Ok, perhaps the headline may be construed as a bit premature considering the Australian federal election date hasn't even been announced yet, and with Labor still miles ahead in the polls. But recent events have led me to conclude that the always difficult mountain that the ALP had to climb to win federally will now prove beyond them.
First, self-declaration here, I have been involved in polling at a senior level for almost a decade. While this blog is written anonymously I suppose I speak as somewhat of an insider. For some time now, I have been warning anyone who will listen that the polls have been way to good for Labor. This is not the first time this has happened - in 2001 (before Tampa, Sept 11th admittedly) Labor was well in front, in 2004, people believed that Latham was making good progress towards the Lodge. While Howard can't rely on another world-wide terrorist event to save his bacon, this is not the real problem.
It's not that the polls are inaccurate or poorly designed. Or that punters lie. Each of these may occur from time to time but I think that the reality is that people are saying they WOULD vote ALP in a HYPOTHETICAL election. And that is the crux of the matter - it's hypothetical. What they would actually do if they were in front of a ballot box in a real election is something else.
The problem is that the criteria people are using to determine their vote in an opinion poll doesn't necessarily match what they will actually use in a real election. In the current situation, I think the reason Labor has been miles ahead is they have been 'voting' on issues such as IR & Kevin's fresh face, and perhaps the Iraq debacle. These are all issues where people prefer Labor's position or probably more accurately, disagree with the Government's.
In a real poll, economic performance is likely to feature much more strongly in voters minds. The public still rate the Coalition way ahead on managing the economy. If people decide their votes on this criteria, Howard will be re-elected.
The real clincher for me was Labor's decision to run a TVC drawing attention to Howard's promise to keep interest rates low. This is an unbelievably naive move which demonstrates a lack of understanding of how voters think. Elections are won because the agenda people have when voting suits one side or the other. For instance, Clinton beat Bush snr (1992) because people voted on economic performance, which they believed Bush was screwing up. Howard beat Keating (1996) because people were voting on personality, which of course Howard didn't have but at least they didn't want to whack him with a baseball bat. Howard beat Beazley (2001) because people voted on border protection, terrorism and interest rates, all of which Labor was perceived as being soft on.
John Howard would love nothing more than to fight this election on the economy, including interest rates. I would imagine he knows, unlike some senior people in the ALP apparently, that Labor can't win if the election is fought on interest rates. He may have broken his promise to keep interest rates at record lows, but all he has to do during an election is point at some graphs showing interest rates were twice what they are now under the last Labor government, and insinuate that were Labor to win, they would be up at those levels again. This is why I said to a colleague several months ago that it would actually be good for Howard if interest rates went up again before the election - it would drag the media agenda towards the economy, grounds where Labor has been trounced for 11 years politically by the Liberals.
A recent poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday illustrates why Labor's strategy is electoral suicide:
"When interest rates rose last week for the fifth successive time since the 2004 election, Mr Howard denied he had broken his promise to keep rates low and offered his stock defence that rates would always be lower under the Coalition than Labor.
The poll asked voters whether rates would be higher or lower now if Labor had won in 2004.
Almost one-third of voters agreed they would be higher under Labor. This was 4 percentage points higher than when the question was last asked a year ago, and 12 points higher than when it was asked in April 2005.
Only 7 per cent believed rates would be lower now had Labor won in 2004. Almost half believed there would be no difference. A year ago 54 per cent believed there would be no difference, and in April 2005, 67 per cent believed there would be no difference. This seems to suggest Mr Howard's argument gains traction as rates rise."
This poll illustrates my point. What I bet it also would indicate if analysed to show it is that swinging voters - the only kind that count politically under the Australian system - are the group more likely to believe interest rates would be higher under Labor. It's been rammed home to them in each of the past three election campaigns, and many argue it's been Howard's greatest political strength. Those who are better educated and more politically sophisticated are less likely to be swinging voters, and these people are probably the ones who understand the 'fact' that interest rates are set by the reserve bank and fluctuate as much according to international events as anything the government does. Unfortunately, Labor has never attempted to counter with this 'fact' and its current strategy doesn't do it either - it simply blames Howard for fibbing.
Labor has to win a huge number of seats to move to the government benches. Since incumbency is hugely important and there will be individual MPs who stand up against the tidal flow to Labor (which will still happen to some extent), Labor requires a huge swing to win. This isn't going to happen if people are voting on the economy and/or interest rates. Its too late for Labor to convince people John Howard isn't really that good at economic management after all, which seems to be the only plausible rationale behind its further drawing attention to interest rates by highlighting them in a TVC.
Labor's only chance to make my headline embarrassing is to get back on message, and fight the election on IR, and Kevin Rudd's fresh face. At least that will ensure they get close enough to win next time.
This is one case where I sincerely hope that my prediction is proved incorrect!
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