Lessons for Labor in Rann reprieve

TWO dramatic messages have been sent to Kevin Rudd (and other Labor leaders) from the South Australian election result. Both can help Labor recover from its present slump.

One is a timely warning about government spin and the other is a message of practical hope in marginal seat campaigning.

The South Australian result is, on the one hand, a stunning near-defeat that constitutes a repudiation of Labor's macro-messaging. On the other hand, it is a last-gasp victory that demonstrates the strategic focus and practical benefits of Labor's micro-messaging.

Mike Rann is the very model of the modern spin doctor turned politician. He spun for Don Dunstan and John Bannon, he joined the fray himself, ended up in opposition and relentlessly spun his way back into government.

He has worked extraordinarily hard. But his main focus has always been running a line rather than delivering policy. Eventually this has caught up with him.

There are global and national trends at play here, with the end of the Blair era triggering an Anglosphere focus on the merits of spin versus substance.

In Australia too, from serious political debate to television comedy, there has been a growing cynicism about political spin.

For instance, one of the most successful forces in the country is senator Nick Xenophon, the madly spinning, anti-spin, anti-politician politician. He has campaigned strongly against taxpayer-funded advertising and supported the SA Liberals' policy to minimise it.

This anti-spin tide has been building and is reflected in voter disenchantment with Peter Beattie, Alan Carpenter and Mark Latham. It is a public mood that is hurting Rudd as the Liberals' chant of "all talk, no action" resonates loudly.

This mistrust of spin was bound to hurt Rann. But the unforeseen injection of the Chantelois affair into the pre-election period amplified it. Once the Premier was so stridently accused of fudging the facts in this personal issue, voters had all the more reason to doubt his political lines. With an 8 per cent swing against Labor and exit polls showing lack of trustworthiness to have been a prime motivating force, the anti-spin vote was undeniably a prominent factor.

So when Rann trumpeted low unemployment as a key achievement, voters knew the national economy and federal governments were the relevant drivers; likewise when he boasted about defence contracts.

When he claimed credit for restoring South Australia's Triple A credit rating, voters knew this had far more to do with the previous Liberal government's unpopular decision to privatise electricity assets and eliminate government debt.

And when he boasted of a desalination plant and a stadium upgrade, the punters knew he had been forced, belatedly, to both projects after they had been proposed by the Liberals.

Rann always stood to benefit from a sound economy and his relatively competent management, but it was a mistake to overclaim.

The warning from Rann Labor's experience is for leaders to take action, implement policy and take credit only for real achievements. Anything else will not be believed.

It is the political application of the old adage that says: "Don't tell me you're funny, make me laugh." And just as Australian voters didn't return John Howard out of gratitude for years of prosperity, they won't return Rudd for dodging a recession. It is not gratitude that motivates voters but promise for the future.

As much as some Labor figures might rail against this analysis, Rann's actions since Saturday confirm it. He has admitted a "kick in the pants" from the electorate, promised to listen more and, in a hugely symbolic move, has directed his Treasurer to cut millions of dollars from government spin expenditure.

Rudd needs to heed this macro-messaging lesson: forget the spin and talk plainly about real action. If he does, he will go a long way to removing the unkind contrast between his wall of words and Tony Abbott's direct-action rhetoric. Then Labor will be in a position to take advantage of the message of hope from the SA poll: the clear ascendancy it has in marginal seats campaigning.

Despite the savage swing against it, SA Labor is set to retain power by a bare majority thanks to stunning results in its most marginal seats.

It had the benefit of some enthusiastic sitting members such as Leon Bignell, Tony Piccolo and Grace Portelisi. And most of the Liberal candidates were preselected at a time when debilitating polls militated against the attraction of outstanding candidates for marginal seats.

But capitalising on those circumstances was a Labor-union machine that worked the marginals hard with bespoke micro-messaging campaigns for each electorate. This is below-the-radar campaigning where a well-pitched mail-out from a well-resourced campaign office in the last few days of a campaign can swing the few hundred votes needed to hold a key seat.

Labor did this brilliantly in South Australia in 1989, and won with only 48 per cent of the statewide two-party preferred vote. When Rann first seized power in 2002, it was a similar story. With only about 48 per cent of the vote this time, SA Labor has now pulled the same trick three times.

Federally, Howard managed a similar success in marginals in 1998, despite narrowly losing the popular vote. But most often this marginal seat success has been a Labor strong point.

South Australian ALP secretary Michael Brown headed this micro-campaign and would have been supported by operatives from across the nation.

This team, with its freshly refined techniques, will now switch its attention to the federal marginals. (Although, for the sake of electoral integrity, we can only hope they discard their highly dubious Family First preference charade which could still be the subject of legal action in SA.)

Federal Labor's resources and in-house marginal campaign expertise could well prove pivotal in this year's federal poll.

This is the message of hope for Rudd from Rann. And it serves as a warning to the Liberals, who must rediscover those 1998 campaigning skills, taking not even the closest marginal seats for granted.

Chris Kenny is a journalist and author, and former adviser to federal and South Australian Liberal governments.