Labor now has a communicator; the next trick is to work out what he needs to communicate. The new leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham, will have to wear statements made as Treasury spokesman, but to some extent, a line can be ruled under nearly all previous statements. The electorate are for the first time listening to him as Opposition leader, so he has an opportunity to make, not remake himself.
In the next nine months, Latham has to negotiate National Conference, sell the policies developed by his team, and begin to think in terms of specific seats. He has to do this with one very important worry in the back of his mind. Labor may never again win a parliamentary majority. It is the same problem the Liberals face, as the Nationals begin to fade from the scene. The vote share by the three major parties averaged 97 per cent for the 1949 and 1951 elections, 80 per cent for the 1998 and 2001 elections, and 77 per cent for 2001. Labor's share of that diminishing vote was only 37.8 percent -- lower than in any of the big defeats of 1975, 1977, and 1996 and the lowest primary vote for the party since 1906. No matter what the polls say, it is a long way back.
The stability of the party system may well unwind as the majors find it just too much to spread their tiny membership, and their policies across a very broad spectrum of policy demands. Simple electoral arithmetic may soon be outdated. Minority government has been the experience of nearly every state government in the last decade, and there are more Independents in the House of Representatives than has ever been the case. There have only been nine Independents out 727 members elected to the House of Representatives since 1941, most of those successes occurred since 1990.
That is the future, but back to the present. The easy part is the faces. Latham starts with a minor reshuffle. The main winners are Simon Crean as Shadow Treasurer, Julia Gillard's additional duties as Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives, Nicola Roxon as Shadow Attorney-General, Robert McClelland in Home Security, Daryl Melham as Shadow Minister for Housing, and Stephen Smith as shadow Immigration spokesman. The rest remain in place, including the "silly" ministries, "Sustainability", "Population", and "Reconciliation".
The hard part is policy. In his first speech to Parliament as leader, Latham mentioned early childhood development. He implored parents to read books to their children. "It is the foundation stone of lifelong learning because the truth is that learning does not start the first day school; it starts the first day of life". Now here is a policy area to watch. Like school funding and child-care before it, Labor will open up a new front for Commonwealth spending. They will seek to develop "quality" early childhood development, meaning professionalising those who care for very young children.
Nearly forty years ago, Bridget Plowden reported to Tony Crosland, Harold Wilson's Secretary of State for Education, on the future of English children and their primary schools. Plowden attributed most importance in accounting for variations in children's achievement to the home, then the neighbourhood, and least of all to school. That never stopped a labor government in Britain or Australia spending a lot more on public education. Public expenditure is supposed to substitute for what some parents lack: the desire to achieve. The issue for Labor is what stimulates that desire. Ask most immigrant families, it is almost certainly not public resources. Plowden's insight into the factors that lead to children succeeding was simple. The mother's aspirations for the child, and the number of books in the home. Has anything changed?
Mark Latham's story of the importance of reading to children is sobering. But what does a government do about it? Does a government follow the advice of the early childhood development specialist, and Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley, and pour resources into children at the youngest age, or does it implore the parents to take an interest in the child? Does it fund the parents?
This same question is being played out in school funding, university funding, even medical insurance, with obvious implications for income tax cuts. Does a government substitute for personal exertion, or does a government reward personal exertion? Labor was always in the first camp. In Whitlam's time, Labor wanted the state to massively substitute for individual effort. But in the last three decades, there has been a remarkable change of heart on the part of the electorate. Many parents make a considerable financial sacrifice in order to fund their children, and their health. Labor appeared to step into this camp when it introduced HECS for university students.
Until last week, my reading of Mark Latham was that he was in the Plowden camp. My bet is that by the time he comes out of the other end of the National Conference he will be in the Stanley camp. The more interesting thing is how the government will react. In its heart, it must be in the Plowden camp, but it too will have to lay off bets with the easy solution of paying professionals to do what only a parent can.
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