Labor looks for better salesmanship

By Misha Schubert
Political Correspondent
October 11, 2004

Graphic: The Age

It's the economy, stupid! As the dust settled on Labor's defeat yesterday, insiders agreed on at least one clear lesson: the party needs an aggressive economic strategy for it to wrest back government.

"Interest rates were the Tampa of 2004," said one insider yesterday. "We've got to improve our salesmanship on how we can handle the economy."

That this issue, more than any other, was Labor's Achilles heel showed up time and again in the party's internal research.

On Saturday, almost one in two people who voted for the Coalition in key NSW marginals said interest rates were the issue that decided their vote.

Then there was the taxi driver in one focus group who liked Mark Latham and the health and schools policies, "but I don't want to lose my house".

As Labor's assistant national secretary, Mike Kaiser, conceded yesterday: "We need to engage on the debate on the economy."

Labor figures admit it's a big task to unseat a government in an economic boom. Yet many insiders think Labor could have been more aggressive on the Government's vulnerabilities - housing affordability and the pressure on family budgets - and talking up Labor's own credentials, well before the election.

As federal Liberal director Brian Loughnane said yesterday: "I was, to be frank, amazed that Labor conceded that ground."

With its energies and advertising budget divided between multiple tasks - introducing a new leader, countering attacks on his past, explaining detailed major policies, establishing its own economic credentials and neutralising the interest rates scare campaign - Labor spent only a fraction of its advertising countering the Coalition's interest rates advertisements.

"We could have spent it all on interest rate inoculation, but that would have left the other essential tasks unfinished," said one insider.

The economy, more than any other issue, was Labor's Achilles heel.

One thing is for sure in the weeks ahead: the party needs a new, more aggressive spokesman on economic issues.

Simon Crean, who failed to make an impact, should be moved aside for a smart and relentless campaigner such as immigration spokesman Stephen Smith.

Mr Latham will be helped in the task of denting the Coalition's economic credentials by the expected rises in interest rates ahead, and by any future downturn. But he also has to tackle a second problem that kept bobbing up in research: the "better-the-devil-you-know" factor. Voters wanted to know him better, and he will have to work as hard as he has in the past six weeks to help them understand who he is and how he would govern.

There were also criticisms that Labor left too many of its big, complex policies until the election campaign, leaving many beneficiaries confused by the detail.

As for Labor's leadership, there is no talk of a challenge to Mr Latham.

Party national secretary Tim Gartrell told the Sunday program: "Upheaval never works at times like this."

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