Anyone trying to understand the politics of the federal health takeover purely from a policy perspective is only seeing half the picture. Beyond the rights and wrong of hospital funding is an attempt to shift the political game onto Labor’s home turf.
If you wanted to beat Geelong you wouldn’t go to Skilled Stadium, if you wanted to run over the Broncos you’d stay away from Lang Park because local knowledge and crowd loyalty can have a real impact on the final result.
Likewise in politics, where home ground is not dictated so much by geography, but by the issues being fought over.
If you are a right-wing party, economics and national security are your home; if you sit to the Left of centre, health and education are your sweet spot.
The following table illustrates the point:
The real political challenge is not policy formulation but agenda management, the ability to make the most important issue of the day an issue that delivers you a natural advantage.
The important thing to note here is we are not talking about which side has the better policies. In fact there many examples where the party with a better policy on an issue has lost when fighting away from home.
Look at the Howard era, in 1998 he won on an election promoting and unpopular new tax. The GST was never a vote-winner, but its presence at the centre of the debate meant the election was fought on economic management – home ground central for the Libs. And Labor fell right into the trap of making it the defining issue.
In 2001, when Australia was beginning to turn its back on the Coalition, Howard was at it again - turning to border security, an arena where the wind always blows behind the Coalition.
And in 2004 when the heat on the PM over a series mis-truths related to his 2001 victory, Howard masterfully switched the agenda to ‘trust’ –‘ who do you trust to keep interest rates low?’ – back to the field of economic management.
In all three elections the Liberals were playing at home, the major issue was one where they enjoyed a natural advantage.
In 2007, the pendulum swung for a range of reasons but principally because Labor managed to shift the ground its way on two important issues – climate change (the environment) and industrial relations (workers rights).
IR was a complex battle of agenda management. While Howard wanted to run WorkChoices as an economic issue, Labor (with support from the ACTU) managed to transform it into a battle for workers rights. That is they succeeded in shifting the home ground from Coalition turf to their own natural playing conditions.
This is the context to Rudd’s increased focus on health and his Deputy’s spirited foray into education.
It is an important and potentially game-changing play. It follows the failure of Labor to legislate an Emissions Trading Scheme after the Opposition changed leaders to block it and prevent Labor delivering a big policy result on its home ground.
The big switch from Turnbull to Abbott was changing the ETS from an environmental issue (Turnbull’s position) to Abbotts ‘big new tax on everything’.
See what he did? He shifted the debate onto economic management, back to Liberal turf. This is Labor will be reluctant to play that game and base the next election around climate change.
Likewise all the debate, the criticism and argy bargy with the states over health will ultimately play in Labor’s favour – so long as the issue stays on the national agenda.
Ditto education; for all the anger the MySchool website has created amongst teachers, it has put education back on the agenda - meaning Labor has another sweet spot to campaign on.
This is where the value of incumbency in the political process is really driven home; in setting the legislative agenda, the government sets the national agenda.
The choices the government makes between now and voting day will be calculated to entrench the natural advantages that Labor enjoys – and heath and education at the centre of this universe. And that’s why this year’s election is still Labor’s to lose.
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