Australian politics
Dutton’s winning ways
An election defeat is a bitter experience, particularly for a party that has held office for a few terms, but as any old Labor hand can testify, it is also an opportunity for reflection and renewal. Also Albanese, and a number of newly-elected independents, have invited the opposition to break from the snarling nastiness that has been so strong a feature of the Coalition’s behaviour.
Anyone who does not wear partisan blinkers can see plenty of opportunities for the Liberal Party to assert a political philosophy that differs from the government’s without having to lie, engage in ad hominem attacks, trivialize important issues, or compromise national security.
But Dutton has doubled down on established Coalition behaviour, particularly in relation to climate change.
What’s all the fuss about?
Closing the border with Indonesia to protect Australia from foot-and-mouth disease is another wacky Dutton idea. Rural lobby groups don’t support it, and writing in The Conversation biosecurity experts Susan Hester of the University of New England and Aaron Dodd of the University of Melbourne dismiss the idea: Yes, wash your shoes at the airport – but we can do more to stop foot-and-mouth disease ravaging Australia. We need to pay particular attention to the way meat products are imported into Australia, and to helping countries with FMD inoculate their stock, but a border closure would be inimical to everyone’s interests.
The Coalition has been particularly critical of the government’s decision to abolish, or at least to disempower, the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Bernard Keane, writing in The Mandarin, acknowledges that in its crackdown on militant union behaviour, particularly the behaviour of the CFMEU, the Commission’s objective was to improve productivity in our high-cost construction sector. Citing research by the Productivity Commission, he points out that The ABCC was a disaster for productivity. Cannot a party aspiring to be returned to government put forward some ideas for genuine reform of this industry?
Then there is education reform. There is a great deal to criticize in our school education system, particularly our comparative (and in cases absolute) ranking in international tests such as PISA, and the flight from public schools associated with the misallocation of public funding. But as Rick Morton Points out in The Saturday Paper ‘Pushing bullshit’: leaked docs reveal Dutton’s education farce, we are supposed to believe that our education system is run by Marxists who have populated the curriculum with “left wing rubbish”, who try to present our post-1788 history as nothing more than invasion and oppression of the land’s original owners, and who seek to inculcate in school children a hostility to any aspects of Judeo- Christian heritage. As Stewart Riddle of the University of Southern Queensland points out, writing in The Conversation, this is an attempt to transplant the Republicans’ culture wars to Australia: Why is Peter Dutton trying to start another political fight over the school curriculum?.
Essential poll, with advice for the Greens and the Coalition
The fortnightly Essential poll has questions on the performance of the newly-elected government, on people’s beliefs about the influence of the federal government on economic issues, on whether the Greens should support Labor’s climate policy, and on attitudes to Labor’s 43 percent emissions reduction target.
On the government’s performance, perhaps the clearest interpretation is that many people think it’s too early to judge. On the government’s handling of Covid-19, education and climate change, more people are inclined to say “good” rather than poor, but on the cost of living 41 percent respond “quite poor or very poor”, while only 23 percent respond “good” or “quite good”. There are predictable partisan differences, and on all four issues the “financially comfortable” give the government much higher ratings than are given by those who are not so well-off.
The poll asks how much influence people think the government has on federal government debt, fuel prices, inflation, unemployment, interest rates and workforce supply. Unfortunately the question has no time frame: on all these issues governments have little immediate influence, while over the long run when government structural policies come into play, governments have considerable influence. Nevertheless, in spite of this poor wording, there is some realism in people’s responses: 75 percent of respondents believe the federal government can influence government debt, while 54 percent believe the government can influence interest rates (still a high number, in view of the nature of global financial markets and the independence of the Reserve Bank, but perhaps many people see the Reserve Bank as part of “the government”).
On whether the Greens should support Labor’s policy on climate change, one half say they should, one quarter say that Greens’ support should be conditional on Labor making changes closer to the Greens’ policies, and one quarter don’t want any further action on climate change. There are predictable partisan differences, and in response to a creatively-worded question, 57 percent of those who say they “seriously considered voting for the Greens” believe that the Greens should vote for Labor’s 43 percent cut.
The Coalition should surely take note of responses to the question “do you think the 43% reduction target is a sufficient contribution from Australia to limit the impact of climate change?”. In response, 44 percent believe that 43 percent reduction is sufficient, while 40 percent believe more needs to be done. Coalition voters are only a little less enthusiastic about reducing emissions: 51 percent believe 43 percent is sufficient, while 29 percent believe more needs to be done. Because the Coalition must be finding broadly similar results in its own polling, the only plausible explanation for Dutton’s stance is that he sees some long-term political benefit in sustaining the climate wars, perhaps as an issue in identity politics rather than as an issue about economic policy.
More results from May’s election
How the polls performed
William Bowe’s Poll Bludger has a report on the performance of polls in the leadup to May’s election. He found a collective error overstating Labor’s support by 2.3 percent, and an understatement of the Coalition’s vote by 0.4 percent.
Bowe provides a great deal of comparative data about pollsters’ predictions and the outcome of the election. While 4 out of the 5 polling companies overstated Labor’s support, there is no evidence of any systemic error or bias affecting all pollsters. State breakdowns show errors in both directions, and different errors for different pollsters.
That means there is nothing in these errors to suggest that there has been an opinion poll effect (the expectation of a strong Labor victory leading people to switch to the Coalition to stave off a landslide) or a shy voter effect (voters feeling too embarrassed to admit to pollsters that they intend to vote for Morrison).
Where the preferences flowed
The Electoral Commission has published results of preference flows for all major parties, and Adrian Beaumont, in an article in The Conversation, has summarized the results.
One finding is that Labor did particularly well from preference flows in the May election. Pollsters overestimated Labor’s primary vote, but presumably because they were using historical preference flows, they underestimated flows of preferences to Labor. This meant that in the end, pollsters only slightly overestimated Labor’s two-party-preferred vote: their errors corrected themselves. Pollsters’ TPP estimate was 52.4 percent, and it actually came in at 52.1 percent. Theoretically, because the TPP estimate involves more sampling error and assumptions than the primary vote estimate it should be less accurate. Was this outcome due to luck or to the pollsters’ statistical wizardry?
Another significant finding is that Labor did surprisingly well from preference flows from One Nation (36 percent to Labor) and UAP (38 percent to Labor). Any assumption by the Coalition that votes for populist fringe parties will easily come back to them through preferences is shaky.
In the same article Beaumont also reports on Labor’s proposals for electoral reform, including spending caps and truth in advertising. He also discusses ideas around Senate reform, using the extreme case of the contrast between New South Wales (population 8.7 million) and Tasmania (0.6 million), with each state electing 12 senators. Any re-balancing between states would require a constitutional change, however. A constitutional change requires majority support in a majority of states, and it is impossible to see the three small states agreeing to reduce their representation. Senate representation for the territories – the ACT and the Northern Territory – can be changed by legislation, however.