Published by the Courier Mail 2nd October 1998 on the eve of the Australian Federal Election
Elections are a stocktake of a nation’s mood, a census of a society’s soul. How we feel about ourselves and our country tomorrow will interest many future historians. In 1996, voters decided that Labor was the captive of special interest groups and other “undeserving” categories – the Aborigines, single mothers, migrants and unemployed. That election gave rise to Pauline Hanson and her One Nation notions of “getting even’”. Coalition leader John Howard and his campaign team successfully exploited community angst and turned it against the poor, rather than high-income earners and big business.
Welfare recipients were blamed for everything from the size of government debt to rising crime. The then Keating Labor government was depicted as being far too welfare-minded, prepared to rack up debt on behalf of “bludgers” then sending the bill to hard-working middle Australia. This cultivation of downward envy has remained a powerful Howard weapon, because while middle Australia is focused on the disadvantaged, ready to blame the less fortunate for dragging them down, they are less likely to focus on the full impact of a goods and services tax. Howard is trading unashamedly on division, fear and uncertainty.
On the evidence of the latest opinion polls, his Government is likely to be returned. But will middle Australia remain distracted by his tactics? Or will they rediscover the “fair go” ethos that most Australians say they feel and which sets this country apart from others? When Howard said that he felt Labor Opposition Leader Kim Beazley lacked the “ticker” to take the hard decisions, it was his code to the disaffected that the Coalition intended to continue the punishment. But an emerging problem for the Coalition is that the media networks seem to have lost their enthusiasm for massaging the culture of complaint. Usually leader of the pack when there is a scent of blood, Sixty Minutes and senior reporter Richard Carleton recently questioned Hanson’s myth about single mothers. Hanson had claimed that young single mothers were living it up at taxpayers’ expense and “having child after child to different fathers”, just to get welfare. As Carleton pointed out (despite all the hysteria that would have us believe otherwise) teenage mothers who have never been married account for just a fraction of sole-parent benefits and the “typical” single mother is a 33-year-old divorcee.
What future researchers will be interested to pinpoint is just when viewers’ taste for scapegoating became satiated. Have commercial networks developed a conscience about the monster they helped create or has it been simply a ratings-driven decision to adopt a more balanced approach? So if sensationalism for sensationalism’s sake is now passe, with an emphasis now on factual reporting, where does this leave the ad-hoc right-wing coalition of Howard, Hanson and the Nationals?
While correlation doesn’t equate to confirmation, current affairs ratings have fallen about in line with the Howard Government’s popularity. There is evidence that people feel there is nothing new in the news/current affairs format. This could affect the electoral outcome.
Without these free kicks for the Coalition, will voters continue to focus their anger on Labor’s natural constituency or refocus on the tax avoidance and inefficiency of Howard’s natural constituency, the big end of town? What will future generations say about this election: that this was a nation skilfully divided and defeated by Howard and his conservative allies or successfully re-united by Beazley?