Are the Coalition parties on the skids?

BY SUE BOLAND

The question on everyone's lips is, are the Coalition parties on
the skids? This question can be answered by looking at the voting patterns
since Prime Minister John Howard's federal Coalition government was first
elected in 1996.

In 1996, the Howard government was elected as a result of a massive
protest vote against former prime minister Paul Keating's Labor government.

However, the protest vote which elected the Howard government and the
protest vote which is being directed against the Howard government by voting
for Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party and other right-wing groups is not
identical.

The protest vote which resulted in the election of a federal Coalition
government in 1996 was largely from non-unionised blue-collar and lowly
paid white-collar workers, the traditional electoral base of the ALP, who
had become disenchanted with the Labor government's anti-worker, “economic
rationalist” policies.

The majority of former ALP supporters who voted for Howard in 1996 shifted
their votes back to Labor in the 1998 federal election, although a significant
minority of this constituency voted against both the major parties by voting
either for One Nation and right-wing independents or for the Greens, socialist
candidates and progressive single-issue candidates. The Liberal, National
and Labor parties received their lowest ever combined primary vote in that
election.

One Nation protest vote

The make-up of the protest vote has been different since the election of
the Howard government because, today, the protest vote One Nation is attracting
is mostly made up of the Coalition parties' traditional base of small business
owners, small farmers, and independent contractors. While One Nation is
attracting the votes of some unionised workers, its main base of support
is the core voter base of the Coalition parties.

Because this constituency is composed of people who own small businesses
and farms, they tend to approach political issues from an individualistic
and anti-union standpoint. Many of them supported the free-market rhetoric
that was used by the major parties to justify privatisation, public sector
cutbacks and industry deregulation in the 1980s.

However, the experience of these “economic rationalist” policies under
a Coalition federal government has made the poorer section of this constituency
aware that someone is getting rich out of these policies, but it's not
them.

Also, the claim by the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments that private
corporations would provide services more cheaply and efficiently than governments
and would replace services which had been closed by the government, has
turned out to be a lie. This understanding has been reinforced by the fact
that the banks, which are all privately owned, have slashed their services,
leaving many towns and suburbs without banks. This experience has increased
opposition to any further privatisation of Telstra, hospitals and the ABC.

At times, the Howard government has been able to divert public attention
away from its pro-corporate “economic rationalist” agenda and focus blame
on the people it scapegoats as “bludgers” — unionised workers, Aborigines,
people on welfare and refugees. But the diversion only lasts until the
government implements its next “economic rationalist” policy.

The issues which have sparked the most anger in the Coalition's small
business and farmer constituency are: high fuel prices and the government's
refusal to freeze the fuel excise; the huge amount of work involved in
preparing the Business Activity Statement in order to claim GST credits;
the loss of government services from rural areas; revelations that $2.9
billion of fuel excise money which was meant to be earmarked for road construction
was siphoned off into consolidated revenue; crackdown on tax evasion through
family trusts, plans to fully privatise Telstra; cutbacks in the ABC; dairy
deregulation; and, national competition policy.

Public exposure of major scandals this year are also likely to have
a further disillusioning effect on former Coalition supporters. These scandals
include: the appointment of a drug industry lobbyist to the Pharmaceutical
Benefits Advisory Committee; the revelation that government outsourcing
of information technology led to a massive blow-out in departmental budgets;
and revelations about pressure being applied to academics to upgrade the
marks of full fee-paying university students.

Howard blamed the thrashing of WA Premier Richard Court's Coalition
government on its decision to concede to a limit on logging in native forests,
but WA Coalition politicians disagreed.

WA deputy Liberal Party leader Colin Barnett told ABC Radio's AM
that “We felt very disappointed with the news coming out about $3 billion
of petrol tax not going into roads. That clearly was one of the factors
that led to us losing the campaign.” WA National Party leader Hendy Cowan
agreed, saying “There's no doubt fuel prices hurt but so too did a few
other things for which the federal government has responsibility.”

Damage control

The Howard government is now in damage control. The Coalition parties in
Queensland were thrashed, as they were in NSW in 1999 and in WA on February
10. All of the national opinion polls released in January and February
put the Labor Party ahead of the Coalition.

Immediately after the WA election, federal cabinet made several announcements
to reduce some of the concerns which are alienating the Coalition's small
business constituency.

Federal treasurer Peter Costello announced on February 13 that cabinet
had agreed to the “substantial simplification” of the Business Activity
Statement. Prior to the WA election, Costello had stonewalled on this issue.

In the Sydney Morning Herald's February 10 edition, Howard was
quoted sheeting home the blame for the road funding bungle to his deputy
prime minister and transport minister John Anderson.

“There was a failure by a minister under my government”, said Howard,
hoping that would immunise the rest of the government from blame. Anderson
responded by sacking two of his staff members for not informing him that
the National Audit Office report into road funding was about to be released.

In the week before the Queensland election, on February 13, telecommunications
minister Richard Alston botched an attempt to woo votes. When announcing
that Telstra had won the contract to provide untimed local phone calls
and untimed internet access to customers in remote areas, Alston also mentioned
that the government was still pursuing the full sale of Telstra.

Worried about the impact on the Queensland election result, Howard stepped
in to play down the prospects of Telstra being sold before the federal
election.

It is possible for the Howard government's fortunes to improve. Throughout
2000 opinion polls showed seesawing support for the Coalition and the Labor
Party.

But any improvement is only likely to be temporary because the Coalition
parties are committed to carrying out policies which benefit “the economy”
(read: big business) at the expense of these parties' small business and
farmer constituency. For example, the next stage of national competition
policy is set to target the sugar industry, newsagents, pharmacies, and
the legal and medical professions for deregulation.

Something which will impede the Coalition parties' attempts to win back
their voter base is that industry organisations such as the Small Business
Association and farmer organisations have previously been used as the mechanism
for convincing small businesses and small farmers to support industry deregulation
and other “economic rationalist” policies.

Now that these policies have brought ruin on thousands of small businesses
and farmers, the industry organisations have lost their influence.

The Howard government also failed in its bid to kill the campaign by
motoring groups and farmers for the February fuel excise increase to be
cancelled. On November 27, Anderson announced that the federal cabinet
had approved a $1.2 billion funding package to upgrade roads.

The road funding package was meant to bribe voters into forgetting about
the fuel excise increase. However, a Herald ACNielsen poll published in
the Sydney Morning Herald on February 14 reported that 63% of respondents
preferred a freeze on fuel excise over increased road funding. The poll
was conducted on the weekend of the WA election.

Alienation

While the alienation of the Coalition parties' core constituency is a new
feature of Australian politics since 1996, concentration on this can mask
the fact that the protest vote is split between the right and the left.
An increasing proportion of the electorate is disenchanted with both the
major parties.

In the WA state elections, for example, the right-wing One Nation attracted
an average vote of of 9.5%, while the leftish WA Greens averaged 7.6%.
In some rural seats, One Nation won up to 20% of the vote and in Fremantle,
the WA Greens scored 17%.

Commentators for the establishment press have been puzzled by the failure
of the Queensland ALP's electoral rorts scandal to electorally damage Premier
Peter Beattie's Labor government. But it's not surprising when you consider
that each time there have been allegations about one of the major parties
engaging in rorts (travel rorts, electorate allowance rorts, telecard rorts,
branch stacking and electoral roll rorting), evidence has been produced
showing the other major parties engaging in similar rorts.

Judging by which party receives more money from big business, it appears
that the corporate elite have made the assessment that the federal Coalition
government, with the protectionist One Nation party breathing down its
neck, is not capable of completing the task of economic deregulation.

Australian Electoral Commission funding figures for 1999-2000 show the
Labor Party received more funding from the corporate elite — $29.5 million
— than the Liberal or National parties — $18.5 million and $4.9 million
respectively. The previous published figures showed the Coalition parties
receiving more funds from big business than Labor.

The big-business barons are undoubtedly worried that preference deals
between the Coalition parties and One Nation could result in a Coalition
government being dependent on One Nation for support. Such a government
would find it almost impossible to continue pushing forward with the corporate
elite's “economic rationalist” policy agenda.

From the corporate elite's point of view, it would be better to have
a Labor government implementing their policy agenda, albeit at a slower
pace. After all, a new Labor government might get a honeymoon period from
voters in which it could begin implementing these policies before a voter
backlash set in.