Mr Paul Keating's victory in the Australian general election in March 1993 closely parallelled Mr John Major's win in Britain eleven months before both triumphed over every expectation of the opinion pollsters and the pundits. Australians vote again tomorrow, three years after that famous victory, and once more the political analysts concur with the opinion polls in predicting Mr Keating's defeat. Will he, for a second time, prove them wrong?
if he does, the result will be even, more astonishing than his victory in 1993. In retrospect it is clear that the opposition leader, Dr John Hewson, had virtually handed the election on a plate to the Australian Labour Party with his sophisticated proposals for a radical reform of the tax system that aroused widespread suspicion by its inclusion of a new goods services tax. Dislike of the ALP after a succession of political scandals and cases of corruption at national and state level by prominent party members, was overshadowed by distrust of Dr Hewson's subtle proposals, which alienated large sections of the mobile middle class vote.
His successor, Mr John Howard, has not made the same mistake. His strategy has been not to disturbs the electorate by making too many demands on its understanding of economic theory. Not rocking the boat means committing the conservative opposition parties to maintaining the basics of ALP policy: no threats to wage rates, no new taxes, no cuts in health insurance though welfare spending generally will be sharply reduced. His main plank is encouragement of small scale enterprise in order to reduce unemployment. He hopes that, after 13 years of Labour governments, voters will want to see new faces, but not necessarily new policies.
Mr Howard's lead in the opinion polls suggests that his strategy is right. Mr Keating, to win, needs to, hold not only the ALP's core working class voters, known as the true believers, but also the prosperous middle class whose doubts about fiscal reform ensured his victory in 1993. There have been some indications that, in spite of Mr Keating's fundamental belief that Australia is a Pacific state and must shape its policy to strengthen its ties with its Asian neighbours, he is not sure of carrying the large minority of recent immigrants, many of whom are of Asian origin. His abrasive populism, the key to his appeal when he challenged and defeated his predecessor, Mr Bob Hawke, for the leadership of the ALP, may now lose him votes when set against the lack of dignity he has shown in office.
Australia, however, is a country of rapid change and a newly defined idea of its position in the world which Mr Keating articulates to a broad and receptive audience. In that sense, the outcome of the election will be part of the evidence of the extent to which transformation in basic attitudes has occurred as well as a vote for alternative governments. Mr Keating wants a republic by the beginning of next century; Mr Howard does not. The sense of progression towards this goal that Mr Keating has inculcated as prime minister may have developed a momentum which will help his re election. On the other hand, has he been moving too fast for rural and conservative communities which are threatened by economic change? These are the wild cards which make prudent gamblers pause before risking too much on the outcome of the election.