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Vision of the good society

Demise of the Kennett Government in Victoria

by Simon Longstaff

What are we to make of the incredible result in the recent (2000) Victorian State Election? Was this a dreadful mistake made by a voting public that accidentally turned a protest vote into an unintended drubbing of the Kennett government? Or was the result evidence of something more significant?

While not wanting to express any opinion about the qualities of either individual politicians or associated political parties, I think that some general issues can still be considered. For it seems to me that the message delivered by the voters of Victoria is one that political parties, of all persuasions, ought to heed.

One of the most significant points to be noted when considering this result is that the change of government took place despite the incumbent government being widely admired for its credentials as a prudent manager of Victoria's economy. Indeed, the Kennett government was often promoted as having converted that state from a basket case to a place of vitality. Even the harshest of Mr Kennett's critics had to admit that peopler had a renewed pride in the state.

Yet, the government that had done so much to fix the economy was, unexpectedly, rejected by the people. Why? As noted above, some put it down to a protest vote gone wrong. An alternative explanation is that the people of Victoria decided that, in this day and age, economic efficiency is not enough. Perhaps people developed a bank of stored resentment at some of the early decisions of the Kennett government and reckoned that the gain did not outweigh the pain. This certainly seems to be what voters were saying in rural and regional Victoria. Yes, economic development was good but no, government is required to ensure that the benefits are fairly distributed.

This interpretation of the result is certainly open to question. However, the popular reaction of the Australian community to the situation in East Timor would lend weight to the suggestion that the community is being guided by something more than self-interest. Knowing that the cost in terms of people's lives and community resources might be extremely high, the Australian people took a leading role in pressing the government to repay what many consider to be a debt of honour owed to the Timorese people. In other words, East Timor offers a further contemporary example of the community setting aside limited economic self-interest in favour of the principle of justice.

It could be suggested that it was the economic success of the Kennett government that allowed Victorians the luxury of voting it out of office. An economically weak community might have stuck with the abrasive but effective Mr Kennett. Ironically, Mr Kennett may have been a victim of his own success.

If this is so, then the politicians leading the conservative parties should have registered the beginning of a sea change and responded accordingly. They should have recognised that the achievement of relative prosperity had lifted the lash from the back of a community that was prepared to suffer a lot in the name of a better future. Unfortunately, good times call for a leader who is capable of creating and sustaining a vision for the future that explains and justifies the sacrifices made along the way to prosperity. Unfortunately for the Kennett government, it either failed to develop a compelling account of such a future or, having developed such a vision, it failed to communicate it in a way that would allow ordinary folk to embrace the vision as justification for the harsh decisions made in the early years of government.

Of course, the task of building a consensus around a vision of the good society is not really part of Mr Kennett's style. In fact, he once outlined a principled commitment to the task of generating controversy – even by way of adopting extreme policy positions in the name of provoking discussion. In Mr Kennett's view, the value of controversy was rooted in his belief that a healthy democracy only develops in the midst of passionate debate.

It seems to me that events like the Victorian election result and the reaction to the predicament in East Timor point to a deeper change that is taking place in Australia. It is a change that mirrors similar movements in other parts of the world – movements that have seen citizens, shareholders and consumers (often the same person) raise the stakes for those who seem to be powerful.

The message is not just for governments to digest. As business accumulates more power, it too will need to watch for sea changes of a kind that the Kennett government may have failed to notice.

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