The One That Got Away
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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.