Labor shows the way on leadership

HAVING the right party leader is seen as crucial in election campaigns.

From State Scene's perspective, however, that's never been an overriding consideration.

Party policies, campaign manifestos and the composition of cabinets and shadow cabinets are far more important in assessing who gets my vote.

But it seems most Australians take the issue of political leadership extremely seriously.

There are no two ways about that.

All sides, of course, have diehard backers, those who'll vote only for them, irrespective of who is leader.

Party machine workers call such dogged loyalists 'rusted-on' backers.

Certainly from at least the mid-1950s we've seen: Robert Menzies being preferred over Bert Evatt and Arthur Calwell; Gough Whitlam over William McMahon and Billy Snedden; Bob Hawke over Malcolm Fraser, Andrew Peacock and John Howard; and the latter may have been preferred over Kim Beazley, although that's debatable, but he certainly was over Mark Latham.

The leadership issue surfaced during the recent week-long Ute-gate imbroglio because once it was established Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull had built that case upon a phony email, Labor promptly launched an all-out attack upon his worthiness to ever become prime minister.

The aim was, as stated by all commentators, to discredit him so thoroughly and comprehensively that most Australians would never countenance voting for the Turnbull-led Liberals.

Well and good, since, as said in salubrious circles, all's fair in love and war, as well as in politics.

The blackening of an opposing party's leader and the conscious enhancing of one's own position, via costly spin and a range of celebrity ploys, is integral to Australian political life.

Carefully choreographed meetings with international leaders, extravaganzas like 2020 summits, being photographed with film stars and sporting identities, and the like, now take up several valuable hours each week in the life of any leader.

Placing such emphasis on glitz and razzamatazz (and both sides do it) is, of course, a retrograde step since it takes the focus off policies and programs. It means celebrity politics has largely replaced close voter assessment of party programs.

The last thing party bosses want is for electors to focus primarily upon their increasingly vacuous platforms, worded vaguely so that when their side wins government virtually anything can be done; what's left undone can be dubbed as non-core promises.

Parties prefer voters to focus on image-embellished leaders, especially if they are polling well.

So fixated have party bureaucrats become with leadership perceptions and image building that a growing mini service industry has grown up around this consideration.

We now have published monthly polls, ongoing polling; snap polls, which involve intense interviewing of focus groups composed of randomly selected voters; and regular jawboning sessions between party boffins and leaders on what should or shouldn't be said and precisely how it should be expressed.

Moreover, if leaders ignore such expensively acquired information and resultant calculated advice, then they'll find hints being dropped that they may be removed.

Remember the bitterness after the 1996 election that Paul Keating lost to John Howard?

Since then, Mr Keating has found it difficult to resist the temptation to publicly snipe at Gary Gray, Labor's then national secretary and now member for the WA seat of Brand.

It's quite evident that Mr Gray advised headstrong Mr Keating, who so often specialised in publicly insulting opponents, to mellow, something the latter either disliked being told or doggedly disagreed with.

However, Labor eventually paid the price - 11 years in the wilderness during which there were several leadership changes before Mr Rudd finally toppled Mr Beazley.

History has shown that Mr Gray was the wiser one in his obviously torrid encounters with Mr Keating.

A similar situation arose for Labor in Western Australian politics in the late 1980s when it was led by Peter Dowding - Smooth Pierre, one newspaper nicknamed him.

Not widely known is that Mr Dowding became premier because his predecessor, Brian Burke, secretly commissioned a poll to determine which successor was most likely to win the next election.

The results of that polling pointed to Mr Dowding. Others considered in the focus groups and other polling undertaken were Julian Grill, David Parker and Bob Pearce.

Although Mr Dowding was to therefore lead Labor to a victory at the 1989 election - confirming Mr Burke's commissioned poll results - things quickly began falling apart for the Dowding government.

From what we've since learned of those torrid days Labor went into a steep nosedive over what's called WA Inc, during which time then party secretary and now foreign minister, Stephen Smith, apparently grasped the bison by the horns.

Here's how Burke and Dowding Government minister, Jeff Carr, described the situation in his recently published autobiography, I Do Recall: Reflects on a Social and Political Journey.

At page 500 Mr Carr reveals that Dowding-led Labor quickly began feeling the heat over the costly and intricate WA Inc deals.

"A particular element of the tension was that relations between Peter and state secretary, Stephen Smith, had become increasingly strained," Mr Carr writes.

"Stephen was a Machiavellian character, who saw opinion polls as being the guiding light for policies that the government should pursue.

"Peter on the other hand had his own vision for the state based on developing economic strength and then using that strength to assist those needing assistance."

Pertinent here is that WA Labor was polling voters and its data showed certain resultant assessments weren't being fully heeded by Mr Dowding.

The outcome was that Mr Dowding was promptly dumped as leader and premier in a cabinet coup d'etat while he was overseas, although the groundwork had been secretly laid well before his departure.

Interestingly, Mr Dowding learned of this, and eyeballed the clandestine plotters.

"He challenged all cabinet ministers one by one at a cabinet meeting prior to his departure to state whether they knew anything about any plans to challenge his leadership," Mr Carr continued.

"Every other minister stated that he or she had no knowledge whatsoever of any challenge. I explained that I had overheard some discussion of a possible challenge in the middle of the coming year ... "

Are there lessons in the dogged stances taken by Messrs Keating and Dowding? Most certainly.

Firstly, as far as the Liberals are concerned, the answer is that they've ignored the lessons from both these Labor leadership affairs.

The evidence for this is found in the fact that Mr Howard wouldn't leave the prime ministership voluntarily.

He literally had to be pried out of the top job.

And even when he announced he'd be retiring, on the eve of the 2007 election mind you, he indicated he wouldn't be going until well after that contest, if the Liberals won.

Furthermore, it was only at the very last minute, as the clock struck midnight that WA Liberal leader, Troy Buswell, fell on his sword so Colin Barnett could step in to narrowly win last year's state election.

Clearly, Mr Turnbull prefers the Howard mould.

Labor, on the other hand, had definitely learned from the Keating-Dowding ordeals.

Is it coincidence that, since 2005, four Labor premiers - Bob Carr in NSW; Steve Bracks in Victoria; Peter Beattie in Queensland; and Paul Lennon in Tasmania - have, unlike Mr Howard, quietly moved on?

Say what you like of Labor, including that it's been slow in dumping unpopular planks.

But when it does change it doggedly acts upon lessons learned.

Labor has probably made more bungles than the Liberals over the past 30 or so years. But appreciating and heeding polls when considering the leadership issue definitely isn't one of them.