What’s the Coalition doing right?

From this perspective, Labor’s major electoral failing lies in part in refusing to practise the successful politics of soft racism: something perhaps for its supporters to be proud of.

Third, John Howard has remade the political establishment. One by one, he’s knocking away the props that held up Australia’s more liberal-minded political establishment.

He’s stacked the board of the ABC. He’s appointed divisive right-wingers to the High Court. (These days the prerequisite for appointment to that or any other Commonwealth body is to get published in Quadrant.) He’s continually denigrating the Fairfax Press and the arts community.

Think about the voluntary student unionism legislation. Why do you think a federal government would worry about what students are up to? It’s not just because Brendan Nelson wants to impress conservatives on his backbench as part of his campaign to become deputy leader to Peter Costello. It’s because they see student unionism as a training ground for future anti-Coalition political leaders.

On TV today you’ll see advertisments for the new “Super Choice” reforms. These reforms are only partly about giving people more choice in what super fund they want. They’re also about destroying the industry super funds that are controlled by the union movement - robbing the labour movement of future influence over investment decisions.

It is long-range politics aimed at reshaping the political system over a couple of decades.

John Howard’s fourth innovation is that nothing is out of bounds: not race, not sexuality, not national security.

Look at how he has politicised use of the military and the Anzac legend. This is absolutely unprecedented. When he sent troops to East Timor in 1999 John Howard learned a valuable lesson: identification with young Australian soldiers, living and dead, is a universal antidote to public criticism, a way to demonstrate strength, and a sure fire way to increase your standing in the Newspoll.

And it’s a good way also of appealing to the predominantly blue collar mums and dads of the young men and women sent overseas.

And the fifth and final of John Howard’s innovations is surrounding himself with powerful media allies to ram home his message, especially where it counts - on talk back radio and in the tabloids. Labor’s supporters bang away at the broadsheets and on the ABC, but few hear their message.

This is important, because it affects our democracy in serious ways. As an adviser to three Labor leaders, I observed that it was incredibly difficult for the policies Labor released to create enough sustained coverage to filter down to the average voter.

John Howard has the powerful levers of government at his disposal to influence public opinion, but he has something more - a strong forward pack of media supporters willing to pick up a policy or message, smash through the opposing team’s defences and touch it down under the uprights.