When Bill Shorten said on April 14 this year “We decided to rip up the rulebook of opposition,” that rulebook had already been ripped up by Peter Beattie in the 90s.
The highly-detailed, long-term Shorten election campaign has many similarities with the Beattie bid to overturn a first-term Coalition Queensland Government 21 years ago.
Shorten said: “We decided we wouldn’t just sit back and wait for the other side to trip over their own shoelaces… we decided we would set the pace, we would make the running, we would put forward our vision for the future.”
This is exactly what Beattie decided was essential if Labor was to have any chance of cutting through the disillusionment with politics that existed in Queensland after the fall from grace of the Goss Government and its replacement by the inept, crisis-ridden Borbidge Government.
The Shorten Opposition team has been rigorous in its development and costings of policies to demonstrate it is not just an opposition but a credible alternative government and also to proof these policies against being dismantled in a cake-and-candles type attack.
This was the same path trodden by Beattie and his team between 1996 and 1998.
On March 3 1998, the first sitting day of the Queensland Parliament that year, Beattie announced: “Voters will have a clear choice on election day: a Labor Government that has spent two years developing exciting, positive new policies for jobs, services and development that will drive Queensland into the next century.”
He said: “…we have all spent two years listening to people and consulting experts to produce our New Directions Statements, a process of policy development that is a first in Australian politics.
“Never before has a party so thoroughly consulted the community in the development of its policies…Our New Directions Statements have been the basic framework of ideas on which we are building solid, meaningful and practical policies by using input from experts, stakeholders and, importantly, all Queenslanders.”
In the past, oppositions had largely kept new policies under wraps until the dissolution of parliament and the start of the campaign period in order to prevent the government from stealing them or demolishing them.
But Beattie challenged the government to adopt Labor’s policies because they would be good for Queensland.
As with the Shorten policies it was important that these policies were not seen as pie in the sky. Each was carefully costed.
For example, as early as September 1997 Beattie released a New Directions Statement for “Breaking the Unemployment Cycle” costed at $276 million and promising that in the first three years of a Labor Government the plan would provide:
*6,000 traineeships for young Queenslanders in the public sector
*500 apprenticeships for young Queenslanders in the public sector
*Up to 9,000 additional apprenticeships and traineeships in the private sector
*Up to 8980 jobs lasting at least six months for long-term unemployed through the Community Jobs Plan centering on essential public works, community and environmental projects.”
Segments of the policy were individually costed.
By November 1997 19 New Directions Statements had been released. By the time Borbidge called the election in May 1998 the tally was 32, covering just about every policy area.
This sentence may ring a bell: “Our recent national conference demonstrated that Labor alone has heard and understood the anguish of Australians who are sick and tired of seeing their living standards decline while being reassured by Government that the economy is booming. Labor's approach to new politics is simply this: under Labor, those who are vulnerable and those who have not received the benefits of economic change will have an activist Government standing ready to ease their lot.”
That wasn’t Shorten. It was Beattie in 1998, finishing that part of a speech with: “With Labor, Queenslanders again will have a Government to make a positive difference in their lives.”
As now, the Murdoch press did Labor no favours.
Beattie complained in Parliament: “Those opposite might be able to con The Courier-Mail for one day into writing a glossy front page misrepresenting the financial position in this State, but the facts speak for themselves in terms of bankruptcies and the economic performance of this State. The people of Queensland are smarter than
that. The spin doctors may have been successful in getting their front page of nonsense, but the people out there who are hurting - the unemployed and small business, for example - know exactly what level of performance this Government has, and it is a failed performance.”
Then, as now, disillusionment with politics led to many people wanting to punish mainstream parties, blame immigration for their plight and vote for simplistic but unworkable solutions.
The sudden and massive rise of support for One Nation provided problems for the major parties.
Beattie was resolute in directing that no preferences be allocated to One Nation. But In all but one seat the Coalition parties directed preferences to One Nation ahead of the ALP, upsetting many Liberal voters who were uncomfortable with the decision to give preferences to such a xenophobic party.
A 1998 issues brief published by the federal government noted: “Anecdotal evidence suggests that the decision of the Liberal Party to direct preferences to One Nation ahead of the ALP cost the party votes and seats in Brisbane.”
And: “It would appear that up to eight One Nation seats were won on Coalition preferences…Similarly up to nine Coalition seats were won on ALP preferences .”
Now the Coalition is making the mistake of allocating preferences to Palmer’s instant army of assorted candidates and in Queensland six LNP candidates are swapping preferences with One Nation and other fringe dwellers.
The result in 1998 was a very narrow win for Labor in only the second time that a first term Queensland government had been overthrown – but the positivity resulted in more than a decade of strong and stable Labor government.
That’s something Shorten would dearly love to emulate.
The highly-detailed, long-term Shorten election campaign has many similarities with the Beattie bid to overturn a first-term Coalition Queensland Government 21 years ago.
Shorten said: “We decided we wouldn’t just sit back and wait for the other side to trip over their own shoelaces… we decided we would set the pace, we would make the running, we would put forward our vision for the future.”
This is exactly what Beattie decided was essential if Labor was to have any chance of cutting through the disillusionment with politics that existed in Queensland after the fall from grace of the Goss Government and its replacement by the inept, crisis-ridden Borbidge Government.
The Shorten Opposition team has been rigorous in its development and costings of policies to demonstrate it is not just an opposition but a credible alternative government and also to proof these policies against being dismantled in a cake-and-candles type attack.
This was the same path trodden by Beattie and his team between 1996 and 1998.
On March 3 1998, the first sitting day of the Queensland Parliament that year, Beattie announced: “Voters will have a clear choice on election day: a Labor Government that has spent two years developing exciting, positive new policies for jobs, services and development that will drive Queensland into the next century.”
He said: “…we have all spent two years listening to people and consulting experts to produce our New Directions Statements, a process of policy development that is a first in Australian politics.
“Never before has a party so thoroughly consulted the community in the development of its policies…Our New Directions Statements have been the basic framework of ideas on which we are building solid, meaningful and practical policies by using input from experts, stakeholders and, importantly, all Queenslanders.”
In the past, oppositions had largely kept new policies under wraps until the dissolution of parliament and the start of the campaign period in order to prevent the government from stealing them or demolishing them.
But Beattie challenged the government to adopt Labor’s policies because they would be good for Queensland.
As with the Shorten policies it was important that these policies were not seen as pie in the sky. Each was carefully costed.
For example, as early as September 1997 Beattie released a New Directions Statement for “Breaking the Unemployment Cycle” costed at $276 million and promising that in the first three years of a Labor Government the plan would provide:
*6,000 traineeships for young Queenslanders in the public sector
*500 apprenticeships for young Queenslanders in the public sector
*Up to 9,000 additional apprenticeships and traineeships in the private sector
*Up to 8980 jobs lasting at least six months for long-term unemployed through the Community Jobs Plan centering on essential public works, community and environmental projects.”
Segments of the policy were individually costed.
By November 1997 19 New Directions Statements had been released. By the time Borbidge called the election in May 1998 the tally was 32, covering just about every policy area.
This sentence may ring a bell: “Our recent national conference demonstrated that Labor alone has heard and understood the anguish of Australians who are sick and tired of seeing their living standards decline while being reassured by Government that the economy is booming. Labor's approach to new politics is simply this: under Labor, those who are vulnerable and those who have not received the benefits of economic change will have an activist Government standing ready to ease their lot.”
That wasn’t Shorten. It was Beattie in 1998, finishing that part of a speech with: “With Labor, Queenslanders again will have a Government to make a positive difference in their lives.”
As now, the Murdoch press did Labor no favours.
Beattie complained in Parliament: “Those opposite might be able to con The Courier-Mail for one day into writing a glossy front page misrepresenting the financial position in this State, but the facts speak for themselves in terms of bankruptcies and the economic performance of this State. The people of Queensland are smarter than
that. The spin doctors may have been successful in getting their front page of nonsense, but the people out there who are hurting - the unemployed and small business, for example - know exactly what level of performance this Government has, and it is a failed performance.”
Then, as now, disillusionment with politics led to many people wanting to punish mainstream parties, blame immigration for their plight and vote for simplistic but unworkable solutions.
The sudden and massive rise of support for One Nation provided problems for the major parties.
Beattie was resolute in directing that no preferences be allocated to One Nation. But In all but one seat the Coalition parties directed preferences to One Nation ahead of the ALP, upsetting many Liberal voters who were uncomfortable with the decision to give preferences to such a xenophobic party.
A 1998 issues brief published by the federal government noted: “Anecdotal evidence suggests that the decision of the Liberal Party to direct preferences to One Nation ahead of the ALP cost the party votes and seats in Brisbane.”
And: “It would appear that up to eight One Nation seats were won on Coalition preferences…Similarly up to nine Coalition seats were won on ALP preferences .”
Now the Coalition is making the mistake of allocating preferences to Palmer’s instant army of assorted candidates and in Queensland six LNP candidates are swapping preferences with One Nation and other fringe dwellers.
The result in 1998 was a very narrow win for Labor in only the second time that a first term Queensland government had been overthrown – but the positivity resulted in more than a decade of strong and stable Labor government.
That’s something Shorten would dearly love to emulate.
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