This post is a quick, simple game theory explanation of Australian politics. It’s not comprehensive. It cuts out a lot of detail. It simplifies radically. In doing so, it aims to shine a light on one interesting dynamic.
Please don’t get the impression I’m unaware other dynamics are running at the same time. This is just one strand in Australia’s politics – but an interesting one.
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Tony Abbott learned a lot from John Howard. What he learned most apparently, was the lesson of the 2001 election – that an environment of negativity and fear and a focus on national security benefit the incumbent.
Abbott ran hard on national security. We have planes in the air over Syria because of those lessons – learned when Abbott was 43 and had been in parliament for seven years. Not to mention our new paramilitary Border Force. Even his elevation of the anti-methamphetamine campaign to a national level seemed to be part of a campaign to whip up fear.
Was he fundamentally wrong?
I say no. The reason Abbott couldn’t get an edge on national security was Bill Shorten stuck to him like sticky stuff to a blanket. Suffocatingly bipartisan on every issue, Shorten appeared to know that the slightest bit of space between him and the PM would be blown out of proportion.
Shorten refused to break his national security lock-step with Abbott even if it cost him. When “Border Farce” was announced Shorten was all for it. Shorten also supported boat turnbacks even though his party was very suspect of it.
National Security bipartisanship was not a rule of thumb for Labor under Shorten. It was iron law.
All this meant Abbott’s chosen strategy got no lift-off, and as he pushed it harder and harder (e.g. by begging the US to ask us to bomb Syria, and repeating the phrase Death Cult reflexively), he looked somewhat mad.
In essence, Shorten played the game of chess correctly, from a political perspective. Abbott’s fear and negativity strategy was absorbed perfectly and seen off.
Now the government is trying something different. Positivity. Malcolm Turnbull keeps repeating that it has never been a more exciting time to be Australian, and talking about opportunities. No more Death Cult.
I love it. This is the political discourse I crave.
But the person craving it even more might be Bill Shorten.
He’s been a strangled and ineffective communicator for the last two years. But that could be the result of being forced to play “small target” and match Abbott on the fear side.
Now the game is about offering competing positive visions? That’s Labor turf. They invented NDIS. They can offer a vision of Australia where we have not just wealth, but wealth with a bit of meaning and compassion.
Today even, Bill Shorten has been out announcing a policy. Labor will reverse the Government’s higher education cuts and offer tertiary education places to disadvantaged people.
People love to write Bill Shorten off. But if you look past the zingers to the chess game being played beneath the surface, you can understand why the Labor Party chose him.
Thomas the Think Engine 