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Judith Brett, and aca­demic at La Trobe Uni­ver­sity, makes an inter­est­ing com­par­ison between the com­ing fed­eral elec­tion and that of 1949

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, where a gov­ern­ment was kicked out des­pite good eco­nomic times. This stands in con­tra­dic­tion to the “con­ven­tional wis­dom” that gov­ern­ments are re-elected if they deliver the eco­nomic goods (or more accur­ately preside over them).

She also thinks that the government’s main weapons against Labor , the same weapons used against Labor for the bet­ter part of a cen­tury, no longer carry the weight they used to. One, that Labor is con­trolled by the uni­ons, and two, they can’t be trus­ted to man­age the economy.

The much favoured “con­trolled by union bosses” argu­ment is simply not cut­ting through because:
1. The union move­ment is a shadow of its former self, hav­ing been sig­ni­fic­antly de-balled dur­ing the Hawke/Keating years. Also, the Coali­tion shot itself in the foot by push­ing through WorkChoices and weak­en­ing its own argu­ment;
2. Busi­ness, sniff­ing the elect­oral wind, is well pre­pared to talk to Labor; and
3. The elect­or­ate is much changed and more prag­matic. Ideo­lo­gical shib­boleths push far fewer but­tons these days.

Hav­ing trivi­al­ised people’s eco­nomic lit­er­acy, the “can’t man­age the eco­nomy” argu­ment doesn’t work either. At the 2004 elec­tion, Howard called upon Aus­trali­ans to trust him on interest rates. And whatever tech­nic­al­it­ies Liberal-luvvies may rely upon, people inter­preted it as a prom­ise to keep interest rates low. Betray­ing someone’s trust strikes them very deeply, and psy­cho­lo­gic­ally they are not very dis­posed to give second chances. Howard blew it with that oppor­tun­istic prom­ise, and the mort­gage belt aren’t happy. Come Christ­mas, he’ll be able to spend a lot more time with his his new grand­son.Betty Boop and the Little King dvdMid­night Express divxThe Tragedy of Macbeth rip