Feelings might not always be so positive. A rally in 2016 [Source: PDCNSW]
There’s a simple choice when it comes to changing the world - either go for the big reform or settle for less. Unfortunately, choosing the right path is often difficult.
We used to talk about the spectrum of politics simply, and illustrated it by drawing a line from right to left. In Australian politics it looked like this:
Green - ALP (Left) - ALP (Right) - LNP Moderate - LNP Conservative - Nats
Anthony Albanese hated it. The Greens were always causing trouble, out there on the left and potentially alienating people who would otherwise vote for him. He thought their strategy was wrong because it was too extreme for them to get elected. So why, he wondered, couldn’t they just see they needed to stop their extreme demands and stop stealing his votes.
Back in the 80’s (when Albanese was receiving his political education) Labor grandees insisted that, “only the impotent are pure”. What they meant was that to grasp power, you needed to be ‘realistic’. This meant dumping any policy that wasn’t popular, even if it was otherwise right.
This background is relevant today because Labor - well Albanese, anyway - has decided balancing the budget is more important than risking the ballooning cost of the NDIS. He’s quite prepared to dump the Greens and ally with the Liberals to make budget cuts.
That means the Greens will be locked out of decision-making, because the coalition’s votes will be more important as far as the PM is concerned.
Albanese’s playing hardball. That’s why we don’t have a timeline for the introduction of General Supports yet: Canberra and the States can’t agree on who will pay for costly hospital reforms, and so the PM’s refusing to sign until these are added into the mix.
The problem for the Greens is that Albanese is not interested in doing a deal with them. They’re having minimal influence because he sees them as an enemy, rather than a potential ally.
There is a way to achieve specific objectives, but it means being specific about the ask and a willingness to trade to get results. This means thinking about politics differently.
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Adding another dimension to the political spectrum
New political theories argue the solution is dispensing with our model of politics. Instead of a linear spectrum from left to right, imagine adding a third dimension to get a triangle.
Issues-based Politics
People make voting decisions here
‘Old’ Left ‘Old’ Right
Take the last election. Using ‘old’ style political analysis, it represented a complete repudiation of right-wing politics. The conservatives were demolished. The pendulum swung dramatically to the left and, theoretically, the numbers mean it will be impossible for the Liberals to form government for at least a decade.
But the ‘new’ analysts think differently, and their theory is backed up by quick and decisive rejections of one-term governments in four states in the past two decades:
Victoria: The Napthine Coalition government was defeated after one term at the 2014 state election.
Queensland: The Newman Liberal National Party government was defeated after one term at the 2015 state election.
Northern Territory: The Giles Country Liberal Party government was defeated after one term at the 2016 territory election.
South Australia: The Marshall Liberal government was defeated after one term at the 2022 state election.
People are increasingly deciding how to vote based on specific issues. The old notion of party loyalty is out. Under pressure from soaring house prices, inflation, lower standards of living, and other specific issues, voters are angry. And they’re liable to hit out at particular parties that they feel aren’t listening to their needs.
This explains why, for political parties, focusing on solving particular issues is becoming just as important as knitting together a huge platform.
At the last federal election, for example, analysis suggests a critical factor driving voter decisions revolved around single issues. Some (most) didn’t like Peter Dutton, and that was enough to drive them to Labor, while others were worried about how particular Liberal policies would hit them.
The only non-coalition politician to fail to get re-elected, Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, suffered from a similarly, tightly-targeted campaign that zoomed in on specific weaknesses rather than relying on the national Liberal campaign. Everything was highly personal.
Suppose the old linear spectrum is disintegrating, and people are under financial pressure. In that case, voters will be turning up at the ballot booths with their baseball bats in hand, ready to whack the first politician they disagree with. They’ll also be ready to punish anyone they think is getting a handout that they’re being denied.
This creates a particular threat for disability advocates and, consequently, the Greens.