Why Iemma isn't 'Italian for Unsworth'

If “Iemma is Italian for Unsworth”, according to Barrie Cassidy, then what is “Debnam” English for? Certainly not “Greiner”. In 1988 Nick Greiner beat Barry Unsworth in a landslide, Unsworth having been given the hospital pass of Labor leadership by Neville Wran.

When Cassidy made his linguistic quip on The Insiders he obviously expected history to repeat itself. But our On Line Opinion polling shows that history will not be repeated, and that the blame for that lies squarely with the Liberal Party.

The research says that if the Liberal Party had stuck with Brogden then they would be likely to be winning with a landslide. Instead, if there is a protest vote it will probably go to punish them, for being such a woefully inept opposition.

As one participant says (note that all quotes are verbatim, including typos): “The NSW Government under Iemma (and formerly under Carr) has shown itself to be incompetent, media driven, and cringingly toadying to corporate interests. Iemma has no spine, no plan, and is a total moral vaccuum. The problem is that the Liberals are infected with the religious hard right, and are likely to be even worse. So it's the lesser of two evils between a Labor state government which deserves to be thrown out of office, and a Coalition state opposition which doesn't deserve to win. Great choice.”

And for balance, another: “An opposition has to be an alternative. Peter Debnam is a nurd. No one votes for a nurd. It is impossible to see the Liberal party beyond this poor leader. Heaven knows that with Iemma leading labor we needed a strong effective opposition and we get Debnam. What did we do wrong!”

How did things come to this pass?

When asked whether the state was heading in the right direction the majority of our voters decisively say “No”. Only 16 per cent agreed, with 59 per cent disagreeing, and this was fairly consistent across parties, with only Labor supporters - 51 per cent thought the state heading in the right direction - bucking the trend. The reasons for this answer variously came back to the performance of the government. Around one-third nominated the government directly, while 10 per cent fingered under-investment in infrastructure and a further 9 per cent a failure to address the issues.

But dissatisfaction with the government is not translating into support for the opposition. Our polls are qualitative, so while they give a very good feel for the issues, they can only infer support for various parties. What we can infer tends to support Newspoll and the other properly randomised surveys (PDF 20KB), which is that the Coalition vote is probably worse than last election; Greens are also down, Independents up, and no matter how implausibly, Labor up as well.

While many of our respondents (28 per cent) expect a hung parliament, based on their own voting intentions, this is not going to happen.

Part of the reason for this must rest with the issues that voters find important. The most important to voters is water (25 per cent), followed by climate change (11 per cent). Then follows health (8 per cent), infrastructure (8 per cent), environment (6 per cent), sustainability (6 per cent), and probity (5 per cent).

Traditionally the Labor Party does better on conservation issues than the Coalition, while electors also tend to trust governments rather than oppositions on the issue of water. There’s nothing here for the Coalition to gain traction on. In part this must represent a failure by them to assert an alternative agenda giving voters a reason to change.

Some of that failure comes back to a failure of leadership. Our respondents disapproved of Iemma (-14 per cent), but they even more disapprove of Debnam (-54 per cent). Some of this is attributable to the left-lean of our sample. Some of it is also attributable to lukewarm support for Debnam from Coalition supporters. While 71 per cent of Labor supporters approve of Morris Iemma, only 41 per cent (that’s less than half) of Liberals approve of Debnam. Which doesn’t mean that most Liberals disapprove of Debnam, but that 47 per cent (that’s almost half) “neither approve nor disapprove”!

When asked why they would hesitate in voting for Iemma, respondents nominated his performance (23 per cent), his team (19 per cent), unimaginative (10 per cent), honesty (10 per cent).

With Debnam it is his conservatism, or that of his party, (26 per cent), policies (10 per cent), lack of experience (8 per cent) and weakness (6 per cent).

The sub-text for Iemma is that Labor is pretty bad, has been in too long, Iemma is uninspiring, but as for the Libs … . The sub-text for Debnam is that the NSW Liberal Party is run by Rednecks and Christian “nutters” to whom he is beholden and that he lacks any experience or strength of character.

Another factor in the Liberals’ woes is federal government policy, with many voters nominating Debnam’s promise to sack 20,000 public servants and his undertaking to bring NSW under the Federal IR umbrella, as negatives. Much of the concern about “policy” stems from this, and 5 per cent directly nominated IR as a reason for hesitation.

In other words, while there is a strong desire to change government, NSW voters do not want one that is right-wing or run by Christian fundamentalists: many voters including roughly half of Liberals, don’t feel they know enough about the Opposition leader to make a judgment on whether they approve of him or not. They could have been susceptible to an opposition fronted by a known and respected moderate politician, with a plan to increase investment in NSW infrastructure and clean-up corruption in the state.

This is essentially how Greiner beat Unsworth. Greiner was identified as a moderate, he was a well-known quantity having contested and lost the previous election, he was respected for his ability inside and outside politics, he had a strong team, and he put forward a strong positive agenda for developing New South Wales.

When you compare Debnam and Brogden, who comes closest to Greiner?

It’s possible that Brogden’s mental state might have made it impossible for him to ever front this election as leader. However, it’s just as possible that his mental state was precipitated by the extreme pressure he must have been under from the right-wing faction in his own party under-mining him.

From my reading of our polling, it would have been better for the Liberals, and Debnam, if Brogden had been allowed to contest this election. They could probably have won it. There’s a message here also for the Liberal Party around Australia which is increasingly being penetrated by various conservative Christians, and has a penchant for killing-off leaders without giving them a proper chance to prove themselves.