office previously, and the response of Labor and its supporters after those losses seems to have similar to the loss in May.

Since the loss, Anthony Albanese has become Labor leader.  He faces a challenge taking on Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who surprised us all with his win.

Interestingly, this marks the second dark time during which Albanese has risen to something.  Mind you, many observers argue that he should’ve risen earlier.

His first rise was his election to Federal Parliament in 1996.  This was the time when Labor lost its first Federal election since 1980.  Bob Hawke had led Labor into office with a big victory in 1983, and he won another three elections before Labor MPs dumped him in favour of Paul Keating in late 1991.  Although never popular with the public, Keating managed to win an election in 1993, actually increasing Labor’s majority in the process.  Indeed Hawke’s last election victory, in 1990, was a narrow one, so Keating’s 1993 victory with an increased majority was almost certainly beyond expectations.  But Keating’s massive unpopularity eventually took its toll, and the 1996 election ended thirteen years of governing by Labor.  Eight ministers lost their seats in what was a huge loss.

Despite the large number of losses, there were plenty of new Labor MPs elected in that dark time.  Indeed two Labor newcomers defeated Coalition MPs, while another Labor newcomer defeated an Independent MP in Victoria.  Albanese was a new face in the Labor seat of Grayndler, in inner Sydney.  This seat had been a Labor jewel, long held by iconic Labor figure Fred Daly.

After losing office in 1996, Labor lost another three elections before eventually winning office again in 2007.  Albanese was long part of the Labor frontbench during this period in the wilderness, and naturally enough he became a senior minister after Kevin Rudd had led Labor to a popular victory.  Transport was among Albanese’s ministerial jobs in the Labor Government – during the times when first Rudd was Prime Minister and then Julia Gillard was Prime Minister and then Rudd returned to the top job.  Squabbles between Rudd and Gillard over leadership almost cost Labor an election in 2010, with only enough support from crossbenchers keeping Labor in power, and the leadership trouble finally triggered Labor’s loss at an election in 2013.

Many people think that Labor would’ve lost the 2013 election by a bigger margin if Tony Abbott hadn’t been leading at the time.  Abbott was never popular among the voters – indeed he’s almost certainly the most unpopular leader in Australian political history.  But with Labor tearing itself apart in the Rudd-Gillard period, Abbott only had to stand up straight and he’d ultimately become PM.  Of course, that was what happened.  Mind you, Abbott lost his job in a surprise leadership challenge in 2015, and while the Coalition endured some turbulence throughout the next few years, few were disappointed that he was no longer PM.

Meanwhile, after Labor lost office in 2013, it went through a bit of drama when electing a new leader.  Instead of relying on MPs only, Labor ended up holding votes among its rank-and-file party members.  Here there was a split.  Albanese turned out to be the most popular among the rank-and-file members, but Labor MPs favoured Bill Shorten, who duly became Labor leader.

History shows that Shorten came close to winning an election in 2016, therefore almost ensuring him the leadership for the next election, due three years later.

But when the election came, in May this year, Shorten ended up losing narrowly, and although narrow, this loss ended his leadership.

Shorten was never really popular among the voters.  He was considered a major player in the Rudd-Gillard leadership squabbles, and voters somehow regarded him as untrustworthy.  Despite this, he would’ve surely defeated the unpopular Abbott if Malcolm Turnbull hadn’t rolled Abbott in a 2015 challenge.  Initially, Turnbull was popular, but ended up looking fake because many Coalition people stopped him from acting on principles that everybody knew about.  He narrowly beat Shorten in 2016, but leadership trouble in 2018 led to the rise of Morrison as PM.  The rest we know – at least since May this year.

Now Albanese has risen to be Labor leader – three years late to many people.

He might’ve beaten Abbott or Turnbull if he’d been leader after 2013, but with Abbott and Turnbull now out of Parliament, it doesn’t matter.

For now he looks like someone who just leads without inspiring.  I’m not sure whether I’d vote for him myself.  How he battles Morrison over coming years should show if he can inspire voters.