Australian Election 2013

by Adam Hannah

This election seems pretty much done. A big loss, as is looking fairly likely, will show that the problem isn’t Rudd or Gillard or the media or personality politics. The problem is Labour, as it has been since they got into office. As I see it this has three elements:

1) The Govt has been poor at actual politics – confused, uninspired messaging, lack of perceived legitimacy, no sense of achievement, a bunch of stupid promises.

2) Some poor policy choices – carbon tax instead of ETS, problems with mining tax, home insulation, asylum seeker policy has been a mess etc. The scope of its policy ambition was great in 2007, but so many of them were poorly thought out or implemented.

3) Complete underestimation/exaggeration of Tony Abbott and the current Liberal Party – for this time in Aus politics, Abbott is a good candidate. It’s incredibly easy to cherry pick quotes to make him look like complete fuckwit, and Labour seems to think doing so is good strategy, but it hasn’t worked up until now. The vast majority of voters form opinions on more complex (if not always rational) grounds. The Coalition has totally outboxed Labour, in almost every area, despite having a number of clearly substandard policies and inexperienced frontbenchers.