Memo, Liberals: Labor's incompetence alone won't carry Barry
Michael Duffy
November 22, 2008

Today's subject is that sorry bunch, the state Coalition. Barry O'Farrell and colleagues plumbed new depths this week, with their decision to campaign against what was almost the only good idea in the recent mini-budget: the decision to make parents pay a small proportion of their children's free school travel.

It's a good idea because cuts need to be made somewhere, thanks to economic circumstances, and this scheme is worth cutting because it is inefficient and inequitable. A lot of the scheme's cost of $470 million a year is for pupils who do not use public transport and a lot of those who do use it are the children of wealthy parents who do not need a subsidy.

This has not stopped the Coalition launching a new website, www .savestudenttravel.com.au. Parents are urged to protest against the Government's decision to make them pay $45 ($90 for high school pupils) of the $700 a year the scheme costs for each child. The Liberals got a good response to this from some voters, and why not? You can always find people to complain about having to pay more for anything. But in terms of good policy, the campaign might have been an own goal.

Liberals I have talked to have assured me the campaign "feeds into a growing narrative of discontent with the Labor Government". Maybe, but it also feeds into a similar narrative regarding the Coalition.

The Liberals obviously believe victory at the next election is inevitable. But, as Peter Debnam demonstrated, it is possible to be such a bad Opposition that voters will re-elect a poor government. Despite growing Coalition complacency, this could happen again.

In the past two weeks, the performance of the Opposition indicates it cannot yet be taken seriously. Its arguments about school travel were largely rhetoric, ranging in tone from the vacuous to the nasty. "Many families are breaking point," Barry O'Farrell announced in a press release. His facts were as off as his grammar. Some families are at breaking point and eligible to receive all sorts of assistance from government agencies and charities. But most are not. It is bad policy to argue for change for everyone based on the problems of a small minority.

O'Farrell says those pupils whose parents are too poor to pay the enormous contribution to the scheme will have to walk to school, which "puts them at greater risk because they often need to cross busy major roads".

But there is no escape for all those others who (somewhat mysteriously) will now be driven to school every day by parents anxious to save their $45. According to the Opposition transport spokeswoman, Gladys Berejiklian: "More cars on the road around schools increases the possibility of children being hit and injured or even killed."

Is this the best they can do?

This campaign reminds us of O'Farrell's poor policy record, his opposition to electricity privatisation and, more recently, his sad response to last week's mini-budget. That, too, was idea-free and high on rhetoric, as though the leader had swallowed a thesaurus.

Labor, he said, stole the hope that every man, woman and child is entitled to; NSW had become self-doubting and introspective; the Government had demonstrated deceit, arrogance, mismanagement, lack of vision, spin, failure to plan, mistakes, lies, savagery, sheer negligence, incompetence and bungling; Nathan Rees is lashing, slugging, cutting, attacking, kicking, and putting families on the hotplate. The state's services are appalling, diabolical, poorly managed, struggling, failed. Yes, Barry, but would you be any better?

The Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, issued a press release in response, saying O'Farrell "has failed to put forward one single idea or policy for the people of NSW … [He and his colleagues] have publicly stated their opposition to tough measures."

The Treasurer is not right about much but he was right about this. He also said that on the same day O'Farrell was promising Parliament a Coalition government would live within its means, he had told Mike Carlton's listeners on 2UE that if necessary such a government would borrow billions of dollars.

This inconsistent, heavily negative, policy-free approach is not good enough. It is not good for the state (good government is often inspired by good opposition) and it might not be good enough to get the Coalition over the line at the next election.

When I have put this to Liberals, they have responded with two arguments. The first is that if they put up any good ideas, the Government would just steal them. But that would seem to attribute too much good sense and decisiveness to the present cabinet. And even if they did steal a few good ideas, so what? The Opposition could take the credit and come up with some more.

The other argument is that the Opposition ought to remain a "small target" and not take any risk of making itself "the story". Well, this is OK if the voters already have some idea of what you stand for (see John Howard, 1996). But for most voters, the state Coalition is nothing but a hot air balloon stuffed with sound bites. It needs to be more than that.

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