Labor ahead in strategic power game

An illustration by Bill Leak.

IN the days after the election night counting, a Labor cabinet minister told me the campaign had restarted.

The need to stay on message was alive and well as both parties began wooing the independents to form a minority government.

Although Tony Abbott and the Coalition probably won the formal election campaign, both in terms of rising above the low expectations most people had for their capacity to stay disciplined and because of the many problems Labor created for itself, especially in the second week, Julia Gillard has clearly won the post-election campaign so far.

Whether the rural independents back the Labor Party, as the tea leaves and the betting agencies suggest they may, or whether Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott ultimately decide to throw their support behind a conservative government, Labor has played the more strategic game in lobbying for their support. Leaving personal dignity at the door, Gillard has done everything that she can to negotiate a deal. If she wins that won't matter; if she loses it will be the final embarrassment in a short prime ministership.

The independents highlight stability and longevity of government as two key ingredients to securing their support.

Labor was clearer from the outset than the Coalition was about its preparedness to run full term if it formed minority government. That ticks the longevity box. In fact Gillard was even willing, quite carelessly in my view, to rule out the prospect of a double-dissolution election if the independents backed her in.

In other words, 100 years of convention, that a federal government needs to have a trigger to go to the polls if its legislative agenda is stymied, is less important to Labor than Gillard saving face.

This week she denied that how history might view her had played any role whatsoever in her attempts to form government. If you believe that you will believe emissions can be curbed without putting a price on carbon.

In contrast, while the Coalition is assuring all and sundry that it plans to run full term if it is supported into government, early on senior Coalition sources were telling journalists that a return to the polls was the best option, that when the Greens gained the Senate balance of power in July next year it would provide the perfect trigger for an early election, and that because defeat would lead to internal blood-letting for Labor it wouldn't be long before the polls made an early election too tempting to avoid for the Coalition -- so that it could win a mandate in its own right.

The Coalition also has tried to suggest a Labor government won't be stable because of the recriminations likely after the poor election result, even if it does win. But that ignores what we all know, which is that as a tribal party that imposes strict discipline on its parliamentary team, Labor is better placed than the Coalition to hold together in minority government.

That is especially the case considering the Coalition partners are already attacking each another over the money spent fighting one another in safe conservative electorates: coin that could have made the difference in tight marginal contests across the country.

And while at first glance the idea of a Labor-Greens alliance may appear unstable to conservative rural independents worried about radicalism, the electoral reality is that without the backing of at least two of the three rural independents a left-wing agenda can't pass through the House of Representatives to even be debated in the Senate.

The rural independents will decide what passes into law and the circumstances when it does.

(That said, watch this space if Labor does form a minority government and a carbon tax gets put on the agenda. It is hardly radical left wingism, but the Greens would support it in the Senate, and even if only Oakeshott out of the three rural independents backed it in the House of Representatives, what would Malcolm Turnbull do? He has crossed the floor before over an emissions trading system and may do so again given his commitment to the need to put a price on carbon. It is the one policy area that may frighten Windsor and Katter, in particular, from backing Labor.)

If stability is important to the independents, Labor has used momentum this week to give such an appearance. First it locked in the Greens MP-elect Adam Bandt. Then it struck a deal with Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie. Neither move was unexpected, but it gave Gillard a winning appearance this week.

Combined with the costings problems on the Coalition's side and the revelation that Abbott offered Wilkie a profligate $1 billion for his local hospital to try to win him over, Labor is meeting the rural independents' two-pronged demands more obviously than the Coalition.

While Abbott has been clever to keep referring to Gillard as the acting Prime Minister -- as a reminder that she doesn't have the legitimacy of incumbency any more -- the rest of his team has been positively ill-disciplined.

Bill Heffernan, Alby Schultz and Barnaby Joyce haven't managed to hide their frustrations about the rural independents taking their time to come to a decision, and they aren't alone.

If Abbott can't control his troops during a delicate time such as the present, what chance does he have down the track?

The question is, does any of this really matter? Are the independents wooed by the momentum and the offerings Labor is putting on the table or are they giving out signals that they may be leaning Labor's way only so they can claim they treated the process evenly and with considered thought before siding with the Coalition?

That is what happened to West Australian premier Alan Carpenter in 2008 when neither main party won an outright majority at the state election. It was left to the unaligned Nationals and independents to determined which side formed government.

Nationals leader Brendon Grylls gave the impression that he was more attracted to the Labor offerings but ultimately sided with his former Coalition partner, the Liberals. Although there was no love lost between the Nationals and the Liberals in WA leading up to polling day, they did have a history of working together in the parliament.

What worries Coalition strategists federally is that the history between the rural independents and the Liberals and Nationals is bitter and dominated by mutual loathing. The concern is that such animosities may prevent a deal being done, especially on the back of a poor post-election campaign to win them over.

If anyone doubts just how high the stakes are as to which side forms government, again Western Australia provides some insights.

The Barnett government, despite predictions that it would be marred by instability and chaos because of its minority status, is popular and politically dominant. The opposition has descended into a rabble and its leader is under siege.

Let's not forget, being opposition leader is regarded as the hardest job going around.

Watch Peter van Onselen and his panel of senior News Limited journalists interview Communications Minister Stephen Conroy on Australian Agenda on Sky News on Sunday morning live at 8.30am, replayed at 12.30pm and 8.30pm.