Knife-edge 1998 poll was won on trust

John Howard went into the election promising a major tax reform package with the fear ‘we might lose’.

John Howard and his family take to the stage after he claimed victory for the Coalition in the razor-edge October 1998 federal election.

As John Howard and Peter Cos­tello­ learned the results of an exit poll commissioned by Liberal Party federal director Lynton Crosby on the night of the October 1998 election, they were told to prepare for defeat after just one term in office.

“He rang me at 6.41pm with an exit poll and he told me it was 53-47 against us,” the former prime minster told The Australian.

“It was pretty convincing. I gathered my family around and told them about it, and my two sons and I made gallows jokes about having more time for golf.”

Mr Costello, then the treasurer and deputy Liberal leader, was in the national tally room in Canberra when he was told about the exit poll. “Lynton Crosby called me and said he had looked at the exit poll and ‘We’re done.’

“At that point I thought we might lose,” he said.

Mr Howard went into the elect­ion promising a major tax reform package with the fear that “we might lose”. That worry seemed to be confirmed after the polls closed.

“For a couple of hours, I thought I was gone,” he conceded. “Seats were falling like ninepins.”

Yet as he watched the TV coverage at Kirribilli House, severa­l Coalition MPs were defendi­ng their marginal seats, and he knew by about 8.30pm that the government would survive.

The key moment was when he realised that Fran Bailey, the Liberal MP for McEwen in Victoria, would hold on.

“Somebody was watching the ABC coverage on one television and there was Antony Green saying­ the government will be returned­ with a majority of 12 seats … he’s been my favourite psephologist ever since,” Mr Howard recalle­d.

The former prime minister said the victory was due primarily to having “outstanding sitting members” and the electorate giving his government “some reward for ­policy boldness”. He also said the government “would have done better”, electorally, without the GST, and that One Nation’s decis­ion to preference against sitting members hurt the government.

Mr Costello said the government was returned because of its economic credentials, including balancing the budget, but also ­acknowledged the GST was not a vote winner.

“What won us the election was we had a plan, an economic plan, and it was well thought out and we convinced people that it would make Australia a better place and there was a certain number of people­ that went with us in faith on that,” he said.

Gareth Evans, who was shadow treasurer and deputy leader to Labor’s Kim Beazley from 1996 to 1998, described these years as “the most frustrating and generally miserable period” of his time in politics. He now believes the electio­n could have been won by Labor with a different strategy.

“We did indeed come as near as dammit to winning in 1998 (which was) extraordinary after just one term out,” he told The Australian. “I think we might have got over the line if we had been a little less risk-averse and small-target focused.”

The 1998 election saw the ­Coalition re-elected with a lower primary vote than Labor and just 49 per cent of the two-party vote. The government lost 14 seats.

The Coalition, however, consolidat­ed and went on to win two further elections in November 2001 and October 2004.