Rudd's Prolonged Honeymoon Will End at the Approach of Ballot Box

A reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to Professor Sinclair Davidson’s article, titled A Perfect Political Storm May Sink Coalition, On Line Opinion, November 6, 2007


Professor Davidson presents a serious and imaginative argument on the axis of Joseph Schumpeter’s notion of “job ownership” as an answer to the puzzling question that a government that has engendered a crop of prosperity in Australia faces electoral defeat.

But there is a fundamental contradiction in his argument that torpedoes his thesis. For if “WorkChoices legislation” and the processes of the free-market—which were in existence under Kim Beazley and had hardly impacted favorably to his electoral prospects as they presumably do now with Kevin Rudd—are psychologically threatening the “job ownership” of Australians, an untested Rudd as economic manager, who can still cannot outpace Howard as a better economic manager--as he has done on other issues-- that in the electorate is almost an indelible perception and which all polls clearly show, can hardly make workers feel more secure about their job ownership under his government. Moreover a government that is perceived to be dominated by the unions which scarcely have the reputation of saving or creating jobs. In such a situation, it’s hardly imaginable that people will vote for the devil they do not really know.

I believe that there is another subjective element that tentatively answers the puzzle. It’s the prolonged honeymoon, for as yet unknown psychological reasons, of Rudd with the electorate that continuous to drive his favorable polls. They have created a momentum of success and the people who are answering the questions of the pollsters get a great frisson, a great thrill, by thinking they are riding on this winning horse. But their thrill will cease before the end of the race, that is, as they approach the ballot box. At the vicinity of the real poll on November 24, when the prospects of the two parties will be very close, “subjective reality” will be given its knockout punch by objective reality, and the electorate will chose the current economic security against the uncertainty generated by union dominated Labor occupying the treasury benches.