Wow , what a rollercoaster ride!
Let me declare up front that I am neither a dedicated Labor follower, nor a blue died Liberal supporter, although I would say I am Left leaning. All of the below are my personal opinions and do not reflect any positions regarding any organisations or businesses that I may be associated with.
However, Malcolm Turnbull has only himself to blame for the outcome of this election. Over the next few days, there will be a lot of soul-searching within the Liberal ranks and investigation in Labor as to why they were unable to convince more people to vote against the Libs.
The results show that, in many cases, local issues overrode the Federal imperatives. The Tasmanian result is a direct result of the Tasmanian unhappiness with the performance of the State Liberal Government.and the Labor party would have done much better in Victoria if the State Labor government had settled the CFA dispute before the election.
The Medicare Scare campaign, whilst a dirty trick (and a particularly good example of The Big Lie), showed that the people of Australia are distrustful of politicians in general and particularly the Liberals. What the Tony Abbott mistruths about Education and Health showed is that political expediency will always have negative results in the long run. We can look at Julia Gillard ("There will be no Carbon Tax under my government") and see this from the Labor perspective. What the Australian people are sick of is the continual Liberal whining that the Labor party out tricked them in the dirty tricks department. Instead of whining about the past, start talking about how this has made you aware that many people are unhappy with your performance and you will stop chopping services that affect the more vulnerable in our society in favour of targetting those in the higher income brackets who are blatantly not paying their fair share of taxes. Remember that every dollar given to a welfare recipient is money spent in the economy as versus being added to the zeros on the end of a wealthy person's bank statement.
Simply stating that Medicare was safe and that it would never be privatised, contradicted what people could see when the Liberals convened a committee to investigate options. Like Caesar's wife, the Libs had to be seen not only to be protecting Medicare, but to actively be trying to improve it. Steps like removing bulk-billing for pathology and medical imaging looks an awful lot like trying to introduce privatisation. So as much as Malcolm claimed that they would protect Medicare, the actions of chopping various services was enough to put a scare into people that this could happen.
Add this to Malcolm's sound bite saying that sometimes politicians have to change their position regarding promises and you start to see why many people did not trust the Liberals.
On the other hand, Bill Shorten and the Labor party were particularly noticeable in their lack of solid policy statements. It was almost like they did not want to commit to anything that may come back to bite them after the election. We've seen this happen in the past, for example Tony Abbott's scare campaign in the last federal election as opposition leader. As Opposition leader, all he did was snipe at the incumbent government. Obviously it is not the Opposition's task to suggest policy to Government, only to suggest holes in the proposed policies. The Liberals took this a step further and used possible errors in policy as cheap point scoring opportunities and quite often stooped to personal insults. Bill rarely stooped to this level and certainly appears to have "played the ball, not the man" on most issues of debate.
Much as I hate to say it, the politics of personality is still alive and well in Australia. Malcolm Turnbull has learnt from many years as an investment banker and business person that many people respond well when you are welcoming and come offering something that they want. What you as a business person have to ensure, is that any offer is deliverable and cost effective for your side of the equation as well. That being said, Malcolm Turnbull appears to be a likable fellow but more like the bank manager than a mate from the footy club.
Bill Shorten on the other hand is hamstrung by his background in the Trade Union movement. The Trade Unions for all their worthy origins, have become an obstruction in a lot of businesses and as their influence wanes, they get more strident in their demands, to prove to their membership that "they are still fighting for their brothers and sisters." Unions still have their place but they must remember that at the end of the day, their task is to ensure that their membership is able to work a decent day's work for a decent wage. Whilst most businesses have no argument with reasonable demands, the Unions coming in like an Aussie tourist bartering in Bali with extremely outrageous offers, sets the wrong tone in any negotiation. Add to this the illegal activities of some of the Trade Union members and you start seeing that "if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick". In this case Bill had been in the Royal commission hearings and so some of the issues that were raised in this stuck to the Labor party. Bill also seems to be a fairly harmless sort, the sort of guy you would meet at a Rotary meeting or Lions Club.
In conclusion I think the result is a combination of factors, and we will see in the next few days how well Malcolm has learned to negotiate, as he tries to convince the independents to support his government. I do not believe that the independents are going to be as powerful as they were in the previous government , but that may be because of Malcolm's negotiating skills. The Independents appear conservative enough to lean towards the Libs rather than the ALP but at the end of the day, it will take a lot of the "politics of the possible" for the Libs to get their more contentious items through parliament.
