Labor lacks what it will take to win

JUST prior to the 2014 state election, around the time that Rebecca White belatedly and publicly split with her own party over deals with the Greens, I formed the opinion she was “the next Labor Premier”.

Smart, driven, more politically savvy than she was given credit for at the time. Now, I’m not so sure.

The first seeds of doubt were sown when Ms White drank the kool-aid over pokies prior to the last election.

This was followed by her ungracious election night speech — reminding me of the Iraqi information minister claiming Saddam was winning while US tanks rolled by in the background.

While we all make mistakes, the secret — as John Howard said — is not to make the same mistake twice.

One of the biggest mistakes the Liberals made following the 2010 election defeat was to not officially scrap policies that were rejected by the electorate. Take for example the policy to duplicate the Midland Highway. It was roundly rejected by the electorate as pie-inthe-sky and ridiculed by Labor in very effective road versus health funding campaign ads.

The Liberals decided not to recommit to it but unfortunately never officially said the policy was dead. As a result, even though they did not take a policy to duplicate every last centimetre of the Midland Highway to the 2014 election, everyone thought — and still thinks — it’s a government commitment.

So, Ms White’s postelection decision to double down on the pokies policy really did cause me to scratch my head.

It seems Ms White has had a post-election doubleshot of pokies kool-aid, and now bizarrely believes that the pokies policy actually helped them win seats!

Oh, and it was all that evil advertising that tricked those gullible voters. The reality is advertising only works if the message is believable. Telling people what they can and can’t do and saying something’s so evil it has to be banned (but only in some places) is bad policy, no matter how you look at it.

But it’s another, more recent event that has caused me much more concern about exactly how motivated and driven the Opposition are. Recently, it was reported that the Speaker has offered to spend goodness knows how much taxpayers’ money moving the Opposition out of their Parliament House offices and into the new Parliament Square development.

In response, Ms White was reported as saying she would be glad to accept the offer.

A similar offer was made to the then Liberal Oppo- sition by Labor Speaker Polley in around 2012. I was chief of staff to then Opposition leader Hodgman, and we politely declined the offer.

Certainly, the budget circumstances were different and we didn’t want to be seen to be the beneficiaries of sparse taxpayer funds. More importantly, we didn’t want to be moving out of those cramped Parliament House offices until we had earned it with a move to Level 11 of Executive Building as the elected Government.

It’s the small things like this that keep you motivated and driven to win during the dark days of opposition.

You might ask — so what? Labor’s now level in the polls, smashing the Government on health, and surely doing enough. Not so. Winning Government from Opposition is a marathon. To win, every box needs to be ticked, every loose end tied up and no opportunities missed.

Yes, it is a No. 1 rule that Government’s lose elections — but normally that’s because good Oppositions help them to do so. Most days reveals an obvious and easy attack to be made on the Government, yet rarely does Labor seize it.

And, make no mistake — if Ms White fails to deliver, then David O’Byrne will strike. He didn’t come back into Parliament just to keep his sister company.

Compare Ms White’s approach to that of Bill Shorten. He’s hungry, wants to make every post a winner and has already laid out clear policy markers well ahead of the election. There’s still a long way to go, but I’m just not convinced that Labor under Ms White has got what it takes to win at the moment.