Poll-driven Opposition Is Taking A Big Risk

MALCOLM McGREGOR
563 words
4 December 1995
Australian Financial Review
Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd

LAST month during a panel discussion on ABC radio, I ventured the opinion that John Howard's low-risk political strategy would ultimately entail risks. Indeed, his repeated insistence that the Federal Opposition was "not the issue" would eventually make them the issue.

Social researcher Hugh Mackay broadly supported this view, which was sneeringly attacked in his inimitable private-school prefect style by Alexander Downer. He found our scepticism about John Howard's political strategy "amusing".

That gave me a deep sense of gratification. No Australian politician other than Billy McMahon has provided me with as many hearty laughs as Downer did during his absurd masquerade as putative Prime Minister last year. To be able to even partially repay him for eight months of uninterrupted hilarity made my day.

But he and his chums from the Liberal Party might be wearing their smirks on the other sides of their faces if last Thursday's events in the House of Representatives are indicative. When Deputy Prime Minister Kim Beazley attacked the Liberals for a lack of legitimacy in censuring the Government without offering any alternative policy descriptions, he was spontaneously applauded from the public gallery.

The only other occasions that I can recall public galleries erupting in like manner were in the Senate as the Mabo Legislation passed and during the final session a Queensland Parliament when Wayne Goss eloquently flayed the decrepit and corrupt National Party regime in its death throes.

There is some evidence that the exasperation of last Thursday's audience with John Howard's cute political games may be spreading through the electorate at large. As Tom Burton of this newspaper demonstrated recently, Paul Keating has eclipsed John Howard as the preferred Prime Minister over the course of 1995. Keating's advisers claim that this has been their primary objective for the year.

Howard's standing is ominous for a leader with his pedigree. On my reckoning, only two Federal Opposition leaders have shrugged off an electoral defeat and subsequently won ensuing elections to become Prime Minister. They were Robert Menzies, who lost in 1946 and won in 1949, and Gough Whitlam who won in 1972 having been defeated in 1969. It is not disrespect for Howard's abilities that prompts me to suggest that he is not in the same weight division as either of the aforementioned leaders. Moreover, it is over eight years since he was last rejected by the Australian people.

Howard seems to have peaked and there are signs that Keating's advantage is significant on the most crucial criteria of leadership, namely the ability to manage the economy, if recent Newspoll results are correct.

It didn't have to be this way for Howard. He has been saddled with a dud political strategy which negated his intrinsic strength as a proselytiser for conservative ideas. The boofheads who have tried to duplicate Jeff Kennett and Dean Brown should take note of the public's repudiation of their strategy.

Paul Keating is a polarising figure who leads an unpopular government. But there are signs that Australians prefer that to a poll-driven faker trying to get an easy ride to the Lodge. In all the circumstances, the next election shouldn't have even been close but it looks as though it's going to be.