It’s become a cliche to observe that Australian elections have shifted to a ‘presidential model’, in which the central element is a popularity contest between the incumbent PM and the Opposition leader. This has been accompanied by the minimisation of policy differences, as both sides seek the middle ground, and by the adoption of a ‘small target strategy’, particularly by the Opposition (governments have a record from which they can’t easily hide). This election is different, though you might not know it from the media coverage which demands, and receives, photo-ops of the leaders going from one place to another, wearing clothes they wouldn’t normally dream of, and handing out goodies. What are the differences this time?

First, neither leader is all that popular. For the Liberals, this doesn’t make much difference, since Morrison is about the best they’ve got in that respect. By contrast, Labor is running as a party rather than Team Shorten, even leaving him off some advertising material

The converse of this is that local candidates and local issues matter more than usual. There are a string of seats presenting problems for both parties. On the ALP side, there’s Herbert, held by 37 votes last time, and the epicentre of the Adani dispute, and Lindsay, where the sitting member, also narrowly elected in 2016, was pushed out over harassment allegations. Surprisingly enough, a seat-specific Newspoll showed both still at 50-50.

The LNP have many more problems of this kind. There are several seats where sitting members (mostly women) have been pushed out or quit in disgust, hardline rightwingers (notably Abbott, Dutton and Hunt) facing independent challengers and a strong push from Getup, members who seem to have put their personal lives ahead of doing their jobs (Christensen) water issues facing the Nationals in NSW, and Barnaby Joyce, who ticks nearly all of the boxes above.

I’m not sure how much of this is reflected in polling. In cases where the independent has a better chance of winning than Labor, the “two-party preferred” measure is irrelevant in any case.

Finally, as in 2016, and unlike any other election since 1993, the opposition party is offering a clear change rather than a small target. As it turns out, the noise of an election campaign means that this has made little difference. The rhetoric is shrill, but so it was when the parties were, in fact, virtually identical.

The main effect is that, if Labor is elected, it won’t need to spring any surprises on the electorate. It will also have a “mandate” for its policies for what that’s worth. That’s not much, in my opinion. At most, it gives centrist senators a justification for cutting a deal with the government to pass its policies.

There have been quite a few recent cases raising questions around free speech and freedom of the press. Here are some thoughts, not all final.

First up, the question, raised by the cases of Peter Ridd and Israel Folau of whether employers can discipline or sack workers for their views on a range of issues.

Ridd is an academic at JCU who has expressed (often in intemperate terms) the (wrong and harmful) view that the damage to the Great Barrier Reef from climate change has been exaggerated. JCU sacked him, but his dismissal was found by the Federal Circuit Court of Australia to be unlawful.

This was a straightforward finding under industrial law, which accords no special status to academics. But there are good reasons why universities should adhere to a stronger standard, embodied in the notion of academic freedom. As the NTEU vice-president Andrew Bonnell said it’s clear that JCU breached its commitment to academic freedom.

The Folau case is much trickier. In a sense Folau’s religious views aren’t that unusual. Most Christian denominations hold, at least officially, that all non-Christians and all Christians who hold heretical beliefs will go to hell[1], along with Christians who die in mortal sin, which accounts for nearly everybody. But, as Brian Houston of Hillsong Church (not someone I expected to quote with approval) points out, telling people they are going to hell is not helpful either for religious tolerance or to convert them to the truth as you may see it.

What makes this case difficult is that Folau’s job is, effectively, one of marketing the Australian Rugby League so that it can attract sponsors (notably, in this case, Qantas). Whether or not Folau has a case against the ARL, no one can force the sponsors to renew the contracts, or, for that matter, the fans to show up (I don’t know many rugby fans, so this may or may not be an issue).

As is almost invariably the case, former Freedom Commissioner and IPA alumnus Tim Wilson comes out of this looking bad. Back in 2015, there was a similar case in which Scott McIntyre, an SBS sports commentator, expressed views about Anzac Day that were offensive in their content and even more in the way they were expressed on Twitter Even though McIntyre had nothing like Folau’s public profile, he was sacked. Wilson then “Freedom Commissioner” wrote that, since McIntyre was not legally prevented from speaking, there was no free speech issue

SBS simply decided it didn’t want to be associated with him. No one is guaranteed a job. Employers are not compelled to put up with behaviour that harms their public reputation.”

Now, Wilson is defending Folau against ‘censorship‘, even though, on the views he has previously stated, there can be no question of censorship in the absence of government action.

I wasted a lot of time on Twitter a few years ago, trying to pin Wilson down on this very question. I can now discern his position: if you say something acceptable to conservatives, it’s free speech, otherwise you can take your chances with the boss.

fn1. Just to tie things up neatly, denying the existence of hell is a heresy.

I posted this in 2017. Not many people agreed with me, but I think my positiion has been justified by events. Hanson and One Nation have no legitimate place in public life.

Apparently, Pauline Hanson and One Nation are refusing to vote for any government legislation until the government intervenes on the side of canegrowers in a dispute with millers and marketers*

Coincidentally, I was considering the question of how to deal with Hanson’s presence in the Senate and came up with the opposite way of implementing the current situation. The major parties should refuse Hanson’s support, and should show this by having four Senators abstain on any bill where One Nation supports their side. Obviously, this isn’t going to happen with the LNP. However rude they may be about Hanson and other ONP members when they say something particularly appalling, ONP is effectively part of the coalition and is being treated as such.

But for Labor, I think the case for shunning One Nation is strong. The arguments for a complete rejection of One Nation’s racism are obvious. The costs would be

(i) In votes where Xenophon went with the LNP and Hanson with Labor and the Greens, this would turn a win into a loss (I think – can someone check)

(ii) Open hostility to One Nation would probably shift some ONP voters to change their second preferences

I don’t think either of these points have a lot of weight. But the self-styled Labor “hardheads” whose brilliant moves have included putting Family First into Parliament and abolishing optional preferential voting in Queensland, just when would help Labor most, will doubtless disagree.

* These disputes have been going on for decades, reflecting the fact that, because sugarcane is costly to transport, growers are very limited in their choice of mills, and millers similarly depend on a relatively small number of growers to keep them in business.. I haven’t looked into the merits of this one

I’m not a big fan of political scandals. Still, it has to mean something when there are too many simultaneous scandals going on for anyone to keep track. Rather than attempt a summary, I’ll list some of the government figures currently involved in one or more scandals that would normally be expected to produce a resignation from office or Parliament: Cash, Cormann, Dutton, Hockey, Keenan, Wilson, Price [feel free to challenge these names, or add others, in comments]. The only comparable situation I can think of is the dying days of the last NSW Labor government.

In these circumstances, policy catastrophes like banking, the Murray-Darling Basin and climate change barely get a look in.

Despite all of this, the government and their media cheer squad are convinced they can eke out a win by demonizing refugees. We shall see.

One of the arguments being pushed by those on the political right seeking to downplay the Victorian election outcome is that Australian state governments generally get a second term. A look over the period since 1990, however, brings up  several exceptions to that rule. Here’s my list:

Borbidge (Queensland), Baillieu-Napthine (Victoria), Newman (Queensland),Mills-Giles (NT)

For the “second-term” argument to work in downplaying the result, more is needed. It has to be the case that, having won a second term, governments mostly fail to get a third.  Here’s a list [1] of instances where two-term governments have been defeated.

Groom-Rundle (Tasmania), Greiner-Fahey (NSW), Kennett (Victoria), Carnell-Humphries (ACT), Court, Gallop-Carpenter, Barnett (WA), Martin-Henderson (NT)

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that all of the exceptions in the first list were conservatives, while only two of the confirming instances in the second list were Labor.

With a limited data set, it’s easy to support a wide range of conclusions. Still if conservative commentators want to use historical patterns to argue that, having easily won a second term, Daniel Andrews is on track to lose next time, I think they’re dreaming.

 

fn1.  This is a moderately famous Internet meme, coined by Alan Greenspan

fn2. One might arguably add the Goss government in Queensland, which won the 1995 election, but lost office after a by-election required by the Court of Disputed Returns.