Election lessons from regional Australia: why Labor got the push in the bush

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/25/election-lessons-from-regional-australia-why-labor-got-the-push-in-the-bush

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Contemptible. Stupid. Dipshits. Morons. Fools and worse.

While there were patches of dissent, rural seats largely stuck with the Coalition in last week’s election, and the torrent of abuse for country people on social media was predictable.

But after a week of rage and reflection, it’s more useful to pick apart why the Morrison government was returned with a slightly larger majority on the back of support in the regions.

Lesson 1: Labor’s platform scared the bejesus out of the bush

Small businessman Mark O’Brien has lived in Charleville, nine hours west of Brisbane, for 33 years. He has run for the state Labor party twice in the area, so more than most he knows the challenges facing Labor in the bush.

“As the election campaign wore on, Labor drifted into the old class warfare rhetoric, and that does not fly in Queensland,” O’Brien said. “We are a very egalitarian state.

“The constant referral to a group of downtrodden, berated workers isn’t what we want to hear. Sure, there are people at bottom stratas, but they want to hear something positive, uplifting stories.”

Notwithstanding the Coalition’s tax scare campaign, he saw stark differences between the messages of the Coalition and Labor.

“Over here we are going to lift you up, and here we are going to take something off somebody,” O’Brien says.

“As humans we don’t like it. I am committed to Labor principles that ensure the little people get looked after, that’s my philosophical position, but Labor has to have really positive policies that reward endeavour.”

Raphaella Kathryn Crosby is the director of the Voter Choice project. She grew up in Barnaby Joyce’s electorate of New England and is now based in Townsville, in the formerly ultra marginal seat of Herbert.

“Country voters are little ‘c’ conservative – if they aren’t sure, they will stick with what they know,” Crosby says.

Lesson 2: The regions loved daggy dad

While former immigration hard-arse Scott Morrison’s makeover made progressive voters want to burst a valve, it worked in the regions.

National party MPs acknowledge that Morrison worked much better as a PM for them than Malcolm Turnbull, or even their own leader, Michael McCormack.

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O’Brien says that while the new Labor leader doesn’t need to go to church, there is a lesson from Morrison about connecting with the broader public.

“The Australian public generally will have warmed to the PM, who the day after a euphoric and historic win, did what a lot of Australians do – he went to church and the footy,” O’Brien says. “That’s the appeal.”

Crosby underlined in her national qualitative and quantitative research that engaged people had locked in votes in September. The election had no big question to answer and no story driving voters to the polls. That left undecided voters purely watching Morrison and Shorten.

“The Liberal campaign was a fairly empty, negative campaign with not much substance and Mickey Mouse announcements, so while there was not a good reason to vote for Coalition, they gave reasons for voting against Labor,” Crosby says.

Lesson 3: The devil you know

While parts of regional Australia are livid with federal politics, they prefer the devil they know unless there is a well-organised campaign.

Barnaby Joyce increased his primary vote in New England by 3%, with his closest rival, independent Adam Blakester, on 14%.

On the back of her local knowledge and the equivalent of 14 focus groups in the seat, Crosby suggests relentless attacks against New England voters from the outside got their back up, and Blakester was not the right candidate.

“He was not the right guy – the more Barnaby stuffed up, the standards for someone got higher,” Crosby says.

In spite of having no national drought policy and no connected regional policy, as well as carrying its failures on live export, the Nationals still increased their primary vote by a bee’s whisker.

At publication, this equates to 0.18% nationally for the Nats and 0.16% for the LNP in Queensland. With the help of right-wing preferences, the Coalition reaped bigger gains in terms of seats, so perhaps it helped cosying up to One Nation.

As a result, the Nats held their seats and kudos is due. Four more women in the party room adds more balance, increasing their number from two to six.

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But drill down into the seats where there was viable competition and the picture is more complex.

In Andrew Broad’s old seat of Mallee, which sat on a 20% margin, the Nationals’ Anne Webster polled 29.1% of primary votes, a drop of 27% in a big field of 13 candidates.

A fair chunk (18%) went to the Liberal candidate Serge Petrovich, a Melbourne-based barrister who could not get to the electorate most of the time – which would suggest that an active Peta Credlin might have been in with a good chance if she had run.

Another 23% went to three independents, mostly the deputy Mildura mayor and tiler Jason Modica (9.9%) and farmer Ray Kingston (9.2%) – both of whom ran on climate change, among other things. Informal votes increased to the seventh highest seat in the country. As the votes are counted, Mallee is still a contest worth watching.

In Farrer, where there was white-hot anger over water management, the independent candidate Kevin Mack jagged 21% of primaries and the sitting Liberal MP, Sussan Ley, suffered a 6.8% swing against her. Informal votes currently sit at 9%, the 10th highest at this time.

While Mack pulled ahead early, his momentum dropped back in the final weeks as the electorate focused on a potential Labor win.

Labor’s environment spokesman, Tony Burke, had committed to lift caps on water buybacks and commentators started talking about a possible hung parliament. Influential community members ran advertising that a vote for Mack was a vote for Burke and Penny Wong, even though he had promised to back a conservative government.

In small communities, the messenger counts a lot, and Labor pitching its message on water management to metro audiences, rather than talking to rural communities, helped Ley enormously.

Lesson 4: Independent campaigns don’t happen overnight

The Liberals had consistently counted Indi as returning to the fold but it became the first seat to be handed over from one independent, Cathy McGowan, to another, Helen Haines.

The community movement Voices for Indi began working on policy two years before McGowan won in 2013, and has worked ever since. McGowan and V4I have trained people in government engagement and speak to communities outside the election cycle on diverse topics unrelated to politics.

By contrast, Mack ran a three-month campaign, Kingston announced six months before the poll and Modica slightly less. Blakester’s campaign was a similar length. While they made significant dents in the primary vote, large rural margins proved insurmountable in the time allowed.

The 2019 lesson for potential independents is that while professional political operatives would make lousy farmers or tilers, they do politics for a living and they know how to campaign where it counts.

Finally, changing cultural voting habits is hard. If you are a progressive voter, think about how hard you would be pushed to change your vote to the Coalition. That is what you are asking of the bush.