The Westminster system is a stagnant form of electoral government with huge advantages to the incumbent. As Rodney Smith noted, electorates are bribed with massive handouts, swinging minority interest groups in competitive are also bribed, often with non-core promises. Other than the public purse, the mechanisms of government also get abused. Keating's Animals are one example, Howard's fabrication of the "children overboard" another.

About the only means of electoral change is through a "drover's dog" election coming along every ten years or so, when the incumbent government is perceived as corrupt, out of touch with the electorate and has exhausted any policy they originally ran on. So how does an opposition party win an election?

Ryebuck Politics

Since it seems in Federal, and in many State systems that a party only loses an election once it alienates the electorate through a perception of corruption, along with arrogance from power. But even this is not enough as the Hewson vs Keating showdown displayed. A Labor government with an arrogant leader managed to win the unlosable election.

Other than getting a Governor-General like John Kerr to kick out the elected government, the only other means to get into government is persuade the electorate your party is worthy, or to attack the issue from the opposite end, convince the electorate the the government is corrupt, exhausted, arrogant and out of touch.

Conservative parties have an easier time of getting in government as part of their rhetoric is about small government, and the Reaganite view that "government is not the answer, it is the problem". Conservative parties can attack government itself and by extension the party in power. Since Labor parties tend not to view big government as necessarily a bad thing, they tend to have trouble attacking government itself.

It is all rhetoric anyway, conservative parties expand government at the same or increasing rates than Labor parties. Social democracy as practised by both parties maximises government to the greatest tax burden that can be born. One aspect of modern politics is that you can pretty much say anything and the spinners will spin it for the news cycle so that it sticks or is forgotten. Election promises are also meaningless, neither party is held to them.

Pure as the Driven Snow

Continually paint the government as corrupt. Agitate for independent commissions such as the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). Any attempt by the party in power to block innovations such as an independent commission is proof of their corruption. Establish numerous committees, all intended to peer into the process of the government for information to show the corruption inherent in the party in power. All governments are corrupt, just the extent differs.

Politic for a Bill of Rights and other legislation that places limits on government action. Since every party currently holding government seeks absolute power, they will attempt to stop the legislation, unless the public call for it is overriding. Again, anytime the government opposes or changes the argument, bring it back to corruption in government, and the claim that they are opposing out of fear for the corruption they have already partaken in.

This type of legislation should be popular with third parties as well. It also paints the opposition as altruistic and concerned about honesty in government.

Another aspect an electorate feels is when a government is out of touch. The Liberal Governments after Menzies' retirement suffered from this, as did the Paul Keating government. Again the party in opposition should start painting the government as out of touch, bent into legislative depravity by the power the electorate handed them in the previous election. Again this should be harped on, over and over, until it becomes true.

Conclusion

Once a party gets dumped into opposition, under the current system it just has to wait for somewhere between nine and twenty-four years. So what can an opposition party do to try and lessen that waiting period?

• Attack "government" itself as corrupt, coveting all power to themselves and basically just an instrument for the party in power to act like tyrants.
• Paint the party in power as corrupt.
• Paint the party in power as arrogant and out of touch with the electorate.
• Just keep repeating the same small subset of messages - over and over.

Since an opposition party has to wait for a "drover's dog" election anyway, which at the moment appears to be about nine and a half years, it can't hurt to try and artificially establish the premise for a drover's dog election ahead of time.

Who knows, it may work better than Beazley's small target policy, Latham's aggressive policy creation or the policy of whoever becomes the Liberal leader of the opposition when they get voted out.

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