Supposedly the Labor Party lacks vision, leadership and an ability to engage the community. This is touchy feely garbage which ignores the realities of our Westminster forms of government and the interaction of the media with both the government and opposition. If Labor wants to get in faster they should wish for a recession, or alternatively make some sensible democratic choices such as term limits on the Executive and fixed term elections.

Natural Party of Government

The term, or the concern that a party is becoming the natural party of government is journalistic and partisan hubris. Also the notion that the so-called left, or the so-called right are in disarray and permanent chaos is also hubris. The Westminster system gives undue power to the Executive, which is informally invested in the Prime Minister. Incumbency is the biggest differentiator in an election - the churn rate is exceptionally low. Prime Ministers are more likely to lose their position to something other than an election.

When the Liberals under Menzies dominated parliament for twenty three years, there was the assumption that Labor was permanently unfavoured by the electorate. This ignored Menzies ability to wedge at election time, as well as the effect of Democratic Labor Party. It also ignores the work of the post-Menzies governments of Holt, Gorton and McMahon in modernising the pre-1950s policies and world-view of the Menzies government.

We then had Whitlam come in with a revolutionary zeal, and fall to both an incompetent cabinet before the bunyip aristocracy reclaimed "their" government through the Governor-General. If Whitlam's time in government shows anything, it is that external economic factors, as well as an opposition who has been too long out of power are damaging for an aspiring government. Then we get Fraser again, who applied 1960s economic principle to an economy that was on the edge of booming into the information age.

The common folklore over Fraser losing the 1983 election was that it was a "drover's dog" election where the local drover could have put his dog up for election and beating Fraser. But was it? Bill Hayden, who announced he was going to step down as Labor, commented;

Fraser meanwhile, had made the most disastrous decision of his whole political career. He rushed out to Government House, without a prior appointment being made, to call a double dissolution. If only he had waited, the course of our political history might well have been quite different, something he has acknowledged to me in private conversation.

The media then made sure the Liberals were in permanent disarray, running through Peacock, Howard, Peacock, Downer, Howard, Hewson, to Howard again. Labor with the power of government fell in behind the Prime Minister, until Keating decided to make a claim for the position. I recall that there was mention of Labor being the natural party of government since they obviously understood economic reform better than previous Liberal governments. And now we have the Liberals ten years in. The slow oscillation of Westminster government continues with all the advantages that incumbency offers.

The states are no different. They are all multi-term Labor governments. The closest thing to term limits the States have is NSW's ICAC. It ousted Greiner and probably weighed in on Carr's decision to retire from the Premier position.

The Waitocracy

John Howard and Kim Beazley are the same politician. They are both products of the Australian waitocracy. Howard has been remarked upon as lazarus with a triple bypass because he survived several leadership changes before becoming Prime Minister. The lesson there is that winning elections is the only thing that gives a party leader any legitimacy and authority under our present system. Howard was as much in the wilderness between 1983 and 1996, as Beazley is now.

Both pursue small target political campaigns. Howard was fortunate that Keating didn't have a Tampa or 911 in 1996 that he could whip the electorate into a frenzy about. All government's have used the power of government and the public purse to wedge, discredit and politically isolate their opponents. The Howard government is currently using taxpayer dollars to sell a policy that was not formalised legislatively until recently, and will most likely come into constitutional contention. But this is not unique for an Australian government. Taxpayer dollars have been purloined all through Australian history to attack oppositions.

There is no natural party of government, there is only incumbency. This is the best indicator of past and future election performance. We participate in a system of slow oscillation, that rewards those already in power, not only with ongoing terms, but an entropy of all power toward the centre. The Westminster is not a strong system. It is weak in checks and balances, and needs procedural additions to protect democracy.

There needs to be, at the minimum, the addition of;

• Fixed term elections.
• Term limits on the Prime Minister and Premier positions.
• Citizen Auditors.

This will be a start in defeating the waitocracy.

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Most of the governments in Australia at the state and federal level have been in power for near or over a decade. This is too long. Corruption and hubris have a habit of entrenching themselves after approximately eight years. The federal and state governments now openly use tax payer money to push their party policies, abuse is endemic. The Pittwater result is a poor one, not only for Liberals in NSW, but for oppositions in general.

Opposition

It is all through the Australian media. Anyone but Beazley, Independents beating Liberals in a safe seat with a 25% swing, the Victorians Liberals in a similar media reported stoush ;

But far from feeling any pressure at this stage, the Government is sitting back and enjoying the spectacle of its parliamentary opposition self-destructing. After yet another disastrous week, the Victorian Liberal Party appears to be at war with itself. It's caught up in a destructive internal conflict, one based on personalities not policies, which could result in an even worse result for the Opposition at the next election.

Robert Doyle's leadership is the subject of relentless speculation, even though he has no challenger. Ted Baillieu, the man constantly cited as his rival, has repeatedly declared he is not planning a challenge. But the so-called Costello-Kroger faction, which dominates the administrative machine, has alienated a significant minority of the parliamentary party. And with few exceptions, its preselection process has thrown up a largely mediocre group of unknown or recycled defeated MPs.

So we have the media, constantly claiming the oppositions are in turmoil, and without the authority of government to prove their capability, they end up in a permanent pool of illegitimacy. The media loves drama, Howard's so called "Athens deceleration" was nothing, absolutely nothing . Yet the media continues, or attempts to portray it as important ;

The threat had been made by Costello supporters after Howard, in musings in Athens in April, suggested he could beat Kim Beazley a third time. Some backers have recently pushed the timetable out beyond the budget. They accept the impracticality of a transition a month or so before the budget -- or, if Howard was digging in, the bad vibes that would be sent out by the Treasurer acting up at that point.

But an incumbent government is better placed to fight these suggestions off, having access to legislation, tax payer money, and as Gary Sauer-Thompson is fond of saying capable of drip-feeding the media to guide the public discourse for political ends .

Sections of the media have allowed themselves to become conduits for government spin. The journalists are either on the drip feed or they are content to recycle media releases. Either way they become publicity agents for particular politicians. The feeding is all carefully planned and organized.

The opposition hasn't the same access to the power of the civil service, nor the treasury, so can't create policy, it can only fight "small target" elections.

The state Labor governments and the federal Liberal governments have been in power too long, they are on the nose, and openly abusing the parliamentary system. At a time when we need the state Liberals to be stronger, and federal Labor to be stronger, for the sake of democracy and to at least maintain some form of churn rate, we are seeing them be kicked further and further into the dirt.

More

SSR has covered incumbency numerous times;

• Increasing The Churn Rate
• HOWTO: Offset The Power Of Incumbency
• Offsetting The Power Of Incumbency
• Incumbency Issue Again, NSW Legislation
• Statistics On State And Federal Elections

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The Robson Rotation is an electoral technology used in Tasmania which jumbles the order of the candidates within a party grouping on the ballot paper. it was developed as a challenge to the donkey vote, effectively dampening any skewing of the vote by voters ticking off the first five in the list. Does the Robson Rotation affect incumbency?

I took the years a member has served between 1946 and 1980 which is prior to the introduction of the Robson Rotation. I also took the number of years a member has served since 1980. I then averaged the years over the number of members.

Despite this clunky method, it appears that all average number of years a member serves since the introduction of the Robson Rotation is less for all electorates in Tasmania.

Does the Robson Rotation increase the churn rate and reduce incumbency? There appears to be some correlation that it does.