Haydon Richard Manning

The tainted triumph of the Greens: the Australian national election of 9 October 2004

At the outset of the 2004 national election campaign, the Australian Greens were confident of winning four to six Senate seats and, in all likelihood, holding the balance of power. One poll put their support at 12%, and leading psephologist Malcolm Mackerras (2004) predicted they would elect a Senator in each state. Prime Minister John Howard’s centre-right coalition government feared that, under Australia’s system of preferential voting, a high Green vote might carry the Labor Party to power, while Labor incumbents in inner Melbourne and Sydney worried that Greens might topple them with the assistance of conservative parties’ preferences. In the event, none of these hopes and fears was realised. The conservative coalition government was re-elected with an increased majority. Labor lost no seats to the Greens, but it lost a net five House seats, and its share of the vote declined for the second election in succession to a paltry 37.6%. For the Greens, the election was, at first glance, a triumph. They increased their share of the vote by 50% (to 7.7%), and doubled their representation in the Senate. The bad news, however, is that Greens, who during the outgoing parliament played a key role in resisting government assaults on civil liberties as well as in defence of the environment, will have much less influence in a Senate that the government will control for the first time in 23 years. Moreover, although Greens registered between 20 and 30% at many polling booths in inner city Sydney and Melbourne, they lost their sole representative in the House of Representatives when the Wollongong seat won (with 23% of the vote) at a by-election in 2002 returned to Labor. The Greens’ triumph was further tempered by the fact that their gains failed even to balance the losses of the Democrats, the other minor party with a good

Australia's Nuclear Horizon: Moving Beyond the Drumbeat of Risk Inflation

The 2006 Switkowski review report commissioned by the Howard government highlighted some of the economic and foreign policy benefits that could flow from a major expansion of Australias uranium export program. It also identified the long-term advantages for Australias energy security flowing from the development of a national nuclear industry. The report has been condemned by anti-nuclear groups, who argue that proposals for Australias continuing and, possibly, deeper involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle are unacceptable. The primary risk identified is that Australian uranium exports will contribute to global nuclear proliferation pressures, but claims concerning nuclear-related terrorism are also an increasingly common theme in anti-nuclear commentary. These arguments, in turn, are framed within a broader set of assumptions about the ‘immoral’ nature of any engagement in the nuclear fuel cycle. This article examines the most prominent claims put forward by anti-nuclear proponents and argues that many of them are based on an unnecessary inflation of risk.

Campaign cartoons: no more man of steel

This article tracks the waning of John Howards authority as leader during the Australian federal election campaign of 2007 by focusing on the political cartoons in major newspapers. Political cartoons as analysed in this piece provide two interlinked things of interest to political analysts: (1) a clear account of the ebb and flow of election campaigns; and (2) a good gauge of political ‘strength’ of individuals as it is projected in the media. The story they tell for the 2007 campaign in Australia is of a tired government led by a once-strong leader who came to look faintly ridiculous in the face of circumstances he could no longer control.

May the Less Threatening Leader of the Opposition Win: The cartoonists’ view of election 2010

National affairs correspondent for The Age, Tony Wright, expressed widespread frustration at the media-managed frivolity of the 2010 federal election campaign when he asserted on radio that ‘this campaign has been made for the satirists’ (ABC 2010). From our observation of the editorial cartoons of the campaign, the level of engagement with significant issues was too slight even for the satirists to get much of a handle on events. Indeed, it was only the ABC TV show Gruen Nation that broke new satirical ground in this campaign, and that was because it focused on the advertising and spin rather than the political substance. It debuted in its election mode with an audience of 1.6 million, ‘winning’ the night against the commercial channels, and developed a strong following for the quality and wit of its attack on election advertising (The Sunday Age, 1 August 2010). The success of this meta-analysis of the political game reflects the trouble satirists in more traditional modes had in finding anything much to grasp. Wright was only half-right about the campaign for the cartoonists; it was a joke for them, certainly, but mostly a rather bad and empty one.

The 2010 South Australian State Election

Eight months out from polling day the Rann Labor government looked set to be returned comfortably for a third term. The Liberal Opposition were enduring yet another leadership change and an air of incompetence enveloped their performance. With the opposition lacking unity, Rann’s government escaped scrutiny or convincing criticisms. Rann had enjoyed considerable political luck as an Opposition leader and premier (Manning 2005), but it deserted him in an extraordinary turn of events six months from polling day. He was, until that point, a remarkably popular premier, unaffected by the malady engulfing long-term Labor governments in New South Wales or Western Australia, and his opponents looked far from ready to govern. Confronted by a totally unpredictable but undeniably intriguing event in his personal life in the form of accusations of an affair with a Ms Michelle Chantelois who at the time was working for the parliament’s catering services, his capacity to campaign was from that point effectively crippled. This drama consumed the state’s political life and festered to the extent that it brought Opposition leader Isobel Redmond into the election. But for some bungling late in the campaign by his opponents, it is likely that Rann’s government would have been defeated. Nonetheless, the victors tend to write the history of any given campaign, and South Australian Labor’s return is attributed to astute marginal seat campaigning led by Bruce Hawker, an experienced Labor election tactician whom Rann referred to in his victory speech as ‘the greatest strategist in Australia’ (Van Onselen 2010a). But, alongside Labor’s relentless efforts to portray Redmond as soft on crime and leading a fractious party, poor candidate choice by the Liberals in a number of key marginal seats was also a crucial contributing factor. While Labor’s negative campaign directed at the Liberals played a significant role, it was the obvious fact of recent instability within Liberal ranks which, on balance, explains why voters shied away making the decision that the majority of voters actually desired, namely, to deny Rann his third term. Given the fraught events which prompted Labor MPs’ disgruntlement with their leader, it is likely that few shared the premier’s

The South Australian election of 18 March 2006

The South Australian election on 18 March 2006 saw the Labor Party; led by Mike Rann, storm out from the shadows of minority government to record a decisive victory which has the potential to set a platform from which the party could govern for at least the next eight years. Labor won 28 of the 47 seats in the House of Assembly gaining 45.2% of first preference votes. However, the decisiveness of its victory in the Lower House was not matched by the result in the Legislative Council. Voters turned away from both major parties giving 4 of the 11 seats contested to minor parties and independents. This continued a trend that has been evident in South Australian elections for the last two decades, although on this occasion its dramatic acceleration was explained by the extraordinary result of the ‘No Pokies’ independent Nick Xenophon who won 23.5% of the vote and easily secured two quotas. The election campaign itself marked new heights in the trend towards presidential style campaigning on the part of the Labor Party which used extensive television advertising to make the most of its popular leader. The Liberals, on the other hand, lacked both a leader to counter Rann and the funds to match Labors advertising budget. The election also saw the confirmation of Family First as a significant player in South Australian politics, and may mark the beginning of the end of the Australian Democrats. The Democrats failed to make any impact and were effectively replaced by the Greens, who in winning a seat in the Legislative Council enjoyed their first South Australian electoral success.

Book Reviews : The New Working Class? White Collar Workers and Their Organisa Tions: a Reader: Edited by Richard Hyman and Robert Price. Macmillan, London, 1983, 285 pp.,

not believe, that secret postal ballots are the be-all of union democracy, but their role and significance require more comprehensive treatment than is afforded by Fairbrother. Second, for Fairbrother, union democracy consists of ’debate and discussion, agreement and disagreement, and collective decision and discipline’ (page 3). Yet he also favours a system whereby national conferences and other representative bodies operate on a mandated basis. Put simply, the delegates at the conference are instructed how to vote by their particular electorate and in consequence debate and discussion necessarily play a less critical part. The contradiction between these two practices (the mandating of delegates and meaningful debate and discussion) is not explored. Third, Fairbrother comments that the narrow economist focus of unions