federal politics
4 Feb 2008
The ‘Crazybrave’ Strategy
Brendan Nelson.
A leaked document suggesting that the Liberals cosy up to the union movement reveals a lot about the Party's self-inflicted wounds, writes Mark Bahnisch
It's difficult for oppositions to win the media game.As many shattered parties have discovered in the past, not all publicity is good publicity; particularly if the focus of the media circus is on internal disunity and policy splits. On the other hand, newly defeated parties take a while to adjust to the fact that the agenda is inevitably set by the government, and only if they're lucky can they get a quick sound bite in at the end of a TV news segment. You need to have something sharp to communicate, and you need to say it sharply. That's why opposition leaders have often fallen by the wayside for want of the ability to "cut through". Prolixity and prevarication do not a pithy political message make.
The Nelson Liberals probably won't be consigned to the near invisibility many of their State counterparts suffer. But they're showing every sign of making an incredibly messy transition to Opposition. And while Dennis Atkins, writing in The Courier-Mail on Saturday, is quite right to say that John Howard departed the national consciousness almost simultaneously with his election defeat, the former PM's industrial relations crusade continues to haunt the Liberals.
An insight into the dilemmas confronting the conservatives came last week with the leak - initially to the Sunday Telegraph - of "strategy documents" prepared for the Party's leadership by Melbourne political consultant Don D'Cruz, a former employee of the Institute of Public Affairs. They were published in full online by The Australian on Wednesday.
To suggest that the advice in question was confused - and confusing - is an understatement. The suggestion that the Libs should cosy up to the union movement and push for a faster implementation of the WorkChoices phase-out than Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard proposed before the election falls into the "too clever by half" basket. And the idea that doing so would orchestrate some sort of wages breakout which could then be pinned on Labor gives the game away: as well as politically inept, the plan is staggeringly hypocritical.
The episode is enormously revelatory of the self-inflicted wounds the Nelson Liberals are staggering under.
First, the Party's responses to the role of WorkChoices in its electoral defeat last November have consistently played into Labor's terms of debate. Any opposition at all to Labor's workplace changes faces being painted as a desire to defend the Howardian relics of the past; whether it's unfair dismissals or a convoluted plan to preserve in aspic the Howard IR agenda up to 2006, as pushed by Deputy Leader and Workplace Relations Shadow Minister Julie Bishop. Whichever way the Opposition seeks to tinker with Julia Gillard's bill when it reaches the Senate, they've already well and truly snookered themselves.
Secondly, the messenger appears to be as much a problem as the message. Shorn of all the "strategic" bells and whistles, D'Cruz's amateurish dot points are pushing a predictable, ideological line.
Regardless of one's views on microeconomic theory, the electorate sent one message loud and clear on 24 November last year. John Howard got it absolutely right when he warned that a Labor victory would the repudiation of the project of ongoing IR "reform". There's rarely been a clearer verdict in Australian electoral history than the verdict on WorkChoices.
No amount of crazybrave strategic positioning can disguise D'Cruz's ultimate view that Howard didn't go far enough in deregulating workplace relations. Rightly or wrongly, any acceptance by the Libs of his advice would signal an underlying desire to go further down the free market road in IR, and provide Labor with enormous amounts of material for future negative campaigning. Hard as it may seem at the moment, the Libs have to do the hard work of policy thinking themselves.
Thirdly - and crucially - by painting themselves into a corner on IR and WorkChoices, the Libs have disabled their own ability to be constructively critical.
There is no doubt that Labor's Forward With Fairness agenda isn't an ideal template for workplace reform. Rudd and Gillard offered too many hostages to fortune in the race to secure political support - both to the union movement and to placate business opposition in the lead up to the election. The policy is still terribly complex, it's weak in areas like gender equity, and questions remain in the productivity field. That's only a quick overview of areas where the new government's agenda is lacking, and there will be much scope for legitimate criticism when the detail is forthcoming.
But it would appear that the Libs have discarded their capacity to add anything constructive to the debate - through a combination of an inability to understand that the shibboleths of the Howard era can no longer be defended, and an inability to think outside the square in both policy and political terms. Getting the albatross off their backs by quietly voting for the legislation, without any D'Cruz-style plan to entrap Labor, might be their last remaining viable move in this particular political game.
This article has been edited from its original form for accuracy.
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Let’s face it, the Libs, those who are left, are going to have to carry the stinking political corpse of John Howard around for years.
No amount of tricks will rid them of ownership of ‘He who had to be obeyed’!
Mark,
The briefest research would reveal that Don D’Cruz is not employed by the IPA (current employees are listed here), and has not been since 2005.
So to attribute to the IPA the view that "the Libs should cosy up to the union movement and push for a faster implementation of the WorkChoices phase-out", and that we are advising the Liberal Party to do so, is an astonishing distortion of the public record.
The Ken Phillips piece in the IPA Review that you cite in no way makes this argument. And other pieces in the same edition of the magazine contradict the D’Cruz line. All of these pieces are easily available on the website - www.ipa.org.au
This piece requires substantial revision to be factually accurate.
Chris Berg
Institute of Public Affairs
Hi Chris,
Thank you for your comment, I have amended the piece accordingly. Our apologies for the error.
Rachel Hills
Associate Editor, newmatilda.com
My apologies to the IPA for the incorrect statement that Don D’Cruz was their employee. Obviously I shouldn’t take the mainstream media reports as gospel!
However, I stand by the characterisation of Ken Phillips’ paper as arguing a substantially similar line, and if D’Cruz is a former employee of the IPA, it’s unlikely that his views are substantially divergent with that organisation’s ideological position.
If that is the case, perhaps the IPA will state that.
Much appreciated Rachel
We have a busy enough time defending what we do say!
Mark,
The IPA has a consistent philosophical position, which Don D’Cruz would have shared as an employee.
However, we do not have an ‘IPA position’ on the strategy the Liberal Party should adopt. We’re not a Liberal Party think tank, so it’s hardly a focus of our activities. And I don’t think sharing ideological or philosophical values would mandate any particular view on whether the opposition should cosy up to the unions.
Furthermore, you can interpret Ken’s piece all you like. But I think it is a pretty tough challenge to infer strategic advice from it.
Sure, sometimes IPA people do write opinion pieces about strategy and politics. But this isn’t one of those times.
Chris, that seems to me to be hair splitting. Inter alia, Ken Phillips’ paper has to be addressed to policy makers and politicians - including presumably those in the ranks of the Liberal Party, unless the IPA considers the Liberal Party to be wholly irrelevant to Australian politics and policy formulation, which I suppose you could make an argument for, but which I doubt.
There are many resonances between Phillips’ arguments and D’Cruz’s "strategic advice". I did note that Phillips makes a lot more sense, and those with a long memory might recall that he and I had an interchange in Crikey early last year where we found some common ground. But perhaps it’s best to let New Matilda readers judge for themselves.
The Phillips paper can be found here. [link to pdf]
I wondered about the consultant’s recommendations too.
The liberals just don’t seem to appreciate that many in the population want the government to represent them. What they need to do is reconnect with the voters and they can’t do that by hiring consultants.
The Libs appear to be running on all those years of practice at denial under JWH.
I find Rudd’s approach both refreshing and hopeful.
If you look at the real problems we face: sub prime, US recession, fuel prices, drought, climate change, ageing population etc, it’s hard to see how the Liberals groaning about apologies and getting consultants recommendations have any relevance to ordinary people whatsoever or to our situation.
The Liberals spent most of their time telling us, who are experiencing various problems in the real world, that we’ve never had it so good.
They should have got out of Canberra more.