Sarah Stephen
In the days following the re-election of the Coalition government, the corporate press crowed about Howard's fresh mandate for reform. The October 11 Australian Financial Review editorial argued that PM John Howard "now has a thumping mandate [to] launch a fresh wave of bold reforms to entrench Australia's long-term prosperity".
After the election the AFR presented a wish-list that included further attacks on unions, the deregulation of media ownership, the full sale of Telstra and the elimination of unfair dismissal laws. Share prices for Telstra and media companies soared, pushing the stock market to a record high.
"It's a very strong, a very emphatic mandate", a more cautious Howard told a press conference on October 11. "We are very keen to get on with the job of implementing as many as we can of the policies that we took to the public." He added: "I can't rule out the fact, the possibility of us branching into new areas, but they would be new areas that are consistent with our philosophy".
The AFR's front-page story on October 11, titled "A mandate not to be wasted", argued that the government's likely control of both houses of parliament "has profound implications for [Howard's] mandate and his agenda, which he is free to define on his own terms given the lack of any substantive plan set out in the election campaign". So on the front page we have Howard's "mandate not to be wasted", while on the back page the AFR headline declared that the "PM must unveil his agenda"!
Howard's mandate is only based on the issues he raised in the election campaign, of which there were few. You could argue that his only convincing mandate is to keep interest rates low (and he doesn't even have direct control over interest rates — the Reserve Bank does!).
Howard did not raise the issues of Telstra, anti-union laws or media ownership during his election campaign. Nor did he campaign on the issues of refugees or Australia's involvement in the war on Iraq. This was an election campaign largely based on throwing buckets of money at people and generating fear over interest rates among a population up to their necks in debt and crippling mortgages.
Howard knows he doesn't have broad popular support for many of the reforms (read: attacks) that he is planning. A Newspoll conducted on December 12-16, 2003, indicated only 19% of Australians support for the full sale of Telstra. In the same survey, 54% supported the release of mothers and children from immigration detention, and 74% supported the UN taking over "responsibility for maintaining peace in Iraq".
Howard's re-election was based on a swing of only 2%. The government won a 24-seat majority in the House of Representatives with only 46.7% of the primary vote. And the election campaign was based on fear. Many people were terrorised into voting for the Coalition because of their extreme vulnerability to interest-rate rises.
Philip Adams, writing in the October 12 Australian, pointed out that "If you run an election as an auction, as an accountancy exercise, with both leaders throwing money at the electorate, the electorate is unlikely to be inspired. And they weren't. If it came down to buckets of money, then they'll take the biggest bucket, thank you very much."
Howard won this election because ALP leader Mark Latham could not convince enough people that he stood for something different.
We are in for a raft of new attacks. Control of both houses of parliament for the first time in 23 years means the Coalition can pass much of the legislation that has so far been blocked by the Senate, and pass any new legislation it chooses to. Mounting a strong opposition to Howard's fourth-term agenda will have to happen outside parliament. The axis of struggle has to shift to the streets. We need to make our opposition felt through better organised and more determined protest movements.
From Green Left Weekly, October 20, 2004.
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