The State Labor Party’s election campaign is heavily influenced by Prime Minister John Howard’s campaigning style. Joe Poprzeczny assesses Labor's decision to imitate the Liberal Party’s second most successful national leader in its bid to get Geoff Gallop across the line.
Labor’s media advisers are gambling that Geoff Gallop’s smile will mean he’s perceived at public functions and on television as far more appealing to Western Australia’s 1.3 million voters than the Liberals’ dour Colin Barnett.
To ensure voters notice the difference, journalists were reminded of Mr Barnett’s difficulty in looking joyful by Dr Gallop who publicly refers to him as ‘Mr Grumpy’.
Labor strategists became fully convinced of the value of the Smiley-Grumpy dichotomy during the Federal election campaign, during which we saw a composed John Howard convincingly defeat Mark Latham, who invariably appeared serious, surly and dour.
Mr Howard was, at times, appropriately solemn but at others quite relaxed, happy, and some-times even laughed, invariably conveying an impression of being at ease with himself and with his colleagues.
With the same stark difference noted between WA’s two major party leaders, Dr Gallop’s advisers have naturally sought to turn this to Labor’s advantage.
Once this ploy was fully discussed Dr Gallop did as instructed by going on the attack and publicly dubbing the Opposition leader as ‘Mr Grumpy’ – after one of Snow White’s seven dwarfs – to draw attention to Mr Barnett’s demeanour, not his height.
To further drive the point home, Dr Gallop nicknamed the far-from-united Barnett-led parliamentary Liberals as “the ship of misery”.
Labor advisers have further broadened their copying of last year’s victorious Howard campaign by opting for a longer-than-necessary State campaign.
Mr Howard’s lasted six weeks.
Dr Gallop’s will be five weeks, rather than the traditional four.
The reason the Federal Liberals decided on a longer campaign was because Mr Howard and his advisers were counting on the sometimes short-wicked Mr Latham having at least one major public tantrum or outburst.
WA Labor is hoping for the same from Mr Barnett.
It’s worth recalling that Mr Barnett blew-up during a televised 2001 campaign debate with Education Minister Alan Carpenter by foolishly lashing out with a roll of paper.
And there are other generally unnoticed Labor borrowings.
Dr Gallop’s wife, Bev, has been brought into the campaign, or at least its opening stages, to play a role similar to Jeanette Howard’s in the Federal campaign, that is, to be seen just a little.
Some even claim both spouses could easily be mistaken for sisters.
WA Labor is closely emulating last October’s Howard tactics because they proved to be so successful, especially across electorates in WA, where the statewide Labor primary vote sank to just one in three electors.
Also worth recalling is the fact that Dr Gallop’s close pal, new and second-time-around Federal Labor leader Kim Beazley, in his 1998 bid to become prime minister, copied Mr Howard’s 1996 small target strategy, suggesting Mr Beazley may well be the inspiration behind WA Labor’s current policy.
Another reason is that, in both October’s Federal campaign and the current campaign in WA, the incumbent leader trailed the opposition challenger. (The Howard-led Coalition was well behind Latham-led Labor for months before the October 9 poll, and Gallop-led Labor has been trailing the Barnett-led Coalition for the past few months.)
Although all this copying may appear to be a superficial element it’s far from insignificant, since impressions leaders and candidates leave in electors’ minds are crucial in determining how swinging voters may mark ballots.
Labor’s only bright polling spot is that Dr Gallop is well ahead of Mr Barnett in the preferred premier stakes.
Labor’s tacticians – from the party’s master strategist Jim McGinty down – believe that perception of the contrasting Gallop-Barnett demeanours could well be the crucial factor on February 26.
But Labor’s advisers, all of whom are realists, expect the election’s outcome will be close, extremely close, if for no other reason than the polls since late last year have shown Labor attracting only about 35 per cent of voters.
That’s less than the 37 per cent Gallop-led Labor won power with in February 2001.
Labor is therefore left hoping Dr Gallop can bring home the bacon somewhat like former Premier Peter Dowding did in 1989, when he still managed to retain power despite attracting well below half the statewide votes.
In that contest Mr Dowding retained power because he just managed to hold half a dozen marginal seats.
The Barnett-led Liberals, on the other hand, are looking towards repeating Sir Charles Court’s 1974 winning election outcome when he toppled John Tonkin-led Labor, which served for just one term.
In that contest Sir Charles won four key non-metropolitan seats that made the difference.
The big question for Labor’s advisers and MPs is, therefore, will election 2005 be a re-run of election 1989 or election 1974?
To help ensure it’s like 1989, party planners are staking a lot on contrasting the demeanours of Dr Gallop and Mr Barnett.
Labor’s campaign slogan – Building a better future for Western Australia – is seen as complementing Dr Gallop’s central role in the campaign by additionally appealing to patriotism and pride in the State.
The Liberals’ slogan – Decisions, not delays – seeks to portray Labor’s major electoral asset, Dr Gallop, as a ditherer who’s been unable to guarantee that a range of essential services will be effectively administered.
The aim is to thoroughly discredit the Gallop Government because Liberal polling shows widespread doubt and disenchantment with Labor due to the threat to a reliable electricity supply, something Western Australians haven’t experienced since the 1950s, mass prisoner escapes, and failure to implement health reforms.
Overlaying these drawbacks, Labor is seen as a high-taxing government, something Dr Gallop has unconvincingly defended by blaming the previous Court-Barnett-led Liberals, despite promising not to boost taxes.
“We had no choice but to increase taxes,” Dr Gallop told a pre-election lunch.
“Was it regrettable? Absolutely.”
With three weeks of the campaign still to go, only time will tell if the Liberals can capitalise on Dr Gallop’s obstinate attitude towards boosting taxes in three of his four budgets and thereby making Labor’s reliance on his smile electorally irrelevant.
