Post by cardigan on May 6, 2006 9:49:48 GMT -5
RIGHT now Labor can't win an election with Kim Beazley as leader. Neither can it win an election without him as leader. Even as a losing bet, Beazley is Labor's best bet. There is no doubt Beazley's leadership is under enormous pressure from within the broader church of the ALP and the labour movement.
There is also a mood of resigned despair among many of his parliamentary colleagues. As Labor leader, Beazley faces a testing winter that will begin in parliament next Thursday when he rises to reply to Peter Costello's budget. The budget-in-reply speech can be a career-maker for Opposition leaders and, ironically, it was Simon Crean's reply speech in 2003 that delayed his destabilisation and ultimate downfall at the hands of Beazley's supporters.
But Labor's losing outlook isn't going to change with a couple of good speeches from the leader and much more needs to be done for the ALP to become truly competitive. Despite what Beazley has been saying of late, the ALP is not competitive in the polls.
But there is one standout fact in Beazley's fight to remain Opposition Leader and to contest the next election: there is no stomach in the federal Labor caucus for a leadership challenge or change. Some union leaders, state ALP officials, rank-and-file party members, trade unionists and a large part of the public can all think what they like, but it's unlikely to unseat Beazley.
"The NSW Right still hasn't dropped off Beazley and there is no feeling for a challenge in caucus," one ALP official tells Inquirer. Even those who think Beazley's best days are behind him, that the best he can do is save the furniture, and who believe the future for Labor lies in fresh faces, are gun shy. The Mark Latham experiment-disaster has cauterised all Labor MPs except the most determined or bitter on leadership changes.
Even if there is a leadership change before the next election, it will not be brought about by a challenge. It will be in response to a greater disaster. "If Kim goes, it will be on his terms," a Labor MP tells Inquirer.
The basis of the disenchantment with Beazley's leadership is multifaceted and widespread in the labour movement and state branches, but the greatest problem he faces is the gulf between the labour movement and the Labor Party. This week Beazley told the National Press Club the "defining issue of this term" was industrial relations, particularly the workplace laws John Howard had passed through the Senate last year.
Beazley is relying on resentment towards the new laws as a silver bullet - much as he did on resentment towards the GST in 2001 - and is seeking to link them with the "millions in middle Australia he wants to turn from Howard".
As Beazley said yesterday, the public trusts Labor on industrial relations over the Coalition by a ratio of almost 2:1 (47 per cent to 28 per cent in the last Newspoll survey on the best party to handle certain issues), and he wants to make it election central next year. In comparison, on the key issues of the economy and national security, which have been election central for the last four elections, Labor lags by the same ratio of 2:1 to the Howard Government.
Despite disclosures on the $290 million AWB kickback scandal in Iraqi wheat sales, discontent over Iraq, blunders on the return of the body of soldier Jake Kovco from Iraq, petrol price rises, rising inflation and 10 years of Coalition Government, poll fluctuations bear out Beazley's premise. Industrial relations is the issue that has been able to hurt the Government so far, although a weakening economy and interest rate rises may yet prove more damaging.
But here is the deadly catch for Beazley: Labor MPs, including frontbenchers, party officials, branch members and the trade union movement all expected it to be better. Since the passage of the legislation last year, an extensive union-funded advertising campaign and the introduction of the laws, Beazley's satisfaction rating in Newspoll has fallen to record lows for him as Opposition Leader and last week Labor's primary vote fell in Newspoll to 37 per cent.
This is seen as a failure of Labor leadership on the issue, that of Beazley first and foremost, and of his industrial relations spokesman Stephen Smith. While the peak union leaders remain supportive - ACTU president Greg Combet is firmly in the Beazley camp and against any change - there is deep dissatisfaction among others and within the parliamentary party.
But, as one senior MP put it this week, "the caucus mood is despairing but passive".
Another says caucus is desperately hoping Beazley's performance will improve.
Many more are imploring Beazley to break the stalemate by having a frontbench shuffle to address the difficulty Smith - described by some union leaders as a technocrat without passion and by his colleagues as a failure without decent links to the trade unions - is having in the industrial relations portfolio and other policy-personnel mismatches.
Now that the private schools hit list and the Medicare Gold policies Latham took to the last election are gone, it is fair to ask if the past champions of the policies, Jenny Macklin and Julia Gillard, should remain in education and health, respectively. The catalyst for this outbreak of Labor unrest was a Newspoll survey published in The Australian on Tuesday which rated Gillard (32 per cent) and Kevin Rudd (28) both ahead of Beazley (24 per cent) as preferred prime minister. Beazley was further battered by also losing to Costello for the first time, with the Treasurer on 44 per cent to Beazley's 37 per cent as preferred prime minister. A slight improvement for the Labor leader against Howard as preferred prime minister was cold comfort, with the result in Howard's favour at 56 per cent to 25 per cent.
The Newspoll survey, which also showed Labor's primary vote at an election-losing 37 per cent, is not the reason for people speaking out. They already know the situation, but are using it as an excuse to berate and cajole Beazley into action.
Beazley responded with a speech that targeted middle Australia, the Howard battlers, with an appeal based on industrial relations-based fears about job security and tax cuts for those on $55,000 to $100,000 a year. He also turned down the false hectoring tone he had adopted in the past few months. His response to his critics was to put a compelling argument, the only argument, about his possible replacement.
He said voters might decide it was time to vote Labor, adding: "Then they'll ask the final question: 'Can the person who leads this party be prime minister of this country? Does he have the experience? Does he have the know-how? We know his policies, but what about the things that come along unexpectedly and ambush governments? How will he handle them then?' These will be among the most cautious of voters, these people casting those votes, and they'll look at me and they'll say, 'Yes, he can do the job."'
But one speech and a sober performance don't dispel concerns about Beazley's faltering leadership, the lack of sufficient traction on industrial relations, the need for policy alternatives and a team studded with duds. Nor do some of Beazley's explanations and rationalisations stand up.
Part of the dismay in the ranks is the magnitude of the task facing any Labor leader at the next election. After the 2004 election, which the Howard Government won with a two-party preferred vote of 52.7 per cent on a primary vote base of 46.7per cent, Labor's hopes for victory in 2007 using a two-term strategy were dashed.
Labor needs to win 12 seats to win back government. A redistribution in NSW and Sydney could turn that into a notional 14 seats. In Brisbane this week, Beazley said he hoped to win back five or six of those seats he needs for government in Queensland.
Yet in the existing 28 seats in Queensland, Labor holds only six, the Coalition holds 21 (there is one independent, former Nationals MP Bob Katter) and of those 21 Coalition seats 15 are held outright on primary votes and only one, the new seat of Bonner, is marginal. There is no doubt Rudd has been hitting the hustings in Queensland this week, drinking beers and being praised as someone who you could trust with "your kelpie or your girlfriend".
Although finishing second to Gillard as preferred Labor PM, Rudd's rise in popularity has been a steady, almost grinding 45-degree angle of steadiness, not the skyrocket trajectory of the faux flame-haired Gillard, who has shot on to the scene in the past year to become the latest potential first female prime minister.
Nationally, 63 of the Coalition's 87 seats were won outright compared with Labor's 24.
What's worse for Labor is that of the 20 seats listed as most marginal by the Australian Electoral Commission, 10 are Labor seats, including Hindmarsh in South Australia as the most marginal. So it is possible Labor could lose seats at the next election and stretch the gross target for victory to 16 or 18 seats.
Beazley's triple justification for Labor's poor showing and his pitiful leadership figures is that Labor is competitive in the polls, Howard polled as badly as him when he was Opposition leader and people don't make up their minds until the last six weeks before polling day. All three are simply untrue and Beazley is delusional, misled or simply trying to put the best face on bad lot.
Labor almost certainly cannot win a federal election without a primary vote with a four in front; some Labor people even contend a primary vote of 41 per cent or 42 per cent is necessary. Reliance on second preferences is a mistake. In 1998 Labor got 51 per cent and still lost.
Labor's primary vote has declined in the past two elections, down to just 37.6 per cent under Latham, which yielded a two-party preferred vote of just 47.3 per cent. In the past 31 Newspoll surveys, Labor has been on 40 per cent or more of the primary vote only eight times and has been below 40 in the past five weeks. As well, Beazley's satisfaction and standing as preferred prime minister have been worse than Howard's against Paul Keating before the 1996 election.
As for making up their minds during the election campaign, the ALP is aware that you can't fatten the pig on market day. No Opposition has won government since World War II unless it was in front and the Opposition leader close to the prime minister a year from the election.
Beazley's key speech this week was directed at capturing primary votes, the middle-income families. Dumping ideology that may appeal to the Greens is a tacit recognition that he wants people to change their minds well ahead of the election.
To keep afloat, he also has to convince enough Labor MPs that he can improve on the primary vote even if he loses, just so he saves the furniture and keeps the Rudd-Gillard leadership team fresh and unbruised for the future.
There is also a mood of resigned despair among many of his parliamentary colleagues. As Labor leader, Beazley faces a testing winter that will begin in parliament next Thursday when he rises to reply to Peter Costello's budget. The budget-in-reply speech can be a career-maker for Opposition leaders and, ironically, it was Simon Crean's reply speech in 2003 that delayed his destabilisation and ultimate downfall at the hands of Beazley's supporters.
But Labor's losing outlook isn't going to change with a couple of good speeches from the leader and much more needs to be done for the ALP to become truly competitive. Despite what Beazley has been saying of late, the ALP is not competitive in the polls.
But there is one standout fact in Beazley's fight to remain Opposition Leader and to contest the next election: there is no stomach in the federal Labor caucus for a leadership challenge or change. Some union leaders, state ALP officials, rank-and-file party members, trade unionists and a large part of the public can all think what they like, but it's unlikely to unseat Beazley.
"The NSW Right still hasn't dropped off Beazley and there is no feeling for a challenge in caucus," one ALP official tells Inquirer. Even those who think Beazley's best days are behind him, that the best he can do is save the furniture, and who believe the future for Labor lies in fresh faces, are gun shy. The Mark Latham experiment-disaster has cauterised all Labor MPs except the most determined or bitter on leadership changes.
Even if there is a leadership change before the next election, it will not be brought about by a challenge. It will be in response to a greater disaster. "If Kim goes, it will be on his terms," a Labor MP tells Inquirer.
The basis of the disenchantment with Beazley's leadership is multifaceted and widespread in the labour movement and state branches, but the greatest problem he faces is the gulf between the labour movement and the Labor Party. This week Beazley told the National Press Club the "defining issue of this term" was industrial relations, particularly the workplace laws John Howard had passed through the Senate last year.
Beazley is relying on resentment towards the new laws as a silver bullet - much as he did on resentment towards the GST in 2001 - and is seeking to link them with the "millions in middle Australia he wants to turn from Howard".
As Beazley said yesterday, the public trusts Labor on industrial relations over the Coalition by a ratio of almost 2:1 (47 per cent to 28 per cent in the last Newspoll survey on the best party to handle certain issues), and he wants to make it election central next year. In comparison, on the key issues of the economy and national security, which have been election central for the last four elections, Labor lags by the same ratio of 2:1 to the Howard Government.
Despite disclosures on the $290 million AWB kickback scandal in Iraqi wheat sales, discontent over Iraq, blunders on the return of the body of soldier Jake Kovco from Iraq, petrol price rises, rising inflation and 10 years of Coalition Government, poll fluctuations bear out Beazley's premise. Industrial relations is the issue that has been able to hurt the Government so far, although a weakening economy and interest rate rises may yet prove more damaging.
But here is the deadly catch for Beazley: Labor MPs, including frontbenchers, party officials, branch members and the trade union movement all expected it to be better. Since the passage of the legislation last year, an extensive union-funded advertising campaign and the introduction of the laws, Beazley's satisfaction rating in Newspoll has fallen to record lows for him as Opposition Leader and last week Labor's primary vote fell in Newspoll to 37 per cent.
This is seen as a failure of Labor leadership on the issue, that of Beazley first and foremost, and of his industrial relations spokesman Stephen Smith. While the peak union leaders remain supportive - ACTU president Greg Combet is firmly in the Beazley camp and against any change - there is deep dissatisfaction among others and within the parliamentary party.
But, as one senior MP put it this week, "the caucus mood is despairing but passive".
Another says caucus is desperately hoping Beazley's performance will improve.
Many more are imploring Beazley to break the stalemate by having a frontbench shuffle to address the difficulty Smith - described by some union leaders as a technocrat without passion and by his colleagues as a failure without decent links to the trade unions - is having in the industrial relations portfolio and other policy-personnel mismatches.
Now that the private schools hit list and the Medicare Gold policies Latham took to the last election are gone, it is fair to ask if the past champions of the policies, Jenny Macklin and Julia Gillard, should remain in education and health, respectively. The catalyst for this outbreak of Labor unrest was a Newspoll survey published in The Australian on Tuesday which rated Gillard (32 per cent) and Kevin Rudd (28) both ahead of Beazley (24 per cent) as preferred prime minister. Beazley was further battered by also losing to Costello for the first time, with the Treasurer on 44 per cent to Beazley's 37 per cent as preferred prime minister. A slight improvement for the Labor leader against Howard as preferred prime minister was cold comfort, with the result in Howard's favour at 56 per cent to 25 per cent.
The Newspoll survey, which also showed Labor's primary vote at an election-losing 37 per cent, is not the reason for people speaking out. They already know the situation, but are using it as an excuse to berate and cajole Beazley into action.
Beazley responded with a speech that targeted middle Australia, the Howard battlers, with an appeal based on industrial relations-based fears about job security and tax cuts for those on $55,000 to $100,000 a year. He also turned down the false hectoring tone he had adopted in the past few months. His response to his critics was to put a compelling argument, the only argument, about his possible replacement.
He said voters might decide it was time to vote Labor, adding: "Then they'll ask the final question: 'Can the person who leads this party be prime minister of this country? Does he have the experience? Does he have the know-how? We know his policies, but what about the things that come along unexpectedly and ambush governments? How will he handle them then?' These will be among the most cautious of voters, these people casting those votes, and they'll look at me and they'll say, 'Yes, he can do the job."'
But one speech and a sober performance don't dispel concerns about Beazley's faltering leadership, the lack of sufficient traction on industrial relations, the need for policy alternatives and a team studded with duds. Nor do some of Beazley's explanations and rationalisations stand up.
Part of the dismay in the ranks is the magnitude of the task facing any Labor leader at the next election. After the 2004 election, which the Howard Government won with a two-party preferred vote of 52.7 per cent on a primary vote base of 46.7per cent, Labor's hopes for victory in 2007 using a two-term strategy were dashed.
Labor needs to win 12 seats to win back government. A redistribution in NSW and Sydney could turn that into a notional 14 seats. In Brisbane this week, Beazley said he hoped to win back five or six of those seats he needs for government in Queensland.
Yet in the existing 28 seats in Queensland, Labor holds only six, the Coalition holds 21 (there is one independent, former Nationals MP Bob Katter) and of those 21 Coalition seats 15 are held outright on primary votes and only one, the new seat of Bonner, is marginal. There is no doubt Rudd has been hitting the hustings in Queensland this week, drinking beers and being praised as someone who you could trust with "your kelpie or your girlfriend".
Although finishing second to Gillard as preferred Labor PM, Rudd's rise in popularity has been a steady, almost grinding 45-degree angle of steadiness, not the skyrocket trajectory of the faux flame-haired Gillard, who has shot on to the scene in the past year to become the latest potential first female prime minister.
Nationally, 63 of the Coalition's 87 seats were won outright compared with Labor's 24.
What's worse for Labor is that of the 20 seats listed as most marginal by the Australian Electoral Commission, 10 are Labor seats, including Hindmarsh in South Australia as the most marginal. So it is possible Labor could lose seats at the next election and stretch the gross target for victory to 16 or 18 seats.
Beazley's triple justification for Labor's poor showing and his pitiful leadership figures is that Labor is competitive in the polls, Howard polled as badly as him when he was Opposition leader and people don't make up their minds until the last six weeks before polling day. All three are simply untrue and Beazley is delusional, misled or simply trying to put the best face on bad lot.
Labor almost certainly cannot win a federal election without a primary vote with a four in front; some Labor people even contend a primary vote of 41 per cent or 42 per cent is necessary. Reliance on second preferences is a mistake. In 1998 Labor got 51 per cent and still lost.
Labor's primary vote has declined in the past two elections, down to just 37.6 per cent under Latham, which yielded a two-party preferred vote of just 47.3 per cent. In the past 31 Newspoll surveys, Labor has been on 40 per cent or more of the primary vote only eight times and has been below 40 in the past five weeks. As well, Beazley's satisfaction and standing as preferred prime minister have been worse than Howard's against Paul Keating before the 1996 election.
As for making up their minds during the election campaign, the ALP is aware that you can't fatten the pig on market day. No Opposition has won government since World War II unless it was in front and the Opposition leader close to the prime minister a year from the election.
Beazley's key speech this week was directed at capturing primary votes, the middle-income families. Dumping ideology that may appeal to the Greens is a tacit recognition that he wants people to change their minds well ahead of the election.
To keep afloat, he also has to convince enough Labor MPs that he can improve on the primary vote even if he loses, just so he saves the furniture and keeps the Rudd-Gillard leadership team fresh and unbruised for the future.
