Not relaxed and comfortable with Howard

"Relaxed and comfortable" doesn't work, not least because that is the last thing most people appear to be feeling at the moment. There is a lack of poetic flair about the Howard Government. What would Keating have said about the one-quarter of negative growth that we have had? Would he have referred to it as "the pause the refreshes" or perhaps blamed it on the Olympic Party hangover. One thing is certain, he would have laid off phrases like "pulled forward". They are nothing to average people except jargon. If Howard is going to sell economic reform he has to find a better justification than "efficiency" - no-one ever voted for it.

There is another lesson that the Liberal Party can learn from Ryan, and that is that they are losing their urban heart. While Ryan, as a by-election, is a once-off, there is no doubt that there has been a steady erosion of the Liberal vote in this seat over the years, just as there has been in every major capital city. The Liberal Party's strength is outside the capitals. Yet it is in the regions where independents and Hansonites are making their mark and the threatened swings look even bigger.

The Federal Cabinet is considering ways to placate the regions. But on the evidence of Ryan it needs to spend some time finding out just what it is that the cities want. Otherwise, in the odds-on event that the Liberals lose the next federal election, they may find themselves without the regional seats at the same time that they lose their urban base. In the long run, urban seats are more important, particularly seats like Ryan.

Class is still the basis of Australian political parties and Ryan is full of the people who ought to be the foundations of the Liberal Party. The by-election result shows that these days they feel like "forgotten people". Howard can't afford to let them stay that way.