THE PHONY WAR

Malcolm Fraser was probably the best at it. Tease the press and the public endlessly about the date the next federal election. And then spring one on us on the grounds that he had to put an end to this crippling speculation.  Speculation that he’d started in the first place.

John Howard who has lasted longer than Malcolm Fraser as PM  has learned from the master. Will he won’t he? Will he go early ? Will he go late.

I remember saying a while ago:

‘This could be the longest election campaign this country has ever seen. For a long-time the Canberra pundits were saying that August the seventh would be the day that Prime Minister John Howard would try for another term. And of course that won’t happen. My bet – my Hinch’s Hunch – is that John Howard, a very canny and shrewd political tactician, will hold out until Saturday. October 30.’

I said that in July. Not last July but July 2004 when John Howard was bracing for the polls for his fourth election as leader!

Now he is at it again. It will be three years tomorrow since John Howard went to the polls and won that fourth election. Legally he can wait a couple more months before being forced to the polls again. And he will wait.

Until he names the day his Government can keep spending a million dollars a day of taxpayers’ money on TV, radio and newspaper advertisements extolling who a great government is doing for you. Once the election is announced the Liberal Party will have to start paying for its own propaganda. And put it more on a fair and equal basis with the Labor  Opposition.

I noticed The Age had an editorial yesterday under the headline: ‘Name your day, Mr. Howard: We are more than ready’. Well, it doesn’t matter a tinker’s cuss if The Age is ready or not. Howard will name the day when it suits him and legally he’s allowed to.

But you wonder what planet the editorial is on when he or she says ‘ Think of the poor voters, Prime Minister, with more on their minds than just holidays. People have weddings to plan and holidays to book’.

Does anybody really think that somebody is going to postpone their wedding or their holidays because they may miss out on the equivalent  of Don’s Party?

I mean, let’s face it. Labor has been campaigning all year. Since Kevin Rudd was elected as the replacement for Beazley, who was the replacement for Crean, who was the replacement for the whacky Latham, who was the replacement for Beazley. I think I got that order right.

What all this phony war stuff does is underline something I have been saying for decades. We should have a set date for the federal elections – every four years on the last Saturday in October.

Three year terms are too short. A new government spends Year One settling in, Year Two doing something (honouring and breaking election promises) and Year Three trying to get elected.

We could have known in January that we were going to the polls on Saturday, October 27. And if your side lost then you’d know you’d get the next chance to change Governments on the last Saturday in October in 2011.

And all this phony war stuff could be extinguished. Surely a Prime Minister’s tactical, even selfish, element of surprise, has no place in a true democracy.

Monday, October 8, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007