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Giving voters what they want

By John Warhurst - posted Monday, 29 October 2007


McAllister and his study colleagues confront this question directly. They ask voters whether they prefer less tax or more spending on social services.

When the question was first asked in 1987 during the Hawke-Keating period, 65 per cent favoured less tax and only 15 per cent favoured more spending on social services. By 2004, the gap had been eliminated. Thirty-seven per cent wanted more spending on social services and only 36 per cent wanted less tax.

The community is evenly balanced. Has Howard (and by implication Rudd) got it wrong by putting so many of his eggs in the tax cuts basket? Or is the electorate just kidding? The Greens are offering the greater public spending alternative, but Howard and Rudd might be reading the electorate better when considering what voters do in the privacy of the ballot box.

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What about the Government's attack on Labor and the trade unions? Shouldn't Labor in turn just attack the links between the Coalition and the top end of town? Labor chose instead to emphasise the contribution of unions to the community and the good things that Hawke and Keating, themselves union officials, did while leading the country.

The Government's attack on Labor-union links (alleging that 70 per cent of the Labor front bench is made up of former union officials) has several elements that must be disentangled for its potential impact to be judged. Some have no sting, but others might.

The Government tries to scare the electorate with allegations of union power and control. McAllister demonstrates that this won't wash. The electorate, in 2004, actually feared the excessive power of big business (71 per cent) much more than the excessive power of trade unions (41 per cent), though 41 per cent is still no small matter.

Howard also claims explicitly the union connection is out of whack, and unrepresentative, because only 15 per cent of the private-sector workforce is unionised. This is harder for Labor to rebut, other than by the truth that Labor is, after all, a trade union-based party.

Finally, the Government implies the link makes Labor old-fashioned because it reflects a time years ago when 50 per cent of the workforce was unionised.

This implication, if convincing, might cut across Labor's claim to a fresh, new approach.

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Matching election rhetoric with underlying public opinion is not easy. It provides a warning that election campaigning is a mix of explicit, implicit and subconscious targeting of one's opponent. You have to read between the lines.

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First published in The Canberra Times on 25 October, 2007



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About the Author

John Warhurst is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science with the Australian National University and Flinders University and a columnist with the Canberra Times.

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