The One That Got Away

DON D’CRUZ

The defeat of the Kennett Government as a result of the Victorian State election of 18 September 1999 surprised almost all observers. A look at how defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory.

N the aftermath of the 1999 health and education, there was no perform competently. Ironically, this Victorian State election and major issue that threatened to topple disciplined performance may have the inevitable recrimina- the Government. Nor was there any worked against him when it came to the I tions, much of the blame was prevailing mood for change. expectations of the result. placed on the shoulders of the now The Liberals also had one consider- Where the Liberals departed from former Premier, Jeff Kennett. Particu- able electoral asset—Jeff Kennett. usual practice was the infamous ‘gag’. larly during his premiership, Jeff Kennett Given the tomes of post ipso facto elec- There is still some doubt as to what this was a larger-than-life figure who domi- tion rationalizations about the Kennett exactly entailed, with some denying any nated his party and the political land- style and the vote, it is all too easy to such limitation on Liberal candidates. scape. This profile made his style of lead- forget just what a good politician It has been explained as a ‘misunder- ership and policies an obvious lightning Kennett was. With his colourful persona standing’ by the media. Nevertheless, rod for criticism after electoral defeat. and capacity to use the media to com- it seems some sort of directive was is- The Kennett style and policies, municate his message, Kennett was a sued that did convey the impression however, only partially explain this de- formidable political weapon. that some sort of gag had been imposed. feat. A sizeable share of the Kennett loss In the context of modern campaign- can be attributed to a poorly, if not in- ing, this tactic had an element of logic eptly, structured campaign, whose short- so as to stay ‘on message’ and avoid em- comings were reinforced and magnified The election once barrassing gaffes. But it was flawed in by a series of poor tactical decisions its conception and bungled in its im- during the campaign, and by adminis- again proved the plementation. The gag soon became a trative errors of judgement within the focus of criticism in a lifeless campaign. Liberal Party just before the campaign. The one serious difficulty that the The election once again proved the old old political truism Liberals faced with their strategy con- political truism that ‘Oppositions don’t cerned the negative component of their win elections, governments lose them’. that ‘Oppositions message and overall strategy. At the heart of any campaign is its message. A CAMPAIGN STRATEGY good campaign message contains two The Kennett Government strategy re- don’t win elections, distinct yet complementary parts. The lied on calling an early election. With first is the positive component, which the Premier and the party enjoying a governments lose is about the party. The second is the comfortable margin of advantage over negative part, or point of contrast with Labor, a sizeable campaign war chest, the opponent. the economy prospering and the mood them’ The previously successful ‘Guilty generally good, the situation seemed Party’ advertisements no longer struck right to go to the polls. The timing mir- a responsive chord with the electorate. rored the 1996 election in that it was The decision to run a very ‘presiden- The rush to the polls and a new Labor designed to take advantage of the dis- tial’-style campaign was perfectly under- leader meant that the Opposition pre- ruptions caused by the sporting events, standable. The retirement of a slew of sented an extremely small target. It also in this case the AFL finals. senior ministers, most notably Alan afforded the Liberals no time to flush With Labor having just installed Stockdale, was successfully portrayed by Labor out on their policy positions. It Steve Bracks to replace the uninspiring Labor as a depletion of talent. This was seems that there was some difficulty in John Brumby, and with Bracks not mak- also not helped by the Kennett style, constructing a compelling negative ing headway, the timing was also de- which seldom allowed his ministers to message for the campaign. signed to exploit his lack of public pro- showcase their talents, leaving most of The seriousness of this cannot be file. By forcing Bracks to compete with them with a fairly low public profile. overstated, as a significant percentage the football finals, it was hoped that the Most Australian elections are presi- of the some 20 per cent of the elector- new Opposition leader would be starved dential in style. Although Australia bor- ate identified by ABC election analyst of the oxygen of publicity he needed to rows its system of government from the Antony Green as ‘swinging voters’ do get his message across. Westminster tradition, undue attention respond better to negative message ap- The Kennett Government felt rea- has always been paid to the leaders. peals. sonably confident about running on its That the Liberals used Kennett so Labor was faced with the enormous record. Aside from the usual problems prominently is hardly surprising. If one task of reeling in the Coalition’s size-

▲ of all State and Federal governments in goes back over the election, Kennett did able lead. But the size of Labor’s task

R E V I E W MARCH 2000 19 was also its greatest asset. As no-one, Kennett did make a practice of about a close result not getting through not even the staunchest Labor support- warning against complacency and that to the media, advertising was the one ers, expected a Labor win, the ALP was the election would be close, but they communication tool at the party’s dis- spared any real scrutiny of its policies were basically just a few throw-away posal. But they failed to use it. and agenda. The gimmick of the ‘finan- lines and were contradicted by various The Liberals simply allowed Victo- cial audit’ by Access Economics was ef- Liberal actions. Liberals seemed com- rians to give Jeff a bit of a shock, after fective in killing-off any real interest in placent about the dangers. This is sur- which he would return, suitably chas- Labor’s policy detail and in keeping the prising because, with no ‘hot button’ tened, and govern accordingly. But focus squarely on the Government. Nei- issues, expectations of a big win were things went awry. ther its policies nor its shadow minis- always going to be one of the campaign’s ters were really tested. As a conse- major problems. POLITICAL ADVERTISING quence, Victoria now has a Labor Gov- The entirely wrong tone was set by The Liberal Party’s advertising (particu- ernment whose policies and agenda are the Party’s State Director, who told jour- larly on television) was subjected to in- as much a mystery to Victorians as is nalists at a press conference at the start tense internal criticism. Many party their frontbench. of the campaign that this was the most members felt the advertising was too Labor waged a fairly strong negative sophisticated campaign ever in Aus- ‘soft’. campaign. It was an improvement on tralia, if not the world. Given what we The Liberals relied on a combina- their last outing, arguably one of the now know about the way in which the tion of positive advertisements where most inept campaigns in modern Aus- campaign was planned and imple- their message was illustrated themati- tralian politics. It sought to limit key mented, this statement borders on the cally using various issues. The ‘negative’ points of differentiation, such as priva- laughable. But the hubris also reinforced advertisements were implied compara- tization and the Grand Prix, which had the media’s belief that Labor would be tive advertisements where images of borne little fruit and instead concen- battling merely to hang on to its own Victoria now were juxtaposed with trated on the issues, such as health and seats. negative images from the Cain–Kirner education, that promised greater elec- The news media are a primary tar- years. The advertising was implied-com- toral returns. get audience in their own right. The parative because Labor was not men- failure to impress upon the media the tioned until the very end. EXPECTATIONS MANAGEMENT dangers inherent in such a lead mani- At the State Council meeting fol- Expectations management has become fested itself more subtly in the way that lowing the election, the State Director a crucial part of Australian election reporters covered the campaign. It also argued that harsher negative advertis- campaign strategy—for reasons ranging helped Bracks and Labor avoid any scru- ing had not tested well with target au- from increased volatility, alienation and tiny—basically, journalists did not con- diences. Fearing a backlash effect, these distrust (not to mention dislike) of poli- sider they were talking to a likely next commercials were shelved. Given that ticians to the system of compulsory vot- Premier when interviewing Steve the Labor Party made themselves a par- ing and the traditional Australian love Bracks. ticularly small target, harsh negative of the underdog. Today, perceptions of During the campaign, the Liberals advertising was ill-advised. Bracks was a politician’s complacency and smug- made forays into various Labor seats and an even smaller target. Not only was he ness can be his or her greatest weakness. conveyed the impression that they were pitted against Jeff, but he simply had not Everyone wants to be the underdog. seriously targeting them. I’m unsure ex- done anything significant in his life to The failure of the Liberal Party to actly how genuine these efforts were, or use as ammunition. It is an interesting structure its campaign carefully to al- whether they were just a ploy to keep reflection on Australian political life low for this was undoubtedly one of the Labor guessing about where to divert its when not having achieved anything in campaign’s great flaws. Ultimately, it resources, but the effect was damaging one’s life can ‘qualify’ one for high pub- may have cost them government. to any expectations-management strat- lic office and can indeed be a political egy the Liberals virtue. might have had. This still does not totally explain The absence of why, in a presidential-style campaign, advertising to assist the Liberals chose not to respond to with minimizing Labor attacks, particularly on the Pre- expectations is one mier. of the more puz- Broadly, the Liberals could have zling features of the adopted two approaches to combat Liberal campaign. Labor’s attack: a proactive inoculation With the opinion strategy (that is, a pre-emptive defen- polls showing a sive measure used to prepare for known comfortable vic- or presumed opposition attacks by rais- tory, the only con- ing and framing them first in a manner ceivable bump in that may deflect subsequent attacks); or the road, barring a reactive responsive strategy. some enormous Party strategists probably felt that a gaffe, was always proactive inoculation strategy was ill- going to be the ex- advised. Any attempt to put an unfa- pectation of an easy vourable issue on the agenda was dan- Kennett victory. gerous as it would give credence to With the warning Labor’s charges. And any effort to do a

R E V I E W 20 MARCH 2000 bit of ‘backburning’ could see such a fire creasing their share of the votes. How- marginals. This was designed to keep rage out of control with a sudden change ever, the free-for-all that ensued placed MPs’ comments to major news outlets of the political wind. tremendous strain on the Coalition to an absolute minimum and keep the The other broad approach is reac- partnership. The ferocity of some of focus on the leader—all part and par- tive response, of which there are a these contests got out of hand and fed cel of a presidential style of campaign. number of different modes such as refu- into Labor’s line that the Liberals and The gag had a number of other un- tation, counterattack, and admission, Nationals were simply fighting over the favourable consequences, besides an- among others. The reactive response spoils of an expected victory. tagonizing journalists and becoming a approach was probably the Liberals’ Preselecting candidates shortly be- distraction in its own right. Aside from best option, but it was not used. fore the election cost the Liberals seats being rather insulting to Liberal MPs, The failure to initiate any advertis- in regional and rural areas, where, un- given what it implied, it severely un- ing to combat the harsh negative con- like their metropolitan counterparts, dermined the efforts of local MPs and tent of Labor’s was clearly a miscalcu- candidates usually enjoy higher pro- candidates who had worked hard to es- lation. Kennett was the Liberals’ great- files. tablish themselves as a strong voice for est electoral asset, but that image was Also, for many undecided voters in their local communities. Labor simply not unbreakable. It was essential that many of these electorates, the manner portrayed them as muzzled. And it also the Liberals protected their chief po- in which the candidates address and fed into Labor’s ‘Restoring Democracy’ litical asset, if they were unwilling or engage in local issues is as important theme. The image of being muzzled was unable to do anything to drive up the as any specific election promise. They the most damaging aspect of the gag negatives on Bracks. As the negatives are looking for a strong local voice that to local MPs, with the front page of the on Kennett increased, the positives on will best represent them in Parliament. Herald Sun ruthlessly exposing this per- Bracks increased. So much so that, on Without candidates in place, the ception. polling day, Labor supporters were Liberal Party was denied the opportu- handing out Labor ‘how-to-vote’ cards nity to campaign with them well be- POLLING and saying Steve Bracks’ name instead fore the election campaign, when the Following the election, the accuracy of of the Labor candidate’s. The damage clutter of campaign messages and the the Liberal polling was also criticized. to Kennett had been done. cynicism of the electorate are at their It is impossible to provide any reasoned Instead, the Liberals persisted with highest. It was also impossible to initi- analysis without access to it, other than their positive advertisements but the to say that poor polling would partially published empirical evidence support- explain the poor standard of advertis- ing the value of purely positive politi- ing, because good polling is prescrip- cal advertising is not strong. Most of tive not just descriptive. The interac- this data comes from the United States But what Labor’s tive use of polling and advertising is where some degree of positive adver- what modern campaigning is all about. tising is necessary for name recognition victory has shown In The New Machine Men, Stephen and ensuring voter turnout of support- Mills observed that ‘separately, each ers. But in Australia, the value of such half of the relationship is like a blunt advertising is considerably less. is that things are scissor blade’. In contrast, Labor adopted a form So why did it apparently fail? Given of negative advertising known as direct that polling is always a closely-guarded comparative advertising. In its adver- never irretrievable secret, it is impossible to say. The re- tisements, negative messages on view being conducted by past Liberal health, education and law and order Federal President Tony Staley might were juxtaposed with a positive grab ate low- and high-intensity direct voter provide some answers. from Bracks. This solved Labor’s prob- contact activities due to the absence lem of raising his profile while, at the of a local candidate in many seats. CONCLUSION same time, delivering a harsh negative If one looks at some of the better The sense of despair among Victorian message without being labelled as too marginal seat campaigns waged by the Liberals has only intensified since elec- negative by the media. Liberals—Leonie Burke (Prahran) and tion night with the subsequent heavy David Lean (Carrum)—the decision to defeats in the Frankston East and THE MARGINAL SEATS run prolonged grassroots campaigns, as Burwood by-elections and Steve STRATEGY much as a year preceding the poll, il- Bracks flying high in the opinion polls. A detailed discussion of the marginal lustrated the value of a ‘permanent But what Labor’s victory has shown is seats campaign is not possible here, but campaign’ in limiting the size of any that things are never irretrievable. And a few of the administrative and tacti- anti-Government swing. Preselected government is never that far away. cal mistakes do explain the Liberals’ Liberal candidates did not have this The challenge for the Liberals is relatively poor showing. necessary advantage. whether the party that has done so The administrative party errors that In contrast, Labor candidates were much to reform Victoria to make it cost the Liberals dearly were the deci- preselected at least a year in advance competitive and dynamic can do the sion to preselect candidates relatively and had plenty of time to make them- same to itself. close to the election and the decision selves known to the local media and to divert valuable resources into a public. In seats such as Seymour, this Don D’Cruz is doing a PhD on communication number of three-cornered contests. was crucial to the final result. strategies in Australian elections at RMIT. Generally, three-cornered contests Finally, a tactical decision to use the do favour the Coalition parties by in- gag was received negatively in the I P A

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