Tim Dunlop has raised the question of whether there are enough reasons to vote Labor, and the related question of whether Latham has adopted a small target strategy. Having taken the “Anybody But Beazley” line in response to the last round of the small target strategy, the latter idea is really scary.
In general terms, the notion of a small target strategy is refuted by Latham’s stance on Iraq, which I support. I think the occupation is now doing more harm than good and needs to be brought to a conclusion, or at least greatly scaled down, in the near future. Elections should be held before the end of the year, which would fit Latham’s timetable neatly.
More generally, I think the current talk of a small target strategy is due in part to the fact that Labor hasn’t gone after the government aggressively over Iraq, or even the travel scandal. This is a sound tactical decision, and doesn’t necessarily imply a small target strategy.
The big problem relates to tax and public expenditure and here the problem is not so much that Labor has a small target strategy as that it doesn’t have an agreed strategy at all. This is not surprising in itself, since, except at election time, the natural tendency of opposition is to say nice things to everybody without worrying about the budget constraint. But this won’t work well at an election. Labor needs to decide what it stands for, in particular on the general relationship between tax and services. I’ll be putting forward some proposals on this soon.
If it isn’t obvious, since the shameful events of 2001 (Tampa, SIEV X, Children overboard), there is nothing that would induce me to put this government anywhere other than last on my ticket. But I certainly hope for more from Labor than the almost-equally shameful capitulation we saw last time around.
Tim’s post has a lot of worthwhile comments, and links to others who have posted on this, including Steven Wade, Tubagooba, John Abercrombie and Ken Parish
John Quiggin 
JQ, Iron Mark’s Iraq line shores up his left wing ie it enables ALP primary vote to be too high for the Government to beat it.
“Elections should be held before the end of the year”
One factor that has generally been missed is that Howard will draw level with Hawke in the PM longevity stakes, if my calculations are correct, on 20 December 2004. I commented on this factor over at Back Pages. The relevant timelines are here.
I tend to agree with Chris Sheil that the PM longevity milestone factor clinches the notion of an early 2005 election. Nevertheless if there is a major terrorist attack during the Olympics PLUS an attack, perhaps Oklahoma-style, in the US AND Howard is well ahead in the polls I suspect he will head straight for the Gov General.
On the small target strategy, I suspect Latham is letting Howard swill in his own bad air at present. Latham does have a problem down the track IMHO about how he pays for the magic pudding of tax cuts, more spending and a lower tax take. It seems the answer is in cutting existing expenditure. I recall McMullan I think saying that 7 agencies and 13 programs are marked to go. All or most of these would have beneficiaries and adherents, so this needs to be handled with care.
The net result, I think, is that Latham will rest on the policy he’s already got out there and will announce no major new ones (to be greeted by “Where’s the money coming from?”) until the fray, confusion and short attention spans of an election campaign.
Meanwhile time may be on Howard’s side rather than Latham’s, given where they both are now.
If Latham’s response to the Bush comments — a one-page press release, and determined dodging of the media for the rest of the day — isn’t evidence of a small-target strategy, then what is?
Tim, an important aspect of a small target strategy is to attempt to minimise difference between you and your opponent. Latham might have issued no more than a short statement in response to Bush, but he certainly differentiated himself from Howard, thus creating a big target — as we’ll see when Howard runs his election campaign on Iraq and national security.
Opportunities always look bigger going than coming…
Mark as leader does tend to miss the big opportunities; just a humble opinion from a rather regular swinging voter.
Can we constitutionally outsource prime ministerships? How about Tony Blair?
(spleenish irony intended)
Presumably the political ‘small target’ strategy is, as Robert says, an attempt to gain market share by encroaching on your opponent’s characteristics as in the Hotelling icecream salesperson model. (Two vendors cluster next to one and other to try to individually maximise market share).
An interesting property is that if there is a third party (the democrats, the Greens) then an equilibrium cannot involve clustering by two and different policies by the third — because then the third player can move towards the other two to its advantage. Nor can an equilibrium involve all three being clustered together since then one group has an incentive to shift away.
In fact there isn’t an equilibrium in pure strategies in this case. Players must randomise their strategies to take advantage of their opponents.
On the small target strategy John points to Latham’s ‘troops home by Xmas’ as a major differentiation. John thinks- “the occupation is now doing more harm than good and needs to be brought to a conclusion, or at least greatly scaled down, in the near future.” Well I’ll give John the credit for thinking like Bush, that Abu Ghraib needed demolishing. He needn’t worry that Bush is also thinking about scaling down operations in Iraq, because IMO, that’s exactly what’s on the Coalition agenda, with successful transition to Iraqi rule. In a few months time Bush and Blair will be greeting the first large tranche of returning troops, with more planned. That of course is a luxury they will enjoy, because like John, they now believe they are winning the peace in Iraq. However, unlike Latham and John, Bush, Blair and Howard knew that there could be no victory for peace in Iraq, without first winning a war. The anti-war view of Iraq, is now staring defeat in the face. Methinks John is beginning to prepare for that eventuality with his prescription here.
It would be remiss of me not to point out that just as there was no defining moment when we could categorically prove there was no great cache of WMD, so it will be with proof of winning the peace in Iraq. It seems, the latter is beginning to dawn on some of the doomsdayers.
For the nth time, Pr Q disses the Howard government on lower-order, minor issues regarding foreign policy, without crediting them with success on the higher-order Big Picture issues, vital for long term security:
What about the non-shameful achievements if the HOward government in national security in our own region:
quarantining defence expenditure from budget cuts in 1996 after a generation of neglect by welfarists
the liberation of the socialist republic of East Timor
nation building in the Solomons
ending the decade long conflict in Bougainvillea
making a start on restoring accountability to our PNG foreign aid
alert rather than alarmed after the Bali massacre, with terrorist attacks on Australian territory constrained
Not to mention, good deeds on the world stage that strenghtened the US alliance, so vital for long term security:
the liberation of Afghanistan from Taliban fundamentalists and AlQuaed terrorists
overthrowing a tyrant and helping to establish democracy in Iraq
For good measure, Pr Q also fails to mention, for the nth time, that Howard has increased the immigration quota, NESB ratio of immigrants, and raised the refugee quota since shameful Tampa.
Is all this to be ashamed of?
The ALP and GreenLeft are clueless on national security, and not much better on civic identity. TOugh-minded people like Howard are needed during times of crisis, elsewise the nation would degenerate into a gaggle of warring tribes, prey to more cohesive forces in the neighbourhood. (cf ancient Greece or modern Lebanon)
Jack,
Stop fooling now, or people will think you’re serious. You had me going for a while there.
It is precisely because John Howard got us involved in a war with no bearing on our national interest that he has proven his incompetence on foreign policy. Saddam’s regime had very little (if anything) to do with terrorism, and our contribution to the invasion was little more than gross sycophancy and opportunism on Howard’s part.
The other examples you cite are bang-on examples of Howard’s ineptitude:
– Howard “quarantined” the defence budget…so we could buy US fighters, air warfare destroyers and tanks that we will NEVER use in their supposed primary purpose, i.e. defending Australia. Meanwhile, we’re scrambling to equip our over-stretched army in a variety of hotspots Howard despatched them to.
– liberating East Timor: a good move that would not have been necessary if we had read the situation better in Indonesia.
– nation-building in the Solomons: Howard’s time as PM will go down in history as a period of neglect of the South Pacific, and Howard only reacted once things had gotten to bad to ignore. If Howard (and Keating and Hawke, for that matter) had spent more time nation-building BEFORE the joint fell into anarchy, we wouldn’t have had to send in our troops to clean up the mess. What’s next, “nation-building” in Fiji, Nauru, PNG?
– “ending the conflict in bougainvillea (sic)”: the Australian government was complicit in the economic injustices that fuelled the insurrection on Bougainville Island. The ending of the conflict has more to do with the combatants’ exhaustion than Howards’ management.
– PNG: where?
– Bali bombing: yet another piece of shameless, scare-mongering opportunism. There’s no evidence that Howard’s government has improved our security one jot by making people more alert (but not alarmed). We’re pretty safe so long as you don’t rely on ASIO after hours.
I agree that deposing Saddam and the Taliban were good things, but Little Johnny had sod all influence on either outcome. As your support seems to prove, he’s simply played the politics of fear so well that people now believe he’s actually been defending our interests, when he’s really been defending his chances of reelection.
I don’t believe the ALP are much better, but at least under them we might stand a chance of disconnecting the Commonwealth’s lips from Bush’s rectum.
what the hell does ‘IMO’ stand for?
The past few years has been the most intense period of security-crises, threat-emerging and ops-requirement since the height of the Vietnam war-cultural revolution. This includes regime-changing, illegal immigration, failed-state anarchism and jihadist terrorism. Howard has delivered the security goods in all areas:
The army has been beefed up and security is higher on the political agenda
Australian troops have gone into three military operations against malignant governments with about three casualities all up.
We have not had a serious terrorist bombing on Australia, and we have cracked down on quasi jihadist type organisations and individuals.
We have extended our benign influence into the troubled regions to our near north and south pacific.
The people-smuggling industry has been bankrupted.
The US alliance, so vital for our long term security, has been strenghtened.
The war in Iraq was not in our national interest, but supporting the US is. Fair-weather friends are not true friends.
The “New” Left and the “New” Right needs to get their head around the fact that defence would be far costlier if we “went it alone”. All the cherished welfare and wealthfare programs would be sacrificed to guns.
Its that simple.
jamesq, IMO = in my opinion
Surfing on a spoon
Don’t. Just don’t. Speaking of the upcoming Australian election, John Quiggin has joined in the discussion initiated by the Election 2004 post below. As John points out, the comments in that thread are fantastic, so I’ll be following up on…
Surfing on a spoon
Don’t. Just don’t. Speaking of the upcoming Australian election, John Quiggin has joined in the discussion initiated by the Election 2004 post below. As John points out, the comments in that thread are fantastic, so I’ll be following up on…
Surfing on a spoon
Don’t. Just don’t. Speaking of the upcoming Australian election, John Quiggin has joined in the discussion initiated by the Election 2004 post below. As John points out, the comments in that thread are fantastic, so I’ll be following up on…
Tarquin Latham?
This article (about the latest Dick Morris-inspired ALP policy – banning food ads during children’s TV programs) makes me wonder whether Loopy Latham might be about to change his name by deed poll to Tarquin Fin-tim-lim-bim-lim-bin- bim-bin-bim bus sto…
Tarquin Latham?
This article (about the latest Dick Morris-inspired ALP policy – banning food ads during children’s TV programs) makes me wonder whether Loopy Latham might be about to change his name by deed poll to Tarquin Fin-tim-lim-bim-lim-bin- bim-bin-bim bus sto…