Narrativewatch: Paul Keating's "higher calling"

The former Australian prime minister, Paul Keating, recently gave a must-read newspaper interview.  There were many interesting insights, but the media picked up on his observation that Australia’s current Labor government lacks a narrative.

"The failure of the Rudd and Gillard administrations is the lack of an over-arching story, the lack of a compelling story . . .

"I'm happy that Labor took us through this dreadful financial crisis so competently. But they are not in the business of teaching. And governments, to succeed with change, must be in the business of educating the community.

"Our Labor governments have failed to conceptualise the changes. We need a framework . . . “

He went on:

"I think the Australian people are very conscientious. During the 1980s and 1990s we proved they will respond conscientiously to necessary reforms. They mightn't like them but they'll accept them. But reforms have to be presented in a digestible format.

"I know that in the age of the internet, opinion and perpetual static it is difficult to get the message over. I accept that. But the big messages have their own momentum. If we get the story of transition right then other things will find their place."

I agree with Keating on where the Gillard government is going wrong.  But I was more interested in his take on the most basic argument about the essence of political communications.  More than that, he discussed the purpose of leadership in democratic societies. 

Should leaders act in accordance with their core values and try to shift public attitudes, in support of big changes and hard choices?  Or should they follow the basic contours of public opinion and avoid unpopular and difficult decisions?  Leaders taking the latter course may give themselves a better chance of staying in power and, just possibly, strengthening their ability to “do the right thing” in the longer term.

Keating’s answer was as romantic as it was unambiguous:

"You need a higher calling or some inner system of belief - here I mention Kant and the inner command that tells you what is true, what is right, what is good. The inner command must be the divining construct in what you do.”

And:

“In the end, everyone in political life gets carried out - the only relevant question is whether the pallbearers will be crying."

I am a long time admirer of Paul Keating and the verve with which he approaches politics.   I agree with him that politics should be about big ideas and grand visions, rather than simply following fads and focus groups.  Political leaders should have core beliefs, deep passions and big agendas. 

But what Keating calls the “higher calling” or, in other times, the “big picture”, is not necessarily the same thing as the “narrative”.  I see the “narrative” as the means by which leaders market themselves and seek electoral popularity.  Having gained power, democratic leaders use narratives in order to persuade people to follow them in a particular direction; more likely, to accept change.

Both types of narrative must be a story, with people, events and something unanticipated.  They must also evoke an emotional reaction in their audiences.

In his seminal book Leading Minds, Howard Gardner studied a number of successful leaders from a range of fields. He concluded: 

“A leader must have a central story or message.  The story is more likely to be effective in a large and heterogenous group if it can speak directly to the untutored mind – the mind that develops naturally in the early lives of children with the need for formal tutelage.  Stories ought to address the sense of individual and group identity, the “we” and the “they” thought that sense may actually be expanded or restricted by the story.  They should not only provide background, but should help group members to frame future options.”  (1)

Later, he observed:

“Leaders benefit from the ability to build on stories that are already known – for example, those drawn from religion or history or those that have already been circulated within an institution – and to synthesise them in new ways, as Martin Luther King Jr was able to do.” (2)

Gardner also argued that there would be tensions between inclusionary and exclusionary stories.  He stressed that leaders must embody their narratives to maximise the chances of success.  Recall, for instance, Churchill’s refusal to leave London during World War II.

I have argued previously that, whist all politicians and parties have narratives, they can exercise only limited control over them, a point that Keating acknowledges, above.  Moreover, politicians are most successful when they speak to the stories that are in the minds  of their target electorates – the public’s core values, Gardner’s “stories that are already known” – as well as their current anxieties and concerns about the future.  [For some examples, click here and here.]

At the same time, a successful narrative must be based firmly on a clear, coherent set of ideas. Michael Deaver once said that one of the biggest lessons he learned from working with Ronald Reagan was that:

“You've got to know who you are before you can communicate it.”

Keating’s political career, with its spectacular highs and lows, demonstrated all of these points.   He never wanted for visions and higher callings and, with Bob Hawke, sold difficult economic changes to the Australian public by levelling with people, getting out and selling their policies and, yes, telling stories.

Hawke was an effective prime minister who projected himself as a national leader, an embodiment of Australianness.  But Keating was the master of personal persuasion, using anecdotes and easy-to-understand illustrations, to show people the merits of policy changes.

In 1992, Keating, now prime minister, developed the theme of Australian national identity with his landmark Redfern Park speech on Aboriginal reconciliation.  The following year, he delivered his moving eulogy for the unknown Australian soldier.

Through all those years, he showed how “romantic” political narratives and those more concerned with political marketing can work in tandem, and how they work against and supersede one another.

And, lest we forget, Keating’s government was decisively defeated in 1996.  He had been around too long, and seemed out of touch and remote from public concerns.  The Australian electorate lost interest in his “big picture” and Keating’s narrative was no longer theirs. 

Still, I’d prefer that kind of finish to a leadership with no vision at all.

(1)    Howard Gardner, Leading Minds (Harper Collins, 1995) p 290
(2)   p.291

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Abbott vs Blanchett: Australia's battle of climate frames

There’s a new front in Australia’s climate wars – the battle of the frames.

Actress Cate Blanchett has appeared in a TV advert to urge her fellow Australians to back the Gillard government’s proposed carbon tax.

But Tony Abbott, leader of the Liberal Party (that’s conservative in Australia) weighed in with this comment:

"People who are worth $53m have a right to be heard – but their voice should not be heard ahead of the ordinary working people of this country."

And this:

"You do not give special weight to celebrities . . .

''You do not give special weight to people who live half the year in Hollywood where there is no carbon tax.”

Abbott was using the “people vs. the elites” frame that has worked powerfully in the US. He set out to cast Cate Blanchett as a symbol of wealthy left-liberal elites who say they want action on climate change but are out of touch with the day-to-day concerns of “ordinary people”. It all comes down, once again, to “who pays?”.

Cate Blanchett has come back with a double-frame of her own – “fighting pollution” and “protecting children”.

'Everyone will benefit if we protect the environment. There is a societal cost of increased pollution and that's what I'm passionate about as a mother. That's where it gets me in the gut,'' she said. ''I can't look my children in the face if I'm not trying to do something in my small way and to urge other people.''

The fact that Cate Blanchett is a mother of three adds an authenticity to her statements. In speaking out, she embodies her narrative.

But the real impact of the row may be to shift attention away from the advert’s message and on to personalities. So Cate Blanchett has tried to frame the argument around protecting the environment.

And she made an interesting aside:

''I understand that if you use the word tax, people are rightly and understandably concerned about their standards of living.”

The UK’s coalition government is bringing in a carbon tax too. They and climate hawks in this country should be relieved that the tax is officially called a “floor price for carbon” and will work within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The frame may blunt some of the attacks that are surely coming.

Footnote: Check out this new article from The Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly about the updated 2011 Garnaut report on climate change. Kelly says:

Garnaut repudiates every basis on which Tony Abbott relies for his campaign against the expected multi-party compromise to put Australia on the historic path to a carbon price.

And:

Garnaut's conclusion is unmistakable – [Prime Minister Julia] Gillard is advancing the national interest while Abbott is reviving a regressive past of sectional interests.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

What Australian state elections tell the UK about the alternative vote

The real strength of Alternative Vote over first past the post is in individual constituencies, especially in contests where the leading candidate falls well short of a majority. AV won’t change the face of national politics. But in some constituencies it will ensure the election of representatives who can lay greater claim to representing the majority view within the local electorate.

via blogs.lse.ac.uk

I am appalled at the amount of misleading material coming out of the NO2AV campaign. But some "yes" campaigners are guilty of over-simplifying the issues. One example: the promise that there would no safe seats under AV.

In this post, Antony Green, the ABC's highly respected elections expert, comments on the experiences of NSW and Queensland. Those two states are very relevant, because they use the form of AV that the UK will vote on next month.

Green concludes that AV would not change the face of UK politics, but that it would have an impact in three- and four-cornered contests, and in constituencies where candidates would be elected under FPTP without the support of a majority of electors.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Julia Gillard's narrative failure reveals harsh political realities

Today, Australia’s Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, faces two possible futures. One is awful beyond belief. If the final counts in a couple of seats don’t go Labor’s way, and if Gillard fails to gather the assured support of enough Green and Independent MPs, her political career ends in disaster. The other is a prolonged nightmare. Gillard stays on as prime minister but with her government unstable and unsure, its legitimacy called into doubt.

In June, just after she rolled Kevin Rudd and became prime minister, I wrote that Gillard would need to tell and embody a story that enabled Australian voters to develop (or to confirm) a sense of who they are; and that let them reframe their thoughts and plans for the future.

There was strong evidence that she could pull it off. Julia Gillard started out with a good, strong brand, based on her undoubted competence and gift for plain speaking.

But Gillard’s credibility suffered when she stumbled over the issues of asylum-seekers and deadlines for cutting emissions. Then, she was sandbagged by a series of damaging leaks from within her own party that depicted her as callous towards pensioners and young families. After these disasters, and the fall-out over the ousting of Rudd, there were signs that the brand of the tough, smart and likeable leader was being eclipsed by a new one: Gillard the hard-bitten political opportunist.

All politicians have a narrative, but none get to write it. That brutal reality was rammed home when Gillard’s campaign became overshadowed by a few dramas that reminded voters what they didn’t like about Labor. A lot of media attention was paid to Kevin Rudd, who eventually agreed to campaign for Labor. Soon after, another ex-leader, Mark Latham, ambushed Gillard in a media scrum, challenging her about the way Labor had treated him in the past and over claims that Rudd was behind the leaks. Later, Latham urged Australian voters, who are required by law to turn up to the polling booth on election day, to spoil their ballot papers.

All this was outside Gillard’s control. Yet the Labor campaign may also have played up her political weak points. When she assumed the leadership, the BBC’s Nick Bryant argued that Gillard’s brand was based around what he called her “Bungalow politics”, which identify the PM with “mainstream” Australia.

By the end of July, commentators were slamming her over-controlled appearances, excessive use of marketing-speak and robotic presentation. With her campaign failing to fire, Gillard promised that voters would see the “real Julia”. Yet by polling day, the “real Julia” remained elusive. This was an important failure. In The Political Brain, Drew Westen shows how voters’ feelings about candidates -- or, in Australia, party leaders -- are more important than their assessment of policy positions in deciding how they will vote.

Today, The Australian’s Kate Legge observed that:

Labor's campaign accentuated [Gillard’s] solitariness in contrast to an opponent who wears several hats as father, husband, community volunteer. These roles helped flesh out a sense of Abbott.

Gillard's candour about her atheism, her de facto relationship and personal choices that put children out of her reach was refreshing, but we didn't see enough of the depth beneath her political skin.

. . . In the hundreds of campaign events and picture opportunities that both parties plot assiduously, Gillard's army of one did not allow her extracurricular personality to break through.

Gillard was well placed to live the "Australian dream". Nick Bryant also wrote in July that the new PM could embody the myth – the narrative -- of the “the Australian everyman” [sic].

From her pride at her immigrant "Ten Pound Pom" roots to her Western Bulldogs scarf, from her red-brick suburban bungalow to her Akubra hat, Julia Gillard is presenting a quintessentially Australian story - and therein lies much of her appeal.

Launching Labor’s campaign, Gillard stressed her values: hard work, "earning your keep” and the transformative power of education.

Of course I learnt these values in my family home, I learnt them from my parents. . .

When my parents migrated to this country they didn’t come asking for a free ride, they came seeking a fair go, and they found it.

She then told a brief story about how both her parents had always worked hard.

All good stuff. Yet it was tied to a policy programme that was cautious and a vision that was hazy. Gillard stressed Labor’s fiscal credibility and plans for a nationwide broadband network, as well as education and health. In the end, her promises added up to a continuation of the Rudd programme.

Such an incremental narrative can for do it a popular government, in benign times. It can also work when a new leader has taken over from a popular leader whose vision was well established. Bush I’s 1988 victory after eight years of Reagan is a good example. None of these conditions applied and so Australian voters’ minds turned back to the government’s record and judged Labor accordingly. But then Gillard was Rudd’s deputy and a key member of his government, meaning that she had little choice but to tread carefully in presenting her own story.

The lack of choice that leaders have over the stories they can tell voters may be the real lesson from Julia Gillard’s grim experience.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

What does Australia's election mean for the UK debate on AV?

Green discusses the political deadlock

ABC election analyst Antony Green discusses the federal election outcome where neither the Coalition or ALP holds a majority in parliament.
Contains: video, image,

via abc.net.au

The question is relevant because Australia uses the alternative vote (AV) for the House of Representatives.

The answer is that we can't say - at least, not yet. Here, the ABC's Antony Green explains that the result of the Australian federal election -- which he describes as the closest in the country's history -- may not be clear for at least another week. And he believes that which party governs, albeit with the aid of Independents and in Labor's case, the Greens, will come down to just one seat: Hasluck, in Western Australia.

Labour voters surely hold the key to the UK's AV referendum. They should note that with 78% of the votes counted, the conservative coalition has won just under 44% of the primary vote, to Labor's 38%. So, had Australia used the first-past-the-post voting system, Tony Abbott would be prime minister. And Labor may not have won in 2007 either. The point will not have escaped British Conservatives.

Labor may now be in a strong enough position to stay in office because of AV. Green and minor party voters are much more iikely to give Labor their second and third preference votes. Under AV, in seats where no candidate wins 50% or more of the vote, every vote can count and the two-party preferred vote is what really matters.

And Julia Gillard has staked her moral claim to The Lodge on the assertion that Labor has won the nationwide two party preferred vote. But, as Antony Green points out, the election is so close that we won't know who has picked up that prize for some days yet.

Now, try this: what if Labor loses the two-party preferred vote but ends up with more MPs than the coalition; then Gillard manages to secure the support of enough independents to hang on? Perhaps pro-AV campaigners will not want to dwell too much on Australia's example.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Sorting the good arguments for AV from the bad

If the government has its way, on 5 May 2011 there will be a referendum on bringing in the alternative vote (AV) system for electing MPs. With the campaign not far off, and the opinion polls suggesting that there’s everything to play for, it’s time to start thinking more carefully about what arguments, stories and frames will work – and which ones will not.

Both sides will surely look to Australia, which uses AV to elect the House of Representatives and the equivalents house in every state except Tasmania, to back up their cases. We should expect to hear plenty of springboard stories from Australia.

Australia is, after all, an English-speaking democracy whose system of government is based on the Westminster model. No, AV would turn not UK politics into an bigger, old world replica of Australia's. But we can learn a lot from that country about which pro-AV arguments stack up and which will crash and burn.

A House of Commons that looks more like Britain?

A recent Lib Dem event posed the question: “this parliament does not represent us – time for the alternative vote?”

There’s no certainty that AV would produce a House of Commons that was more representative of Britain’s population. Take the issue of gender balance. Australia has used AV in every national election since 1919 and the dearth of women in the country’s political life was much commented upon, for many years.

The last Australian federal election, in 2007, delivered a House of Reps in which just 27% of members were women. This compares to 22% of British MPs today. Such gains that have been made in the representation of Australian women have had nothing to do with the voting system; rather, they can be explained by looking at how the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has used affirmative action programmes [click here]. The (centre-right) Liberal Party has rejected any sort of quota system, preferring to use a Liberal Women's Forum to lobby for more women candidates and to train and help potential candidates through the selection process. But it in the outgoing parliament, the party lagged well behind Labor for having women MPs, much to the obvious chagrin of some Liberal women.

No more safe seats?

Another suggested line of attack is that the current voting system lets too many MPs to stay in safe seats, breeding complacency and arrogance in our politics – one source of the expenses scandals.

The usual definition of a safe seat is that a two-party swing of 10% of more is required to change hands. According to the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), 44% of seats in the UK House of Commons currently fall into this category, compared to 35% of seats in the Australian House of Reps. This is a bit of a crude measure but it suggests that Australian MPs may face more competitive electoral contests than their UK counterparts.

Yet the evidence that AV would end the safe seat syndrome is hardly overwhelming. 32% of seats in the Australian House are “fairly safe” – that is, they need swings of between 5% and 10% to change hands. That figure is rather higher than the 26% of Commons seats that can be classed as “fairly safe”.

As for marginal seats – constituencies that are vulnerable to swing of 5% or less – the two parliaments are close to level pegging. 33% of Australian House seats are marginal, compared to 31% of seats in the Commons.

So, the ERS may be on safer, if less exciting ground, with its description of how AV would be better than first past the post.

One problem of the current system is that MPs are often elected with the support of only a minority of people voting in their constituencies. In the 2005 election, 220 MPs had majority support but 426 did not. This means that most MPs cannot claim to speak for the majority of their constituents, and sometimes the voters of a constituency end up with an MP most of them do not support or like. Under AV, each MP will have had to reach 50 per cent of the vote in order to represent their constituents in parliament, making them more accountable and representative.

The other problem of the current system that AV would solve is that people often have to decide whether to vote for what they really believe, or to cast a vote that will help decide who represents the seat in Parliament (‘tactical voting) . . . .

Or, in the elegant words of Roy Jenkins:

[AV] would increase voter choice in the sense that it would enable voters to express their second and sometimes third or fourth preferences, and thus free them from a bifurcating choice between realistic and ideological commitment or, as it sometimes is called, voting tactically.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Please note: You can find a new and updated version of this post, here.

AV in action: Labor and the Greens cut a deal on transfers

Next May, the UK is due to vote on whether to elect MPs by using the alternative vote (AV) instead of first past the post.

We have some signposts available, to show how AV might work here. Australia’s constitution is based on the Westminster model. But the Aussies have used AV (or, as they call it, preferential voting) to elect their House of Representatives – the equivalent of the House of Commons – at every national election since 1919.

Australia is to go to the polls for a federal election on 21 August. Today, the Australian Greens have said they have chosen to direct preferences (or “transfers” as Brits might say) to the Labor Party ahead of the conservative coalition in an unspecified number of House seats. The arrangement will apply in all but a handful of constituencies, where Greens branches will exercise their right to choose otherwise. In return, the Labor Party will direct its preferences for the Senate, which is elected by STV, to the Greens ahead of all other political parties in all states and territories.

The preferences swap could make a big difference next month. Current polls indicate that the election will be very tight and, with the Greens on around 13 per cent of the primary vote, the governing Labor party may need their preferences to stay in office. The deal will surely help Labor to retain many of their key marginal seats.

Labor and the Greens have been somewhere like this before. In 1990, Bob Hawke’s Labor government seemed headed for defeat and the opinion polls showed a slide of public support towards the Australian Democrats and Greens, due to a combination of protest votes and a new concern with environmental issues. Hawke’s environment minister, Graham Richardson, developed an impressive programme of conservation policies and assiduously courted the “green vote”. In the end, the Democrats and Greens combined won 17 per cent of the primary vote. But two thirds of their preferences went to Labor, who narrowly won the election, despite winning less than 40 per cent of first preference votes.

Deals or no deals, Green voters’ preferences have flowed to Labor in recent national elections by ratios of more than 3:1 in 1998 and 2001 and 4:1 in 2004 and 2007. The latter contest saw Labor restored to power and the generous allocation of Green preferences inflated their majority in the House.

The ABC’s Antony Green, the indispensable guru of Aussie elections, has found that for House seats, the main drivers of Green voters’ preferences to Labor have been the size of the primary percentage vote for the Greens, whether the party decides to direct preferences in particular seats and the presence of a donkey vote.

Green says that the real importance of today's deal concerns the election for the Senate, where either party may be able to gain seats at the expense of the Coalition.

It has to be stressed that this deal won't be responsible for delivering the balance of power [in the Senate] to the Greens. . . . The purpose of the deal is to weaken the Coalition’s position beyond what would naturally occur if the Labor government is re-elected.

The UK does not have an elected upper house (at least, not yet). But the developments in Australia raise some important questions about how the parties would behave under AV. A few months ago, I would have suggested that most Liberal Democrat voters would usually give their second preferences to Labour candidates, and vice versa. With the advent of the Cameron-Clegg coalition, that’s not nearly so clear. Still, we can’t be certain that either of the coalition partners would try to direct their supporters as to how to channel their preferences. Deals or directions might cramp their style for post-election coalition talks, alienate potential voters or cause internal party ructions. As Senate-based parties, Australia’s Democrats and Greens have never had to face those sorts of dilemmas.

Perhaps the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats -- and Labour -- would leave it up to local, state or regional parties to decide whether and how to direct preferences. But that could create other problems for party strategy and branding (“Lib Dems say one thing in Tory seats, another in Labour areas” . . .). The other option is to leave it up to individual voters to decide and hope they follow the subtle clues and dogwhistles.

We may hear claims, based on the Australian experience, that AV could skew future governments’ policies towards “minority” concerns, as the larger parties worked up special policy planks in order to woo third and fourth party supporters. But the way Labor played green issues in the Australian election of 1990 seems to have been a one-off. The reality is that AV seems always to pull Australia’s main parties towards the middle ground of politics.

One thing is for sure: whatever voting system is used, politicians will be politicians. I make no claim to be an expert on the Australian Greens and have no axe to grind with their leader, Senator Bob Brown. But Liberal Democrats in the UK will either laugh or marvel at the way he has distanced himself from today’s deal with Labor. [Click here and here] Here are a few quotes:

I've got enough to do without sitting at tables discussing preferences.

I'm saying to people, vote one Green and put your preferences where you want to.

I don't like backroom preference negotiations with other parties. In fact, I'm sick of it.

There’s one lesson from Australia: cross party deals that are about votes always look messy. So you have to keep your brand as clean as possible.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

Finding the key to Julia Gillard's political narrative

Last week, the Australian Labor Party installed Julia Gillard as prime minister in the hope that she can win this year’s election. “Reconnect with the voters” is the operative phrase.

Now the hard questions are coming. Can she win? What does Julia Gillard stand for? As night follows day, the n-word – narrative – is starting to appear in the Australian media.

Michelle Grattan, veteran political correspondent for The Age, says that Gillard needs a narrative.

As she grapples with the three issues the government must neutralise - mining tax, asylum seekers and climate change - Julia Gillard has a broader challenge. She needs to fit her solutions into a story that defines, rather than confuses, her political identity.

Kevin Rudd's popularity plunged when people became unsure about what he stood for. But now Gillard's own narrative is becoming rather hard to follow.

Julia Gillard’s challenge is both easier and harder than it looks. She already has a brand, a personal narrative. “The Gillard narrative so far is one of a fresh face with talent in spades: the first female prime-minister-in-waiting,” political commentator Per Van Onselen wrote last week, just before Labor switched leaders. Gillard projects authority with personality, says The Australian’s Paul Kelly. Sid Astbury has called her “famously calm, never impetuous and never flustered . . . Labor's best parliamentary performer”. My friend Karin Sowada (who was a Democrats senator in the early 1990s) wrote last week that:

Julia Gillard is a formidable opponent – tough, smart, a clear communicator with a measured political judgement and manner of personal presentation which is confident and reassuring. The public quite like her and she reflects a common touch in her voice and manner.

So far, however, the well-chronicled story has been all about Julia Gillard and not about the Australian people, where they’ve been and where she wants to take them. Margaret Thatcher stayed in power for so long because she was a brilliant teller of a story that was both easy to understand and resonated with the emotions and the deepest-held, shared values of most British people.

If Julia Gillard wants to “reconnect” the Labor government with Australian voters, she too will need to tell a story that enables them to develop (or to confirm) a sense of who they are; and that enables people to reframe their thoughts and plans for the future.

Margaret Thatcher’s story was successful because she embodied her narrative. She came from the very ‘little England’ she so revered. The grocer’s daughter from Grantham worked all hours. Her language and rhetoric often reflected Thatcher’s ‘black-and-white’, ‘us-and-them’ way of seeing the world. So Gillard’s brand will be important too.

Some people may be uncomfortable with the Thatcher lesson but it wasn’t a one-off. The Hawke and Keating governments successfully deployed a narrative that was originally about the need national unity and reconciliation, in the face of a grave social and economic crisis. Over time, they told a story of transformation and renewal, based on giving Australia a strong and modern economy, so that it could face a tough, changing world. The first story became a bridge to the second. Bob Hawke embodied the narrative with his record as a solver of industrial disputes in his 1970s; his history as a folk hero and his very “Australianness” put him above party. As treasurer and prime minister, Keating was strong and determined; above all, he delivered (with some accompanying blood and gore, rays and hail). In their very different ways, and despite all their disagreements, both men were accomplished storytellers.

Like most senior politicians, Kevin Rudd has a strong personal brand – as a competent technocrat and, until recently, an election winner. His policy wins were not insignificant. But he failed to put them all together and tell a story that evoked his country’s values, archetypes and myths and painted a compelling picture of its future.

Julia Gillard will find it hard to rewrite the Labor government’s entire policy programme. There’s very little time until the election and she was, after all, part of Rudd’s inner circle. (Therein lies the opposition’s counter-story – this is no fresh face, they are saying). And no politician ever won by just reeling off a list of policies. No, her mission is to tell a story that is emotional and engaging, compelling and connecting, and to embody it. If Gillard fails in this, Rudd’s fate will be hers also.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

Narrativewatch: we've had a gutful, says leader of NSW Liberals

Labor pains... the new Minister for Transport John Robertson and Premier Kristina Keneally. Photo: Simon Alekna

PREMIER Kristina Keneally is resisting demands to let NSW decide the fate of her tattered administration by calling an early election.

The resignations of cabinet ministers Ian Macdonald and Graham West were greeted yesterday with a near-universal ''enough's enough'' two days before the state budget.

The latest scandal has also started an ugly internal power struggle, with backbenchers keen to get their hands on a ministerial pay packet and pension before Labor faces electoral annihilation.

Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell led the attack, urging Ms Keneally to call a poll and end the farce that has seen 215 Labor ministerial appointments in five years.

''People have had a gutful. They want the nightmare to end and would welcome an election,'' he said. ''Kristina Keneally should call an election because the people of NSW are desperate for one.''

via smh.com.au

Barry O'Farrell, leader of NSW's centre-right Liberal party, says that people have had a "gutful" of the state's Labor government.

O'Farrell is using Australian vernacular to trigger the most basic story told by main opposition parties: it's time for a change; this government has got to go. Just like David Cameron in the UK election campaign, except that he did not quite succeed in convincing his compatriots that the Conservatives were the solution.

This is not the first time an old narrative wine has been put in Australian bottles. One of O'Farrell's predecessors, Nick Greiner, used the "gutful" message in the run-up to the 1988 state election, in which he defeated another burnt-out Labor adminstration.

In 1980, Don Chipp, the founding leader of the Australian Democrats invited his compatriots to "keep the bastards honest". What he was saying was: with the single transferable vote, you can elect Democrat senators to hold the major parties to account. This was a more direct version of the "plague on both your houses" story that UK voters have heard for some fifty years, from Jo Grimond, David Steel, Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and Nick Clegg.

Posted via web from Neil Stockley

Calling all single transferable vote junkies - you're gonna love this

One of the arguments for STV is that it gives voters more choice than many of the alternative voting systems. They can even choose between candidates of the same party.

Well, here's a case in point. The Australian state of Tasmania uses STV for electing its House of Assembly (equivalent to the House of Commons). The final count is now drawing to a close and in the seat of Lyons, a long-serving Labor MP, David Lllewellyn, has been unseated by Rebecca White, who also stood for Labor. It seems as if Ms White even campaigned against her fellow Labor candidates.

This is yet another reason why neither Labour nor the Conservatives will ever embrace STV with any enthusiasm.

Posted via web from Neil Stockley

If you're into the politics of hung parliaments and STV . . .

. . . then you might want to follow the aftermath of Saturday's election in the Australian state of Tasmania.

Final results won't be known until 1 April, but it seems that Labor -- the incumbent government -- will win 10 seats in the Tasmanian House of Assembly, the same number as the (centre-right) Liberals. The Greens appear to have taken five seats, giving them the "balance of power".

Labor previously had an overall majority but a 12 percent crash in their share of the vote has put an end to that. So far, the Liberals have won more votes than Labor. You can see the preliminary results here.

Labor leader David Bartlett refuses to concede defeat. He also says he won't do a deal with the Greens.

Liberal leader Will Hodgman says that if the two main parties end up deadlocked, he would expect to be given the opportunity to be premier. Soon after the numbers went up, Mr Hodgman indicated that he might have some Green MPs in his ministry. Now, Hodgman says that he wouldn't.

Hodgman is trying to get Bartlett to give an assurance that he won't try to govern with fewer seats and fewer votes than the Liberals.

For their part, Greens have promised not to block the budget, meaning that both Labor and the Liberals can, in theory, form a minority government and, presumably, negotiate each bill with the other parties. Their leader, Nick McKim says that he won't try to secure ministerial jobs for Green MPs. He has said that all three parties are now in the balance of power and that the people's mandare us for them all "to work constructively and cooperatively to deliver outcomes for Tasmania."

Meanwhile, a constitutional law expert has urged the state's governor to stay out of the melee and leave it up to the parliament to test out any deals the politicians make.

You can pick up the ABC's coverage here.

Posted via web from Neil Stockley