A Promise from the Heart IV

[If this post appears poorly formatted on your screen, I can assure that it has everything to do with a small disagreement that my router and Blogger appear to be having.  Apologies.  Hopefully they will work it out soon.]


In the first year or two of a new government, often all the talk can be about mandates and political capital.


There are two ways to burn political capital: by doing good but unpopular stuff, and by screwing up.  O'Farrell is doing plenty of the former, but the latter is starting to eat away at his capital.  After all, he did promise this in his Contract with NSW:

I've written previously about what kind of mandate the O'Farrell government has.  In short, given that the Coalition was elected after making precious few promises (as Labor's "Don't give them a blank cheque" campaign tried to convince us), it is my view that O'Farrell has a mandate to do pretty much whatever he wants, given that the voters didn't seem worried about his vague and often threadbare promises.

The issue of political capital is a more subtle one, and it all relates to the next election. 


Any politician who gets elected to any office has their eye on the next election. Depending on the quantum of the victory, there may be an opportunity to do some actual good, despite it being unpopular or politically inexpedient, and not risk a backlash big enough to lose the next time round.


It goes without saying that the bigger the margin of victory, the bigger the capital to "spend".


In the US, Obama has spent most of his political capital on health reform - and, given the history of health reform in the US, it is difficult to imagine a more deserving target.  He has copped an absolute hammering for it, but the size of his win in 2008 as well as the enduring goodwill towards him should be enough to see him comfortably reelected later this year, economic woes notwithstanding.


One of the (many) reasons that Gillard has struggled so in the polls federally is that she did not really have the political capital to push through a reform as inevitably unpopular as a Carbon Price.  The issue is far more complicated than that, but suffice to say that if she has won the 2010 election by 40 seats she could have easily sailed a Carbon Price through the parliament safe in the knowledge that she had the buffer to withstand the resultant attacks.


As it is, she sits on a 27% primary vote, due in no small part to a reform she didn't really have the capital to pursue.


In Queensland, Newman has been swept to power with an eye-popping majority,  He has the capital to do pretty much whatever he wants - although at the moment he seems content to use it to piss of writers for no good reason.


O'Farrell won the last election big - big enough that all he needs to do is stay upright and he will have 8 years.  Imagine what he could achieve in 8 years?  Imagine knowing that you have that amount of time to reform a state and to be remembered as a great leader in this state's history?


He has started a number of infrastructure projects that were long overdue.  Those projects will cost a lot of money, and (on balance) he will probably have to wear some hurt for that.


He has given Greg Smith (the Attorney General) the freedom to pursue a thoroughly excellent agenda of reforming our Laura Norda policies and undo some of the damage done by decades of competition to prove who was toughest on crime.


These steps are thoroughly respectable and excellent uses of the political capital he has accumulated. But the media in NSW is far too used to writing nsw political scandal, and Robertson has been all too eager to stoke to fire, even when it was thoroughly unjustified.


In fact, I've written previously about perceived scandals that were pure confection:

- Stoner and the solar panels (100% smoke and mirrors)

- Cansdell and the drink drive (immediately diffused by his ignoble resignation)

- a nameless minister accused of a sex offence



The Grimshaw debacle is the first mud to really stick though.  And it all arises out of O'Farrell's failure to take decisive action.



I've written about the issue previously.  Suffice to say, given what we now know (and what O'Farrell must have known and therefore expected to be revealed for some time) it seems inevitable that Grimshaw could never be allowed to return to work in O'Farrell's office.



Maybe it was loyalty that stayed O'Farrell's hand until now. Maybe it was arrogance. I don't know, but either way the drama has givent the Terror a reason to write this editorial.



It is more than a little hysterical, but these paragraphs are going to ring true:

I usually try and avoid quoting The West Wing on this blog, because it seems a little naff - but in this context, it's hard to go past this quote:

Quite.

Looking for a Mandate

What does it take for a party to have a mandate? For that matter - what exactly qualifies as a mandate?  Is winning power enough to have a mandate to make the changes you want?


Do you need to specify every change you want to make?  Or just the ones that will piss some people off?


One thing is for sure - it doesn't make a bit of difference. The party that has the votes will get their way, mandate or not.


If a policy has the votes behind it, then it will be passed.  It's democracy. If the voters don't like it, then the party in question will be answerable at the next election.


There was a great deal of discussion in the various debates over the new IR laws about "mandates". Over the weekend, the Coalition "guillotined" the debate and got the bill through the upper house.


It was a little disappointing to see the Greens bleating over the Coalition's guillotine - the Greens took advantage of the rules in the upper house to filibuster for days on end - the Coalition used the rules to end the filibuster and have a vote.


For the Greens to suggest that the move was anti-democratic - well, it certainly wasn't any more anti-democratic than giving a 6 hour speech to prevent a vote taking place.


The Greens and Labor went on at length during the filibuster about the perceived lack of a mandate, although interestingly David Shoebridge managed avoid the topic almost entirely.


Sen Fazio (ALP): The Government does not have a mandate to introduce this legislation, nor does it have a mandate to implement this policy change.


Sen Cotsis (ALP): The Liberals do not have a mandate. A mandate is gained after taking a policy platform to the people, to the electorate. 


Sen Primrose (ALP): No government should take the decision lightly to interfere in such a dedicated organisation without justification, without consultation and, most critically, without a mandate.


And, my personal favourite:


Sen Kaye (GRN):  The deeper theoretical question is: What does it mean in a bicameral Parliament, a two-House Parliament with an upper House, to have a mandate? There is a small matter of the Constitution. The Constitution states loudly and clearly that for legislation to be passed it has to go through the lower House and the upper House. There is no mandate unless it gets through the upper House. The mandate exists only inasmuch as one can get a majority in the upper House. In a bicameral Parliament supported by the Constitution it must be understood that there is no mandate - no theoretical pinning behind a mandate unless and until that legislation is passed through the upper House.

John Kaye.  Picture from NineMSN

(All quotes from the Hansard)


On which logic, the Coalition now has a mandate.


But did the Coalition in fact have a "mandate" to make these changes?


We've heard endless (and, sometimes, mindless) complaints about Gillard not having a "mandate" to introduce a carbon tax.  She certainly had a mandate to introduce a ETS - it is really only her stupid move in guaranteeing no carbon tax that has gotten her in trouble.


But the move is broadly in line with her policy in seeking to put a price on Carbon.


It is true that the Coalition never said before the election that they would eviscerate the Industrial Relations Commission.  It is probably also true that the Coalition did not advertise the move as it would hurt them at the ballot box.


Such is the good politics/good policy divide.


But can Joe Citizen realy claim to have been unfairly surprised by the move?


First of all, this legislation is straight from the Right playbook.  Reduce the power of unions.  Increase wage control to reduce expenditure.  Require productivity increases to justify wage increases.


This is what Liberal governments do when they are in power.  Last time round Peter Debnam lost, in part, because he promised to slash public service numbers. And who could forget Workchoices?  Or, more to point, will the public ever be allowed to, even for a second?

Picture from here

Secondly, Labor complained incessently about the blank cheque that the Liberal was going to be given because of their failure to "be honest" about their policies.  I wrote about that before the election here.


This was pretty much the theme of Labor's advertising in the final few weeks - O'Farrell is not being upfront, he is being secretive, what will he do when he was in power?

A Labor Leaflet.  From electionleaflets.org.au

The difficulty for Labor is that the response from the electorate was a big "Who cares?  Can't be worse than the other lot."  That may or may not be fair, but Labor have only themselves for that.  Perhaps if the governance under Labor had been a little more competent and a little less scandal ridden people might have paused to think about the consequences of their vote.


But, finally, my biggest gripe with this argument is the fact Labor and the Greens expended a significant amount of energy telling people that the Coalition would attack the public service.


Look at this from davidshoebridge.org.au:

From over here

Now, there was no incontrovertible evidence that O'Farrell would cut public service wages.  But that didn't stop Labor going on about it almost incessantly.  Can Labor really claim that people will now be shocked by this move?  


Who could forget this ad, a contender for the worst election ad ever made:





Everyone knew, or should have known, that the Coalition make changes that would weaken the union movement, and do something to reduce the state's wage bill.


No mandate?  Perhaps.  But an unfair surprise? No way.