Death by water

It is frequently alleged that when the economy is doing well the government will be re-elected. So why is John Howard trailing so badly in the polls?

As a result of the largest online qualitative survey into Australian federal voting intentions ever, we are now in a position to provide a definitive answer. The following analysis is based on the responses of 3,189 Australians who completed our Benchmark Federal Survey between April 20 and May 22 this year. This is the first of a series of articles that I will do based on this research. You can view the survey by going to What The People Want.

Some pundits say Howard is trailing because voters are “relaxed and comfortable” and, after the longest economic expansion in history, think that anyone can run the economy, so they are turning to other issues to determine their vote.

There is some truth in this, because some voters fit this category, but it doesn’t explain the magnitude of the change in public opinion, nor does it explain why Howard’s vote is holding up so well in Western Australia. WA is the state with the most to be comfortable about, so if this theory is true then West Australians should be less, not more, inclined towards Howard.

Our polling suggests voters are not “relaxed and comfortable”, and that the economy is partly to blame for John Howard’s predicament. Not the economy of today, but the economy of tomorrow. While interest rates may have been the key economic issue last election, this election it is water. Like the Fisher King, John Howard may be sacrificed because of the weather.

Climate change and drought, seen by many as twins, are the most important issues to Australians. If they are not fixed then there will be no economy to boast about. This is a bigger risk for most than the possibility of interest rates rising.

Labor has credibility on the climate. The Coalition generally has it on the economy. When the economy is viewed through the prism of climate it is undermined, even though it is the Coalition’s key strength. This helps to explain the sudden slump in its popularity independently of the accession of Kevin Rudd.

It also suggests that Industrial Relations and the Unions’ “Your Rights at Work” campaign are not the major agents of change. Nor is the Iraq War.

Drought also explains why the Coalition is travelling well in Western Australia. The conventional argument for the high Coalition vote in WA is that it has to do with AWAs. This has always seemed a bit tendentious to me. How many AWAs are there, and outside the mining communities how many voters do they really affect? Is this significant enough to explain a vote for the Coalition significantly higher than the rest of the country?

Water and drought provide a better explanation. The drought is an eastern Australian affair. Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide all have water shortages and are only starting to take hard medicine now. Indeed, there is a very real prospect that Brisbane will all but run-out of water before the planned solutions of a desalination plant, recycling and a water grid are in place.

Added to that, agriculture in WA is not as dependant on irrigation as it is in the east, while the bread basket of the nation - the Murray Darling irrigation ditch - has been over-exploited and is widely seen as an environmental disaster that may never recover.

Incumbency is also a problem for Howard. After 10 years in power he has upset everyone at least once. Electors are not actively seeking change as they were when they tossed Keating, Whitlam and Fraser, but they are grumpy.

Howard’s ascendancy has also depended on a deal with the electorate where in return for representing blue-collar conservative aspirations he has gained their support at the same time losing some middle-class supporters, often snidely, and inaccurately, referred to as “doctor’s wives”.

These blue collar voters, whom I call “values” voters, think Howard has now reneged on the deal. I call them “values” voters because this is a word they use when talking about their concerns, not because I don’t think that other voters have values.

They are Australians who have a strongly European sense of national identity. They don’t believe in the “black armband” view of history, they think that schools ought to teach facts, that rights ought to be matched by responsibilities, and that commonsense and intrinsic knowledge ought to prevail over academic theories. Many of them also possess a particular moral view of the world which is conservatively Christian.

Howard used to be one of them, but now they suspect he’s traded-in his chesty bonds and Y-front for some designer flimsies, and he’s no longer listening. What’s more, the constant opportunism and sharp practices are making them surly and undermine Howard’s integrity. Howard’s idea of the future is the next election, and a good budget surplus. After 16 years of continuous economic expansion they’re looking for something grander.

It’s possible that Howard’s aboriginal affairs policy may resonate with them. They are not anti-Aboriginal, but they do think that Aborigines ought to be more European in their behaviour. Policies to impose law and order, tie welfare to responsibility and reform land tenure might strike a chord. It’s also possible that they may see it as cynical politics, which would reinforce their unease. Initial polling suggests that the majority of Australians are taking the second line, but it’s possible that “values” voters will see it differently.

But while Kevin Rudd seems much more likeable, and is promising some upgrades, Australians aren’t sure that he has the experience, or the ability, to deliver. He’s also tarnished by his travelling companions - Labor and the Unions. Perhaps this also is a reflection of incumbency. With Labor in power in all the states there’s not too many who haven’t been irritated by them at least once. It is also a reflection of Labor’s support for minority rights which run counter to conservative Christianity.

It is difficult to tell from this sample whether the public has made up its mind to change the government, or whether they are stamping their foot in the hope that Howard will pay more attention to them. In 2001 they were desperately unhappy with Howard, but he changed direction on enough issues between losing Ryan and winning Aston for electors to forgive him. It’s possible that this could happen again.

If Howard can rebuild some trust with “values” voters and reinforce doubts about Rudd’s experience, and his relationship with Labor and the Unions, Howard may still win; particularly if the drought breaks. Conversely, if Rudd can prove that he can control his allies and keep talking about the future, he may be able to hold his lead.

In all of our studies of federal voting intentions since 2001 the underlying position has been this. Voters don’t like Howard, and don’t like what he stands for. They’ve liked his opponents, and they’ve liked their policies. But, they’ve believed that Howard will deliver, and they haven’t believed that his opponents would. Faced with a choice between certainty and uncertainty, they have always gone for certainty.

This election the same cards are on the table, but meteorology has distributed the suit of certainty differently. Howard’s a good card player, but even the best can’t take every trick.