Team Labor: frightening the electorate since 1975

Fifty years ago, Labor claimed Malcolm Fraser was a ‘right-winger’ who had a ‘secret agenda’ to attack basic services including health. Sound familiar?

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We have just marked 50 years since Malcolm Fraser became leader of the Liberal Party. His election was important for two reasons that continue to impact politics today.

Fraser appointed Tony Eggleton as director of the Liberal Party, which led to greater professionalisation of the party’s campaign organisation. The year 1975 was the first time the party had a national campaign headquarters and the structure developed then is still the basis of its campaigns today.

The year 1975 also marked the emergence of a particular style of negative campaigning by the Labor Party that it has continued to use during the past 50 years.

Labor claimed Fraser was a “right-winger” who had a “secret agenda” to attack basic services including health. Sound familiar?

This is exactly the same line Labor tried to run against John Howard in 1996 and Tony Abbott before the 2013 election.

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and former Opposition leader Gough Whitlam at the opening of a new BHP steel mill on Geelong's north shore.

John Howard.

Tony Abbott. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Needless to say, the record of each of these prime ministers in government contradicted Labor’s claims, and the fact Fraser, Howard and Abbott all achieved historic mandates does not seem to have deterred Labor from dusting off the same tactic against Peter Dutton.

With the rise of social media Labor has increasingly resorted to making bold, unsubstantiated claims. They are at a premium so far in this campaign. With a disengaged and somewhat cynical electorate Labor is no doubt hoping any outrageous claim sticks and that voters won’t look too closely into what is being asserted. But facts matter and this election is one where the tension between unfounded allegations and the facts is at a premium.

There are several particular claims Labor is aggressively pushing beneath the public radar through targeted social media, activist influencers and letter boxes of which voters need to be wary. To give just one example: Labor has dusted off its old claim and is attempting to say Dutton has an agenda to reduce health spending. The claim has no basis.

As health minister, Dutton increased funding for public hospitals, increased GP training places, established the Medical Research Future Fund and provided $200m to boost dementia research. The last Coalition government, in which Dutton was a cabinet minister, increased Medicare spending every year, increased hospital funding by more than 80 per cent and oversaw record bulk-billing rates. There has been no Coalition policy announced this election that would adversely affect health services. Facts matter.

Importantly, Dutton was able to secure funding for the policies announced because of the Coalition’s commitment to growing the economy, which provided the capacity to pay for improved services. This is a topic the Prime Minister has avoided addressing so far in this campaign.

Labor is also attempting to paint Dutton as some version of Donald Trump. Trump is neither a liberal nor a conservative. Both Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush would feel uncomfortable in Trump’s party. Dutton is a mainstream Australian Liberal, very much in the mould of most of his predecessors. He disagrees with Trump on free trade and tariffs, Ukraine, the importance of democratic alliances and the need for public health services, to name just a few issues. It is a pretty long bow for Labor to try to paint Dutton, after almost 25 years in public life, as something he is not. Facts matter.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the campaign trail in Victoria. Picture: Jason Edwards/NewsWire

Under Anthony Albanese the state Labor governing model has moved to Canberra. At its core is a belief government intervention and government spending provide the answer to every problem. There is therefore no need to make difficult or unpopular decisions or to upset any of the party’s constituent factions. Albanese is governing more in the style of the Andrews-Allan government in Victoria than the Hawke-Keating government.

The implications for frustrated families of a continuation of this style of government was made crystal clear in an important comment by Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock this week. Following the bank’s board meeting on Tuesday, the governor said: “Productivity is how people get real wage rises.” But productivity has not grown in Australia for almost a decade, so it is no wonder workers feel their incomes are tightening.

Labor’s problem is its approach to governing is in direct contradiction to the policy changes needed to improve productivity and thereby lift real wages. Labor is using its negative campaign to avoid addressing the serious challenges that the next government will inevitably face.

The first week of this campaign has been reminiscent of old battles where the combatants spend the early days positioning their artillery in preparation for a more intense contest in coming weeks. That is what Labor is doing with its negative campaign.

The first debate of the campaign, on Sky News next Tuesday evening, will be very important. Australians will begin voting in two weeks when pre-polling opens. The coming two weeks will be the most intense of the campaign and almost certainly will determine the result.

Brian Loughnane is a business and political strategic consultant. He was Coalition campaign director in four federal elections.