The Unelectable

Over the past couple of days across several different media I have heard people raise the question of whether "Tony Abbott is unelectable". This conversational motif triggers rings alarm bells in my head. My social influences tend to be middle-class, left-leaning, urban, progressive types. They discuss issues at length. As a general rule, this means that if they reach the point that they're having earnest conversation about something this probably means generally means that the "working families" of Australia accepted it as a reality six months ago.

Ideologically, I guess I belong to a class of Liberal voters exiled to the wilderness for a generation as the consequence of some Liberal party factional rivalry that I don't fully understand. Practically, I'm just a "swinging voter" and like most others I know, I can't help but feel like the upcoming federal election is a bit like a choosing between a punch in the head or kick in the proverbial balls.

I guess I should be upfront about the fact that I don't like Tony Abbott all that much. As a (relatively) young, educated female I feel like that's a bit of cliche. It took me a while to pin down exactly why but then I remembered the issues with the RU486 abortion debate back in 2005/06. And then I remembered that inopportune use of the word 'gift' and realised that the though still has the power to bring a bit of vomit to the back of my mouth. This quote from his days writing for his university student paper doesn't sit well with me either:

"I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons."

I said some dumb stuff as a 21 year old, too, but I didn't believe it fervently enough to write articles about it for the student paper.

Despite having no great affection for the "churchy loser", I'm not waving the "Kevin '11" flag, either. The current government has an uncanny ability to screw up on the PR front and for that to impact its effectiveness. The problem is that 'power' and 'authority' are often self fulfilling. In the US, Barack Obama affirmed his political power by getting a health care bill through Congress. He may have had to significantly compromise the bill, polarise voters, add to the (already potent) vitriol of Republicans and personally beg favours from half of Washington; but it doesn't matter because he 'won' in the eyes of the nation.

By contrast, in Australia, the ramifications of the political disaster of the CPRS are still reverberating. By failing to get this key piece of legislation through, the Government was forced into a position of having to make excuses. They've since been mauled on a whole range of non-issues and handled the fallout very poorly.

To make matters worse, the RSPT, irrespective of its prospective merits or pitfalls, smells a bit like a desperate throwback to good, old-fashioned class warfare. Unfortunately, while the Government was a loser in the CPRS bill failure, the mining industry is fresh off a win, full of confidence in its ability to influence policy and rearing to go.

In the depths of my mind of nerdy analogies, I feel like we're sitting near the mean of a positively skewed distribution. To the left are all the negative potential outcomes of re-electing a Labor Government. They're minor issues that will almost certainly occur; more home insulation-type problems, weak explanations of policy and wasted Treasury resources. To the right is a long tail of negative potential outcomes under a Coalition Government; events that are unlikely but severe. Hanson-era refugee policies, major shortfalls in infrastructure investment, Tony trying to make abortion a political issue.

Risk-aversion suggests we should hope Kevin gets re-elected. If for no other reason than to avoid the terrible irony of the country being run by an Abbott and a Bishop.