IT’S been dubbed “the Seinfeld election” - a show about nothing - but perhaps that’s harsh. Seinfeld was entertaining.
In the absence of humour then, what are the big nation-transforming issues in this election? Where’s the vision, the inspiration, the courage? Labor market reform, economic/budget policy, border protection? No. The parties pretend they are much further apart on many of these things than they actually are. On policy after policy, they overlap in all but the peripheral details.
Having re-committed to an emissions trading scheme yesterday, and to Kevin Rudd’s delay in bringing it in - so much for “moving forward” - Labor argues its position is fundamentally different from its opponents, who oppose a price on carbon. But in terms of impact right now, this year and even next, the two policies aren’t that different. Labor’s devilishly complex scheme remains a chimera still two elections away. Besides, it is subject to a hostile Parliament, and now must clear a new self-imposed hurdle by way of a proposed 150 member citizens’ assembly (isn’t that what the 150 member House of Representatives is anyway?).
This election unfortunately provides further evidence of how politics is hollowing out and becoming gestural.
Minor differences are marketed as huge chasms. Winning is everything. Long held principles fall by the wayside, ditched at the drop of a poll.
Speaking on Sky News during the week, former Opposition leader, Mark Latham, the man incidentally who coined the “Seinfeld” crack, said it was astounding for example, that the Liberal Party has now conceded defeat on industrial relations. “I sat there in Parliament year in, year out, Abbott would say you’re in the pockets of the unions ... and now, the Labor Party, which he condemned as in the pockets of the unions, came up with some laws which, at the time he condemned but now he says, oh that’s okay. I mean, you’re not true to yourself.’‘
Just as Ms Gillard had hauled up the white flag on asylum seekers, embracing much of John Howard’s Pacific Solution, Mr Abbott decided he could not win with WorkChoices in the mix.
Latham calls this “the art of narrowness’’ and blames the media for jumping on the minorist departure from the orhodoxy.
He has a point. At the fifth-way mark of this campaign, “the vision thing” is nowhere to be seen, replaced by the less inspiring aim of avoiding mistakes.
So paranoid are the leaders that anything unscripted or unpleasant is fudged or denied. Three cases from this week: Ms Gillard claimed the number and timing of election debates was not her decision because these matters are decided at the organisational level. Really? Were voters born yesterday? Bob Brown used the same defence for his party’s bizarre one-for-one preference deal with Labor characterising it as grubby but nothing to do with him. Bollocks. And Tony Abbott, asked if politicians’ pay should simply be increased to get rid of rortable allowances, responded that it was a matter for the Remuneration Tribunal. Rubbish. The Parliament sets those rules not the tribunal.
There was much interest in how the two untried leaders would perform in this campaign. Yet so far the results are disappointing as they roll themselves up in the manner of Kim Beazley’s famously underwhelming 1998 “small target strategy’‘.
Looking back on the week, Julia Gillard’s biggest problem has been how she came to the job. Labor insiders admit it is like a stain that won’t shift which is why they’ve kept her in a bubble away from the unpredictabilities of public exposures. They wanted to ride out any lingering anger over Kevin Rudd’s dumping but the issue, like the man, is not going away.
Tony Abbott’s problems have been more policy related. His unconvincing retreat on IR has made for a very scratchy start. One cannot help but agree with Mr Latham’s critique that the first person he needs to convince is himself.
For both sides, the goal in the early going has been the mininimisation of risk.
Policy announcements have been few, spending intiatives decidedly modest, and campaign razzamatazz… forget about it.
“Look, this race is a bit like the Tour de France going on at present,’’ bristled one Labor figure defensively.
“As Lance Armstrong and Cadel Evans can tell you, you can’t win it in the early stages but you sure as hell can lose it - we know it and they (the Liberals) know it.’’ That at least is true.
In 2007, John Howard PM dropped a potentially game-changing $34 billion tax cut on the table at the start. It was immediately matched by Kevin Rudd with minor adjustments. Howard lost.
There are no such fireworks this time.
Logistically, Ms Gillard got the jump on Mr Abbott who despite weeks of “will-she, won’t-she’’ speculation, failed to have his campaign machinery in place. It has simply added to the sense of the Opposition campaign being a bit of a dog and pony show.
Using the advantages of office, Labor’s campaign has been much smoother with all utterances carefully scripted and efficiently communicated. It’s just, they don’t say anything.
Perhaps it will get interesting at the one and only leaders’ debate tomorrow night? But then, the front-running Julia Gillard hopes not.
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