Gerard Henderson usually puts forward historical arguments that are at least plausible. But his claim that Whitlam and Chifley were exponents of the small-target strategy is (literally) incredible.

Labor has had only four prime ministers since the end of World War II – Ben Chifley, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. Each won his inaugural election – in 1946, 1972, 1983 and 1993 respectively – on what today would be called a small target strategy.

Chifley, Whitlam and Keating subsequently threw the political switch to the big picture – and lost in 1949, 1975 and 1996 respectively. Hawke, ever the pragmatist, was not defeated in an election.

Whitlam’s It’s Time program was one of the most detailed and ambitious ever put forward by an Opposition and, contrary to Henderson’s claim, his government was in full retreat in 1975, following the Hayden Budget. Chifley was campaigning on the basis of, among other things, the White Paper on Full Employment which, for the first time, committed governments to maintaining full employment. More importantly, considering the whole period of the Curtin-Chifley government it was one which managed a radical transformation of the role of government. Hawke ran on the basis of the Accord which was a radical (though not radical left) approach to macroeconomic policy.

It’s only the 1993 and 1996 election that give real credence to small-target theory. Even here, it’s strange to focus on Keating who simply took the line that seemed most likely to deliver a win in the face of huge resentment arising from ‘the recession we had to have’. It was Hewson who failed with a big target (Fightback!) and Howard who succeeded with a small one.

In fairness, I suppose 1949 also counts as a defeat for big-picture politics, but there were quite a few factors working against Labor by then.

Update I’ve been wondering what on earth Henderson could have been thinking in imputing a ‘small target’ strategy to Whitlam and I think it must be the fact that Whitlam was a moderate on issues like Vietnam and state aid to private schools, compared to the dogmatic purism of, for example, the Victorian branch. But this reasoning excludes any possibility of serious political debate or of a substantial political program that takes political reality into account. Whitlam fought on the issues, but he focused on the issues that were winners for Labor. By contrast, Beazley ducked anything that would create any sort of trouble.

The vote is under way, and the Caucus members have entered the Party room. I can think of at least half a dozen members of the Caucus I’d prefer to either of the candidates. Nevertheless, of the two I’d prefer to go with the erratic Latham in the hope that he’ll somehow turn up trumps as leader.

On the main issue of disagreement between the two, tax cuts vs public spending, I agree with Beazley not Latham. But I think Beazley had his chance to take a firm stand on this in 2001 and, as on every other issue, muffed it.

For those who’d like a little mental exercise, and are interested in road safety, here’s an analysis of road safety that misses an obvious source of spurious correlation. I got it from the SMH, but to make life easy I’ve lifted the whole story. First to spot the obvious error gets a free mention in the update to this post (not much of a prize, but it’s an easy contest). My judgement is final, but, this being the blogosphere, lengthy flame wars will be entered into.

The popular stereotype of the dumb blonde could be shattered if accident statistics are any guide.

Insurance company Suncorp yesterday released a survey that shows blondes could be the nation’s best drivers.

The nationwide study of car accident trends found that people who described themselves as blonde had fewer crashes than others.

They were also less likely to be the victims of road rage and second least likely to feel rage against other drivers.

But the study found fiery redheads lived up to their reputation with red-haired women admitting they were the most likely of all respondents to feel fury on the road.

“As a group, blonde men and women came out on top in the driving stakes,” Suncorp personal insurance spokesman Warren Duke said.

“But the best drivers of all were black-haired women with only 47 per cent stating they had ever been involved in an accident.

“Red and black-haired men tied for the title of the most car accident prone.”

Mr Duke said Suncorp had decided to take a lighthearted look at a range of car crash data and found only 56 per cent of blonde respondents had ever been in a crash.

Update The winner is Kinich Gatsky, who observes that women are likely to be over-represented in the blonde group, and also to have lower accident rates. Runner-up is Derrida Derider.

When Crean’s resignation was obviously imminent, I wrote

Leaving that aside, the choice is, I hope, a no-brainer. Beazley and Latham both had lots of strikes against them anyway, and they’ve spent the last six months bagging each other. Excluding a bunch of candidates who might be good but who don’t have the profile to score a win, we’re left with Rudd.

Rudd’s failure to gather enough support for a run has left me to conclude that the Caucus has no collective brains.

It appears that Caucus will go for Beazley and near-certain (but hopefully not disastrous) defeat, rather than take a risk with Latham. Rudd has supposedly made some sort of succession deal with Beazley, but this will count for nothing after Labor is defeated and Beazley resigns. So we’ll probably get Beazley, then Latham, a depressing prospect for those of us who’d like to see this government defeated.

Surprisingly, no one seems to have pointed out what a gift Beazley’s election will be to the Greens. For Caucus members in ‘safe’ (that is, safe from the Liberals) seats, this, and not the supposed fickleness of aspirational voters, is what they should be worried about.

It’s time, as usual, for your comments on any issue you like (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). I’ll have another post on the Labor leadership soon, so if you have any thoughts on that topic, you might want to wait a little while and comment in that post.

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien. A nice instance of alphabetical serendipity. I was in Borders, looking for another of the Patrick O’Brien Aubrey-Maturin series and this was of course on the same shelf. Thirty years ago, my friend John Stephenson had sung its praises and, while I’d read and enjoyed the Myles na Gopaleen columns by the same author, I’d never got around to At Swim-Two-Birds. I found it a little heavy going at first, but now I’m really enjoying it.

While I’m at it, I’ll take the opportunity to plug John’s novel The Optimist based on the early life of the poet Christopher Brennan. When I was young, Brennan was still a legendary figure in the classic-tragic-alcoholic mode, but he seems to be neglected nowadays. The Optimist is apparently out of print, but it’s well worth reading if you can pick it up. The echoes of O’Brien and Joyce are very evident.

The title of this post may seem strange when the Federal Labor Party is in such a dreadful mess. But the very fact that a party consumed by leadership brawling, facing a united government with a competent leader, a relatively strong economy and the kind of international tensions that favor governments, can still manage 50 per cent of the two-party preferred vote in a number of opinion polls is revealing.

Over at Crikey, Owen Outsider argues that there has been a long term trend towards Labor dating back to the Menzies era. I put forward a rather similar argument here, observing

In the past fifteen to twenty years, Labor has rarely lost a state election, except when it has displayed high levels of incompetence, arrogance or both. Even in the wake of fiascos like the Victorian and South Australian bank failures, the Liberals have struggled to gain a second term, and have never managed a third. By contrast, all the Labor governments on the eastern seaboard have won re-election by landslide margins, and all look set for extended periods in office.

In my view, the electorate is well to the left of the political elite (that word again!) on most domestic issues, so the Liberals can only win if attention is focused on foreign policy and (an important qualification) things turn out well for that policy.

If the majority of the papers are right, the Caucus will vote for Kim Beazley on Tuesday. I thought it might clarify my own thoughts to check out his bio. He’s been a member of Parliament since 1980 and was a minister throughout the term of the Hawke and Keating governments. That makes him (along with Ralph Willis) the longest-serving minister in the history of the Federal Labor Party [Keating was briefly a minister under Whitlam. However, he spent a very profitable interlude on the backbench after his first challenge to Hawke].

Here’s a list of the offices he held

• Minister for Aviation from 11.3.83 to 13.12.84.
• Special Minister of State from 14.7.83 to 21.1.84.
• Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence from 11.3.83 to 13.12.84.
• Minister for Defence from 13.12.84 to 4.4.90.
• Vice-President of the Executive Council from 15.2.88 to 1.2.91.
• Minister for Transport and Communications from 4.4.90 to 9.12.91.
• Minister for Finance from 9.12.91 to 27.12.91.
• Minister for Employment, Education and Training from 27.12.91 to 23.12.93.
• Minister for Finance from 23.12.93 to 11.3.96.
• Deputy Prime Minister from 20.6.95 to 11.3.96

From that entire list, the only thing I can recall him doing is ordering the Collins class submarines. In addition, I recall that he played some role in the mess that is Australian telecommunications policy, but I can’t remember exactly what. As Opposition Leader, I can recall that he had two narrow losses and that at some time he advocated something called Rollback.

Have I missed some achievement that would mark out a future Prime Minister?

Despite repeated promises that the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme would not be on the table in negotiations about a Free Trade Agreement with the US, this NYT story says this is a key demand on the US side. Moreover

The [recently-passed] Medicare bill also requires the Bush administration to apprise Congress on progress toward opening Australia’s drug pricing system.

It’s increasingly clear that this game is not worth the candle.

Peter Brent from Mumble has contributed this guest post, putting the case for Beazley. My own views on the topic have only hardened since the last challenge, when I wrote this, and since giving up on Crean, when I wrote this. Peter’s argument begins …

Professor Quiggers has requested a please explain for my enthusiasm for Kim Beazley.

Here it is. Let me start by saying that, like most people, I’m not excited at the prospect of his return to the nightly news. In many ways he’s a relic from another era, and there are several others in caucus I’d rather see as PM.

But I think Beazley has the best chance of winning for the ALP. If he gets the job, Labor should walk in.

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