Points of Difference

Judging from the reception of last week’s budget, I thought the Liberals had won big time.

The media gushed over Costello all week while Howard cautiously soaked up the leftovers. Meanwhile, Rudd was painted as an old fashioned union monger over his IR policy and his dull budget reply sounded too similar to Costello’s to be noticable. The honeymoon period seemed to have ended for Labor. With the budget, Howard had taken away some of the serious issue advantage Labor had on education and industrial relations (the ‘battlers’ clause’) and seemed to have squeezed Rudd’s balls in the process. Rudd appeared tired, backing down (in terms of IR) and lacking big inspiring policy ideas.

Peter Hartcher wrote an interesting feature on what Howard is doing here through a structure of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. He sees Howard as not just offering an anti-thesis to Rudd’s thesis but also synthesising Labor policy, adopting its issues but returning them to an economic context. Labor’s opposition thus becomes posited through the economic coordinates that Howard sets. One of the quotes from Costello that I’ve seen in the media lately has been “I’ve always found that if you get the economics right, the politics will follow.” This is the Liberal strategy all over – seeing politics from the bracket of economics. Global warming becomes not about environmental management but about who can better manage the economy in a time of crisis. Industrial Relations is not about workers’ rights and families but about business and productivity. And so forth.

Rudd’s problem is that he’s beginning to show signs of taking on Howard’s assumptions, playing his game. Recently, he’s had a TV ad about how he’s an economic conservative. As Hartcher points out, it’s an ad about how boring he is. ABC Insiders last week said that this was Rudd’s attempt to neutralise the issue of the economy by minimising the points of difference. But this is merely the trap Howard sets. (To extend my Lord of the Rings analogy from the previous post, it’s like Boromir wanting to use the Ring to save Gondor – it can’t be done!) If you’re going to make the election about economic conservatism why not just go with the one who’s been doing it longer and better? If Rudd continues on like this, Labor’s early advantage of differentiation will quickly be reduced. And most importantly, Rudd will lose his image of vision and freshness.

So, with all this in mind, I predicted a fairly big hit in the polls, with Liberals closing the gap quite substantially. The result was completely the opposite, with Labor up two points and Liberals actually down one point in first party preferences. Keeping in mind that it’s still too soon to measure the repercussions of the budget and Howard’s strategy of synthesis, what is going on here?

The problem as I see it is that, whatever the response to the budget, Howard still has not overcome his image problem, which has become fundamental. While all the good press last week seemed to be on Costello, Costello aint the leader. Jonny Howard is. And Howard now has the strong taint of an old man who is out of touch. I truly think the tide has turned in this regard. Anything he does from now until election will not hide the truth that is becoming blatently apparent – Australia is bored and Howard is sterile. Howard may be a tricky, clever politician but Australians already know this and are all too familiar with his tricks and manouvres after ten years – they’re beginning to lose their affectiveness. Voting decisions are pretty superficial in the end and I think that ten seconds before the ballot box, Rudd is still going to be the best alternative we’ve been given so far.

The beautiful irony for Rudd is that, after such a long period, comfort and stability begin to generate their own fear and insecurity. After ten years, change is actually going to seem like the sensible and safe option.