Some quick observations on the New South Wales election result:
The really useful guide to what occurred is The Poll Bludger’s breakdown of votes and swings by region.
1. Labor
Barry O’Farrell was right to pitch part of his fairly contentless victory speech to voters who had always voted Labor before. And Luke Foley was right to say that Labor had been left without a heartland.
In Queensland in 2001, people in “blue ribbon” suburbs like Clayfield and Indooroopilly in Brisbane found themselves voting for Labor for the first time ever, and largely repeated the experience in 2004: two elections which saw the Queensland Liberals with minimal representation in the city of Brisbane. But, when the Labor government began to look tired, we saw that the underlying pattern was partisan decomposition – ie that, at least at state level, a combination of state governments’ focusing on de-ideologised service delivery issues and social changes saw partisan loyalties erode such that the “tribal” heartlands of the two major parties became contestable. Hence, it is sometimes possible to win with a strategy pitched at “all the people”, but in other elections, there are real contests all over the shop and few “safe” seats.
This encapsulates two factors:
(a) The end of the usefulness of the state government model pioneered by Neville Wran in NSW – a de-emphasis of issues of progressive reform at the expense of “don’t scare the horses” policies and an appearance of managerial competence;
(b) The Labor party actually has to do some progressive things; and cleanse the Augean stables of its toxic party culture to be competitive in the absence of a useless or divided Coalition opponent.
Labor’s path to party renewal, therefore, must balance integrity and community links as watchwords (no more useless hacks, cynical spin and machinations) and differentiation on policy. Kristina Keneally, no doubt too late, realised both.
Julia Gillard would be well advised to take the Labor party review documents off the shelf, and to continue her push to differentiate Labor and argue that it is a party which does stand for something. And to forget the urgers in the right faction machines, particularly whoever is left standing from Sussex Street.
2. The Greens
The most significant number for The Greens in the state is the 0.0% swing in Inner Sydney. In other words, across inner city seats taken as a whole, their vote just didn’t budge. As William Bowe comments, Labor’s “vote held up a lot better where the campaign had been framed in the Labor-versus-Greens terms”.
It may be that the concentration of resources and energy on winning lower house seats comes at the expense of a state wide strategy designed to increase the vote incrementally everywhere, and have a better shot at winning more upper house seats. And it may be that The Greens’ lower house vote has reached a plateau in inner city suburbs. Now that the Liberals have eschewed preferencing Greens, lower house representation in single member electoral systems may be a bridge too far. (Adam Bandt will have a mighty fight on his hands in Melbourne, Tanya Plibersek and Anthony Albanese can sleep more soundly.)
Liberals drink lattes too. In Sydney, as in Brisbane, demographic change and changes to land use have made the Tories competitive in the inner city.
The Greens need to either make a strategic decision to try to increase their vote in the suburbs and the regions with an eye on upper house seats, and/or to figure out how to take their core vote beyond 45% in the inner city. The proposition that there are no guaranteed heartlands for Labor (and for the LNP) in the city applies to them too.
Elsewhere: Trevor Cook.