Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Latham's ladder of lost opportunities

An enterprising voter in John Howard's electorate has taken to stalking the prime minister while dressed up as a rat. Unlike the Western Australian who greeted Howard while dressed as a sheep, he has not been greeted with enthusiastic hugs; Howard is at least selective.

But Ratman has added a much-needed touch of drama to an election campaign that in the mid stages at least, was in danger of getting bogged down in arguments about detail. Our leaders have so far eschewed all but the most obvious stunts and masquerades; there has been no really silly dressing up, no swimming in shark tanks in the style of Queensland's shameless premier Peter Beattie. The sole exception has been the Democrat leader Andrew Bartlett who, in a desperate attempt to attract publicity, performed a bungy jump at the Gold Coast, unintentionally symbolic of his party's plummeting vote.

But in general the campaign has descended into the sort of you-did, no-I-didn't type of bickering that has had the punters turning away in droves - which is, of course, exactly what Howard wants. The coalition's approach has been almost entirely negative, and its policy announcements, while by no means negligible, have been put forward in a style so low key as to be almost sub-sonic. All the emphasis has been on niggling away at Mark Latham, his policies and his credibility; and through a combination of inexperience and incompetence Latham and his minders have let themselves be sucked in.

As a result, none of Labor's big ticket items has had the impact the strategists might have hoped. The Medicare launch was gazumped by a government package which was highly questionable policy (as the blow out of the safety net through doctors fee increases has already shown) but whose sheer size went close to overwhelming Labor's more targeted bid. Howard followed up by painting heart-rending pictures of families forced to desert their lifelong medico under Labor's policy simply because he refused to bulk bill them, a complete distraction from the central issue of whether Medicare was to be preserved in its intended, universal form or not.

The tax and family policy met a similar fate: all the argument was about the $600 baby bonus where it should fit in the tables and whether it would be eaten up in debt, rather than the benefits conferred by the policy as a whole. As late as last Monday Latham was still defending his position on the $600 by querying Howard's commitment to it, instead of trumpeting his package's largesse. This was simply playing into the enemy's hands.

But the worst example of all was the education policy, a mammoth boost for equality of opportunity which should have received rave reviews from all but the tiny minority of losers. But what was the story? Extra $2 billion for public education? Bonanza for struggling independent schools? New standards for all under needs policy? 95 percent of pupils are winners? Not on your life: the story was Labor's hit list, and it has not substantially changed in a week.

Government ministers, along with the principals of the 67 affected schools and most of the media (owned, unsurprisingly, by the old boys of some of the 67) denounced the proposal as one of envy, revenge and class warfare, even, incredibly, as a revival of sectarianism. The already enormous fees would rise and sobbing pupils whose parents could no longer afford both boarding school and the annual trip to Europe would be dragged from their beloved alma mater and relocated in the ghettos of the public system. The shame of it... the horror.

What's more, this was only the thin edge of the wedge - your (private) school could be next! I had visions of the Murdoch, Packer and Fairfax families marching on Labor Party headquarters while Peter Costello, Brendan Nelson and Alexander Downer led them in a chant: "What do we want? More money. When do we want I? All the time, irrespective of need, merit, justice, ability or any other circumstance.”

A common line was that the parents of the pupils at wealthy public schools paid their taxes so they should get a subsidy like everyone else. The same logic would have it that Kerry packer should qualify for an emergency housing grant and the single mother's benefit, but the whole point of the minority attack was to ensure that logic played no part in it - such are the benefits of a private school education. Once again, what should have been a celebratory launch about the winners swiftly degenerated into an undignified squabble about the losers.

All of this is retrievable; there are still nearly three weeks to go, and it can be argued that it is only in these later stages that the public will really start to focus on the campaign. And given the stuff-ups of the first three weeks, Labor remains in a remarkably good position; the weekend polls suggest that although the party has slipped behind on the overall vote, it is actually catching up in the marginals, where the allocation of Green preferences, while inevitable, will be very welcome.

But Latham needs to keep his cool; he needs to get out more, to spend less time replying to media hectoring (much of it originating from the Liberals' dirt unit) and more time connecting directly with the wider public. This has always been the basis of his appeal; now is the opportunity to really exploit it. And of course, a few more rats wouldn't hurt either.