Incumbency is king

It is a political irony of our time that, at the federal level, the conservatives do well and Labor poorly, while in state parliaments it is the reverse.

An irony it may be, but surprising it is not. In these times of strong economic growth, voters simply do not want to upset the applecart. Incumbency is king.

Last November Glenn Milne in The Australian (“Liberals facing a cascade of state defeats” November 21, 2005) predicted that the Liberals were facing a “cascade of state defeats” and since then we have already seen Labor returned in both South Australia and Tasmania. Elections to come over the next 12 months in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, to varying degrees, look like confirming Milne’s prediction.

To test the power of incumbency, it is instructive to see how two “bad news” stories for Labor have played out in my home state of Tasmania: one for the state government and one for the federal opposition.

For the state Labor Party, the events leading up to the sale of the TT Line’s Spirit III have been described by some as a scandal. The question is, will there be long-term political damage to the Labor Government?

Probably not, if recent history is any teacher.

There are three key reasons why incumbency means Tasmanian State Labor should be able to navigate out of this one.

First, to many voters, political scandal is only so much “noise”. Studies of voter habits show that a majority have little interest in politics, do not follow stories in any detail and generally have a low opinion of politicians. So, one group of politicians is accusing the other group of a cover-up or taking political advantage? Really? What’s new? These types of news items are not “barbeque stoppers” to pinch a phrase from John Howard.

On issues of impropriety or scandal, voters appear not to judge incumbent government as harshly as those closer to politics - the journalists, commentators, analysts and politicians themselves - do.

The average voter tires of a scandal much more quickly than the pundits. In particular, yarns that rely on “who said what, when and to whom” (like the AWB “scandal”) glaze the eyes more quickly than your uncle’s holiday snaps.

The lesson for opposition politicians and journalists is, unless you have something really big to add, stop beating the story up: the public will have moved on.

Second, with big-ticket stories like the Spirit III sale that involve millions of dollars, it is hard for the public to relate these figures to their own hip pockets. Issues that really bite are those that affect the ebb and flow of the weekly pay packet: interest rates, tax, house prices and school fees, for example.

The experience with Australian state and federal elections is that the principal determinate of an individual’s vote is how it will affect them personally. There is mounting evidence that the median voter is increasingly self-interested, pragmatic and focused on his or her own welfare.

I am not saying people are not concerned about government probity: merely that when it comes to casting a vote, it is self-interest that wins out, manifesting itself as a vote for the incumbent to keep the good economic times rolling.

The third reason is that it is four years to the next election in Tasmania so anything that happens now will have little bearing on how any future government might be formed. Further, incumbency means it is the government that gains the headlines from taking action and announcing “rescue packages”.

The other side of the incumbency coin is that long periods in opposition lead to frustration. It could be argued that this has contributed to a very fractious situation for federal Labor in the seat of Franklin.

The sitting member, Harry Quick, has the party hierarchy over a barrel and they know it.

The maverick MP wants to retire at the 2007 election, but he also wants a say in who takes his place.

The problem for the party is that if Mr Quick does not get his way, he has the power to follow through on his threat to hand the seat to the Liberals.

Can four terms in opposition have fermented Labor’s internal wranglings and power struggles to the stage that a member would cut his own party’s throat?

Apparently, yes.

If Labor preselect the Electrical Trades Union assistant secretary Kevin Harkins - Harry Quick’s avowed enemy - and if Mr Quick is true to his word, he will immediately resign from the party, sit on the crossbench for the rest of this term and contest the election as an independent.

This is Labor’s horror option. Mr Quick’s large personal following would still not be enough for him to win: rather he would split the Labor vote allowing the Liberal candidate, possibly Vanessa Goodwin, to top the poll on primaries then win on preferences in the cut-up.

So, who will blink first? Is Harry Quick bluffing? Or will the party hard heads back down and endorse a compromise candidate?

Mr Quick has said his motive is his desire to ensure his electorate gets someone who “says what he thinks” and is not, as he alleges Mr Harkins to be, a “drop kick”.

But perhaps the frustration of being a backbencher for five terms, four of them in opposition, is coming to the surface as well.

If Labor had more time as the incumbent in Canberra, Mr Quick would have had the opportunity to make some impact on broader national policy. As a backbencher in opposition, his principal reward has been to establish a close relationship with his electorate and in doing so make the seat safe for Labor.

Maybe he considers it a just valedictory that he gets to name his successor?

The problem for Labor is that Harry Quick has nothing to lose which makes playing chicken with him a very dangerous game.

Long-term opposition is the ultimate frustration in politics. Incumbency really is king.