Member advice: Election 2010

Labor is going to run strongly on “moving forward”. Labor has focused on traditional strengths in health and education, claiming also economical credentials. Gillard also wants to focus on the future and not the Rudd Government performance over the last 3 years. She is also implying in that slogan that the Coalition is backward and that Tony Abbott will move back to workchoices and will cut basic services.

The Coalition will run on competence, cost of living, maladministration by Labor and the only way to change for the better is to “change the Government”. They will tie very heavily Gillard with Rudd and seek to recast her as part of the problem not the solution hence to change Australia’s direction you have to change the Government.

Abbott has moved quickly to try and get Workchoices off the Agenda by saying that Workchoices is dead and cremated!

Both parties are moving to capture the so called centre – pitching to swinging voters.

The Campaigns are both very negative in contrast to the Labor 2007 campaign which was about fresh leadership, fresh approach. The campaign itself will be absolutely critical this time in deciding who wins government.

The polls are seeming to indicate a return of the Government, with Greens and Nick Xenophon holding the balance of power in the Senate. The key states will be Queensland and NSW however if the election is very tight other states will come into play.

It also important to note that in a close poll this is all about the marginal seats, with each electorate being a mini-election in itself. There will be both state and regional variations in support for the parties.

This is in my view will be critical to understanding this election – it is likely for example that Queensland seats may move against the government whereas in other states it may remain neutral (ie SA) or even positive for the Government.
 
Hence, caution needs to be exercised in focusing on national polling which appears to give Labor the edge if individual seats are not mirroring a uniform national swing. The recent South Australian election was very good example of this with so called safe labor seats on big margin being lost and the marginals retained.

Due to redistributions the Coalition need to win 17 seats to form government.


B.    What does this mean for us?

Over the last month with support of the CEO’s and members we have clarified our positions on a number of key issues. We now have policies on the following key areas:

These policies will allow us to assess the policies released by all parties during the campaign and analyse what it means for us.

We expect to focus on two key areas: Skills and Skills Training and procurement issues in so far as they arise. Whilst we are delighted that our South Australian Skills Centre has been approved for funding we will be continuing to press for our Queensland Centre of Excellence. We will also press hard to remove a number of anomalies such as our exclusion from the National Skills Needs List.


C.    Updates and Next steps

It is our intention to provide regular updates during the campaign and to make media comments as required.

For updates please see our website under “Election 2010 – Infrastructure more than just a Media Release".