Red revival reaches redneck territory

The electoral revival of Australia's Labour party is now reaching a part of the country where it has not been in power for a quarter of a century, writes Patrick Barkham

Patrick Barkham
Guardian Unlimited

Monday August 20, 2001

Things are done differently in the Northern Territory, Australia's desert region and last frontier, best known for its ancient stone monolith Uluru (Ayers Rock) and last month's attack on British tourists Joanne Lees and Peter Falconio.

The campaign before Saturday's territory election was no exception, with one Country Liberal party (CLP) candidate being criticised for wooing Aboriginal voters by handing out more than 100 kangaroo tails, a popular bush tucker delicacy.

But a shock result today sees the NT likely to follow most of Australia's other states and territories in choosing a Labour government, if Clare Martin's party wins an expected narrow majority when counting finishes later this week.

Labour's victory would leave only two of Australia's eight states and territories controlled by conservative Liberal-National governments.

The whole of Australia could turn red with potential polls in the final two coalition-governed states before the federal election at the end of this year, at which the rightwing coalition government increasingly appears doomed.

Despite its successes in Western Australia and Queensland this year, the swing to Labour in the NT was a massive upset, bringing down a remarkable one-party rule by the CLP.

The redneck territory, home of controversial mandatory sentencing laws - which lead to the jailing of many of its 25% Aboriginal population for the pettiest of thefts - has been governed by the rightwing CLP for 26 years.

Until this weekend, Labour had not defeated a sitting CLP member since 1980. The CLP were sustained in part by a raft of bizarre electoral rules and ruses.

Candidates are not allowed to put their party on the NT ballot papers, instead placing a picture of themselves next to their name, in theory to help illiterate citizens to vote.

Sitting CLP members plaster pictures of themselves all over their constituency to win the crucial battle for voter recognition, while the ballot card pictures also enable racist voters to choose the candidate based on the colour of their skin.

The CLP has also put up Aboriginal candidates against their sitting white MP to split the predominantly Labour Aboriginal vote.

As well as kangaroo tails, two CLP candidates were ticked off during the 2001 campaign for distributing playing cards - with their pictures on the back - to remote Aboriginal communities, where card games are a popular pastime.

The CLP also broke with the coalition's national policy and made a preference deal with Pauline Hanson's far-right One Nation party, where they recommended voters to back each other as second-choice in Australia's complex preferential voting system.

That Labour was able to overcome these hurdles is testimony to a shrewd campaign by Ms Martin, a 48-year-old former journalist, who, much like Tony Blair and other modern right-of-centre Labor leaders, confounded conservative scaremongering by being unashamedly pro-business and as "tough" on law and order as any rightwinger.

Although she promises to repeal the mandatory sentencing laws, the "mandatory punishment" Labour proposes instead is just as tough and, say critics, almost as racist.

The federal coalition government today repeated its now-familiar refrain that circumstances unique to the state, such as the "time for a change" factor, lead to Labour's victory.

Labour, meanwhile, hopes that the momentum from the steady painting red of all Australia's state and territory governments will push them to victory in the federal election.

But all politicians know that a Labour triumph nationally is far from certain.

The swing to Labour in the NT was only 3%. The party won a significantly smaller percentage of the vote than the CLP and may need the support of two independent MPs to govern.

But recent Australian elections all display three similar trends: a disaffection with the perceived arrogance of coalition governments leading to a substantial fall in the coalition vote, a small rise in the Labour vote, and, most significantly, a large increase in the number of voters prepared to look beyond Australia's two traditional parties.

In the West Australian election, the Green party was the main beneficiary of this mood; in Queensland One Nation received a significant protest vote; while in the NT there was a surge in support for independent candidates.

Labour is currently profiting more than the coalition from this third trend by receiving second-choice votes from those who first back independent or minor party candidates.

But the shift away from the two major parties indicates a genuine disaffection in regional and rural Australia with the two major parties, whose economic policy terms are indistinguishable.

Given this climate, Labour knows it would be foolish to claim any landslide victory in the federal election as an unequivocal or emphatic mandate.

Email
patrick.barkham@guardian.co.uk

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Useful links:
The NT government
The ABC election site
ABC: The public record
Anti-government protest site
Australian Labour Party