Winning is giving honest account
YOU don’t go into a fight, expecting to lose. That kind of psychology just leads to injury. To be successful you have to prepare for success, right?
But in politics everything is different.
The West Australian state Liberal Party is living proof that it is possible to stand for election, and solicit for votes, while publicly admitting that there is no way you are going to win.
Zak Kirkup is the new leader. He’s been in the job for about 15 weeks and already knows that a drover’s dog would have a better chance of victory than he does.
If you believe the polls, it’s a fair assessment.
The Labor Party and Premier Mark McGowan hold apparently unassailable leads.
The figures are quite breathtaking.
Post the 2020 COVID isolation of the state of Western Australia, McGowan has got an 88 per cent approval rating. Last week it was reported Labor was leading the two-party preferred poll 68-32.
That’s wipeout territory for the Liberals, and so Zak Kirkup has thrown caution to the wind and taken the risk of telling the truth. He has conceded defeat already.
He has stated publicly that he knows that his party cannot win government from this position.
He only holds his own seat by about 300 votes, so now is probably the perfect time to come clean and admit that you’re not going to win.
Honesty is a radical strategy for some in politics, but in this case it is super smart.
Kirkup is making the case that in order to ensure that democracy is best served in the West, the voters need to make sure that the Liberals are not reduced to a minor party status or, worse still, a handful of independents.
He’s right.
Every government needs an organised, functional opposition. A smart collective that can work together to hold the government to account.
In the leadership debate he said it was “dignified to talk about the future of our state and talk about what it means for democracy if Labor gets too much control”.
By declaring his party a nonstarter in this contest, he may just have unlocked the two ingredients necessary for political success in the 21st century — authenticity and transparency. Voters want these two things from their leaders more than anything else.
Last year demonstrated that we are not so much interested in Left and Right as we are in right and wrong. We now know that we need to know: What’s the problem and what is the plan?
The pandemic has shaped the 2021 political landscape. It exposed the politicians who treated their constituents like mushrooms.
It has delivered huge popularity ratings for the sitting leaders in both sides of politics. Basically, if you were in the national cabinet, you got a percentage boost in the polls. Voters are supporting the Prime Minister and the Premier of Western Australia with similar enthusiasm.
We are not interested in being patronised, we want to know the truth and it looks like the young Zak Kirkup has twigged to this transition in the bedrock.
If he was going into the final days of the election campaign by hyping and marketing himself as the man who could steal victory from the jaws of defeat, he would lose.
Nobody is going to be able to turn 68-32 into a positive story.
The smartest thing to do is to tell the electorate that you can read the pulse of the politick. If you can commit to being honest about losing, then in the future that may turn into a win.
So Kirkup is not abandoning his principles. He has made the choice not to throw mud and hope that some of it sticks. He is positing a position that he knows is unpopular in Western Australia right now. But this is the smart play in the long game. It draws national attention to a leader who is capable of reading the room.
That’s somebody who you could vote for next time around.
Who knows? If a few of the heavy hitters from the West like Michaelia Cash and Christian Porter lend him some assistance … maybe he’s still got a chance.
EVERY GOVERNMENT NEEDS AN ORGANISED, FUNCTIONAL OPPOSITION. A SMART COLLECTIVE THAT CAN WORK TOGETHER TO HOLD THE GOVERNMENT TO ACCOUNT.