There is a standard script for party leaders who are expected to lose. Embrace that expectation, predict a wipe-out and say you’re doing your best to hang on, but you are afraid things will be worse than any of the polls suggest. That stiffens the nerves of supporters and brings back some who were thinking of giving you a kick.
Readers with long memories may remember that in 1993 Paul Keating wasn’t able to read from that script so in the last week Wayne Goss, Premier of Queensland, read it for him. Without that bit of understudy insubordination the “true believers” might never have had their victory. A variation on it was what produced the “Queensland Effect” in 1995 leading to the expected loser in that state election becoming the marginal winner.
Rob Kerin is heading for a hiding, but either isn’t getting good advice, or is just not tough enough to run the right lines. This morning on AM he was predicting that his party might even do better than the polls suggest. He was posed a “gimme” proposition by the interviewer. Given the lack of party loyalty of the modern voter won’t this make it harder to hold the marginals? Kerin responded that he wasn’t too concerned about the marginals and thought the Liberals would do OK.
The only real issue in this SA election has been the likely size of Rann’s majority – nothing else has reached any critical mass. If voters think something close to the status quo, but with a small majority to Rann is likely to obtain, they are more likely than not to put a 1 next to the name of their local Labor candidate. Kerin’s doing his best to make this scenario seem more credible.

The South Australian election has been more about losers than winners, and those will be the Liberals and the Democrats. One of them is likely to go into terminal decline, while the other will be banished from office for quite some time.
Mike Rann was always going to do well this election. Electors normally give governments a second term unless they have made some really huge mistakes and as far as voters are concerned Rann has done a good job. His government’s only weaknesses have been personal. He’s too smooth, too presidential and a little arrogant – all qualities that ironically voters almost demand of politicians at the same time that they disparage them.
Not that voters found these traits too annoying. In fact, they found it hard to dislike either leader. 22% of Liberal voters could contemplate voting for Kerin without hesitation, while 28% of Labor voters could do the same for Rann. However matters were different when it came to approving of the job that both men were doing. 86% of Labor voters approve of Rann, while only 42% of Liberal voters approve of Kerin. Worse for Kerin, 32% of his own voters disapprove of his performance. So while both men were generally liked, the Liberal crowd was not really barracking for its team. In fact, from a polling point of view it looked like most had gone home before even turning up to the game!
This ennui was reflected in the reactions to the campaign launches. Party officials and media put big efforts into campaign launches, but would they bother if they knew voters would react with: “To be honest they kinda flew under the radar,” or “They weren’t talking loud enough.” Just like the rest of the campaign.
Voters had to be reminded about issues, and then it was really only the ones that caused negative reactions that gained their attention.
The Liberals’ policy announcements were defensive, aimed at their natural constituents. $90 million in payroll tax cuts and extra spending on private schools are not of concern to most voters. They also had problems when voters focused on public service job cuts. There’s no perceived financial crisis so voters can’t see cuts being justified and they see tax cuts and job cuts as neutralizing each other: “There you go… Less pay-roll tax AND less service.”
Labor got good marks for its expenditure on hospitals, and reversing the privatization of Modbury. Its education policies were less well-received.
Voters didn’t like the campaign turning personal, which it did with the Labor advertising. And they found many of the claims to be trivial. The general response was “So what if the Liberals won’t keep all of their campaign promises – who does?” This could have rebounded on the ALP but didn’t because the Liberals have so desperately failed to make the grade they don’t even look like they want to win. Despite the “buy you a beer” nice-guy image of their leader they will be lucky if voters don’t take it out on them this Saturday.
One of the few “hot spots” was concern about Family First. Even though our polling picked up less than 1% Family First votes there is a wide-spread belief that they will do well in the Legislative Council and could even control it. This could have boosted the Democrats’ vote. If they had taken a leaf from their 1998 federal campaign where they cast themselves as the anti-One Nation party and presented as the perfect secular foil to FF, they might have given significant numbers of voters reason to vote for them. As it is I suspect that they will be submerged in the noise generated by high profile independents like Nick Xenophon, unless they have been really canny and lucky with their preference deals.
So Rann is sailing towards a comfortable election win and control of the lower house with voters planning to put a chaperone on him in the Upper House. This should set him up well for the next parliament. While voters like Kerin, he’s the only Liberal that they do, with his party being one of his largest negatives. A changing of the Liberal guard will really take all the Lower House brakes off Labor.
A version of this article will be published in the Independent Weekly this weekend.

Question: What do you get when you pay a post-materialist doctor 50% more? The answer, if you’re Peter Beattie would appear to be: Two-thirds the person-hours for the same money.
In a move designed to encourage more doctors into the Queensland hospital system Peter Beattie increased the income of some junior doctors by up to 58%. But if you’re suddenly earning $200,000 per annum when you only need $133,000 what do you do with the extra $67,000? My sources tell me many doctors are actually going to use it to purchase quality of life, foresaking their full-time jobs for permanent part-time ones, leaving the health system no better off.
No-one should be really surprised by this. We’ve had polling telling us for some time that people are increasingly valuing quality of life over quantity of possessions. In fact it’s one of the reasons for the doctor shortage in the first place. Younger male doctors won’t work the hours older doctors routinely accepted. Younger female doctors won’t either, and they are going to take time out to have a family as well in many cases. The result – unless you train radically more graduates you are going to have doctor shortages. The number you need to train just went up another 50% thanks to Peter’s pay rise.
So throwing money at the problem would not appear to be a quick fix, although undoubtedly it will eventually help to persuade overseas doctors to fill the gaps. Afterall, where else in the world can you have our life-style and only need to work 28 hours a week to have enough money to enjoy it?

The ALP election campaign has misfired badly. It is tending to lower the standing of Premier Rann, leaves Rob Kerin almost unscathed and is guaranteeing a good vote for independents and minor parties in the Legislative Council. At the same time the Liberals have yet to put a proposition that voters will really buy.
According to our latest focus group and questionnaire responses voters are tending more and more to see Mike Rann as shallow and not much more than a moving media opportunity. This has been reinforced by their negative ads. These ads aren’t working because voters see Kerin as competent, trustworthy, engaged, but failing to meet their minimum expectations of what an opposition leader, let alone premier, should be. He’s not bad, he’s just not good enough. Beating up on Kerin is a bit like mugging a Red Shield collector because they’re looking over your fence.
Voters also want to know why Rann can’t just run on his positives. Which leads to another weakness in the Labor campaign – voters want to know what Rann will do in the future, not just what he has done in the past. South Australians are starting to worry that the state is only surfing along on John Howard’s wake, and when he cuts his engine they are going to sink.
While they warm to the projects that South Australia is winning, they fear these are just one-offs. That is probably why infrastructure comes up as a strong voter concern, because it is the framework for sustainable growth. In this context, the Liberals promise to fix the Victor Harbour Road brings support, while Labor is ridiculed for wanting to invest in trams.
With many of the promises there is doubt that either of the political parties mean what they say, or can deliver on them. While voters like Rann’s Global Warming policies they don’t see them as having much impact “2050? Well, I suppose there’s no need to rush.” Or they lampoon them – “…wind generators on the roofs of got departments what a hoot”.
They’re much more receptive to the Liberals’ plans to use south-east forests as a tourist resource and for some logging. At the same time the Liberals appear to have blundered with their latest education policy to give more money to private schools. Even amongst conservative voters there is strong support for the public school system and a feeling that Labor has let these schools down.
Having the odd policy that voters support isn’t enough and the Liberal campaign hasn’t provided any reason to vote for Kerin. Most voters can’t remember it, but some vaguely think that it has been more positive than Labor’s. The result of this is to strengthen the vote for Independents like Nick Xenophon and minor parties like Family First in the upper house – their “value proposition” is that they can keep the government accountable. This is further strengthened by a suspicion that the referendum on changes to the upper house is designed to strengthen the hand of Rann. Voters do not like the authoritarian, presidential style of Rann, but they also do not like the idea of minority government. With two houses of parliament you can make a government accountable, and avoid a minority government, by ensuring a hostile upper house.
So the message from the research still is that achieving a result that makes Rann accountable is what is important to SA voters. The Liberals are so stretched for funds that they haven’t started their television ads yet. When they do, will they be on message, or on their way to a resounding defeat?
A version of this article ran in the Independent Weekly yesterday. To see our transcripts and analysis click here.

In the 1995 state election one of the issues that brought the Goss government undone was their false claim that the Coalition was going to privatise the hospital system. The blatant untruthfulness of the accusation led to the Courier Mail labelling it “grubby”, and it was the final turning point in the campaign.
So it is ironic that just more than 10 years on Labor has so mismanaged the health system that Beattie is in effect privatising the troubled Caboolture Hospital Emergency Department, hiring 15 doctors from a private medical firm at a cost of $7 million per year. It is a one year contract with a second one year term, but does anyone believe this won’t be extended? With something like 50,000 additional people coming to South-East Queensland each year it is more likely that the program will be extended to other hospitals rather than terminated as doctor shortages are likely to last for some time.
I don’t have an in-principle problem with the solution, except that at around $500,000 p.a. per doctor it does look fairly expensive. Couldn’t they have gotten the medical firm to throw in the facilities as well for the price?

University of Sydney researchers Gabrielle Meagher and Shaun Wilson have found that as a society Australia has become more left-wing. Comment seems to assume that this has happened despite Howard, but could it be because of him?
My thesis isn’t that this is a reaction to Howard’s positions on issues, but rather that by making it possible to be less “politically correct” Howard has created the conditions where people are more ready to move from entrenched positions.
Proof that we are a less politically correct society is easy to find. Take Peter Costello’s recent statement that Muslim immigrants should accept Australian values, and if they won’t and they have dual citizenship, they should be repatriated to the “alter pater” (latinists might like to help me with this phrase). A public figure would not have gotten away with this 10 years ago, and remember the furore over Howard’s much more moderate comments about Asian immigration back in the ’80s.
When Pauline Hanson was at her height of popularity there were many who said “I don’t agree with everything she says, but good on her for having the guts to get up and say it.” In effect, many supported her because they thought she was standing up to intellectual and cultural bullying. Presumably their own views were affected by the same forces.
Take the perception of bullying away, and it makes it easier for people to actually change their mind, particularly if logic favours the bully’s position.
John Howard seems to embody that principle at work himself. After 10 years in power he’s prepared to admit to mistakes. When you look at his track record, he’s combined contradictory positions. For example his government has given financial support for women to stay home at the same time that he has increased childcare payments to allow them to go to work. And he allowed a conscience vote on the RU486 issue.
True, there are some totemic issues that Howard stands very conservative on, such as gay marriage and refugees, but his stands on these issues allow for very liberal policies underneath – for example a very liberal immigration policy.
Ironic that a conservative government may have done more to advance a left-wing agenda than those that espouse it. There is a message for the left here.

Polling in The Sunday Mail today shows the sort of problem that the Queensland coalition has in winning seats from Peter Beattie. It was done in the seat of Gaven where the sitting member, Robert Poole, has been forced to resign because he is spending most of his time in Thailand with his family rather than in the electorate.
The poll shows the following figures:

This should be a close win to the Liberal Party you might think. Wrong. Courtesy of the most cack-handed negotiations you have ever seen in your life it is the National Party that is contesting this seat, because the Liberal Party gave it to them in the Coalition negotiations. This is Beattie’s only advantage, because there are Liberals who will never vote National, and enough of these might vote third party and exhaust their preferences to give Labor a win.
If the locals want to give Beattie a bloody nose that can’t be treated by fixing the local hospital system, then they need to run an Independent Liberal candidate who would probably win. This might then jolt septuaganarian Liberal Party president Warwick Parer awake long enough to re-re-negotiate the agreement with the Nationals. Queensland is on the verge of significant change, but the Libs are too lethargic to take advantage of it prolonging the difficulties in the Coalition arrangement indefinitely.
One interesting thing about the result is that it is somewhere around a 16% swing against Labor on first preferences (a figure I calculate by notionally giving them 26% of the “Don’t know” vote and comparing it to the 47.33% they won last time). Beattie claims that Labor will suffer a swing of 20 to 25 percent against it. So he is going with an even higher estimate which is presumably designed to frighten some of his voters back. This raises the question as to why he has apparently been so critical of our Whatthepeoplewant research which has him losing the next election. If he wants to manage expectations down, then we’re inadvertently doing it for him.
My colleague John Black is the best weapon he has. John is using our research and research he does separately to predict a wipe-out. Seeing Black is open in his dislike of Beattie, the Premier ought to be savouring the irony, and using it to his best advantage. If he does win he’ll be able to look Black in the eye and say “I told you so, thanks for the favour mate.”
P.S. If you’re from South Australian you might be interested in completing our questionnaire on the state election.

Most Australians completely despise their leaders, but not South Australians. They mightn’t love them, but they’ll give them a pat in passing. Rann and Kerin are two blokes who are seen as decent, even honest. One is a capable leader, while the other is just too “nice”. As a result, if nothing changes between now and election day, Mike Rann is heading towards a “Rannslide”. The only thing that might prevent this is an almost unanimous belief that large margins make for unaccountable government.
These are some of the early conclusions from our research into the South Australian poll using online qualitative questionnaires and focus groups. As yet our data base is small – 142 responses to the online questionnaire and one focus group of 6 people – but qualitative analysis does not depend on large samples answering a small number of questions. It uses smaller samples and asks more detailed, open-ended questions. While quantitative research tries to measure how many people are doing what, “qual” looks for insight and motive. “Quants” give hindsight and “Qual” gives foresight.
This is the seventh election that we have covered in this way, and our success rate of predictions has been very high. This is not just due to the qualitative method, but to the fact that we use campaign professionals to design the questionnaires and conduct the focus groups, all the time asking the question “If I were running that campaign, what would I be doing and thinking.”
Rann’s campaign team is in a fortunate position. Its candidate has done so well over the last term of parliament that voters can’t think of anyone they would rather vote for. Here’s a sample of comments about Rann: “ability to relate to the common man”, “a nice person to speak to”, “genuinely interested”, “energetic, visionary, polished.” His one negative is that he is seen as being too presidential and media savvy, but it’s also a positive because it makes him mongrel enough to deal with his own party – South Australians don’t like political parties.
And the view of Kerin? Well, normally voters cite negative qualities as a reason for not voting for a particular politician, but in Kerin’s case it is his good qualities that are his negative. “Well, to use the old cliche, he’s a ‘good bloke’, he goes to Mass, and he is the result of a deal between the factions.” “Very decent bloke but not dynamic enough and not ruthless enough to keep a party together.” “I have dealt with him and was most impressed, but he really does not have the presence to lead the Libs. He knew the issues we went in to discuss and came across as very genuine.” He’s too nice for the business of politics, and they’re worried about his party as well.
Normally elections are not popularity contests. Even well-liked leaders are vulnerable to issues, and even the ugliest opposition leader can leverage relevance from them, but in this election there is not one single issue that stands out for voters, and few that arise above background static. When pressed they nominate health and education, and maybe the economy, but none of these appears to be a potential vote changer.
One issue that so far has been a negative according to our respondents is Law and Order. 10 years ago “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime” was a sure-fire vote winner. Nowadays voters are jaded as tougher laws have not made them feel any safer, and they are looking for more nuanced approaches. For example, one voter wanted to know whether it would give a better law and order outcome to employ an extra 400 police, or 400 teachers.
So, the only thing really at issue in this election would appear to be the size of Rann’s winning margin, or put from the other direction, how badly the Liberal Party will be mauled. If Rann runs a positive campaign, keeps himself in front of the cameras, and makes modest and achievable promises, it will be huge. If he goes negative on the Liberals, or voters start to think about just how large the margin will be, then he will be cut back down to size, but should still win handsomely. For me, the real interest from a campaign perspective will be whether the Liberals grasp this and shift their campaign appeal from personalities and policies, to an appeal for a tactical vote.
There is only one thing at issue in this campaign – the size of Rann’s margin -that’s the thing to campaign on.