If you live in Newcastle you know all about election fatigue.
Brace yourself for mandate fatigue.
You know, when a candidate or party says that they fought an
election on such and such a policy and were subsequently elected, so it
therefore follows that they have an electoral mandate to carry out that policy.
I’ve never been much of a believer in this simplistic version
of mandate theory.
Elections are complicated phenomena, and it’s notoriously difficult
to isolate the manifold and often contradictory array of factors that motivate the
choices that voters make at the moment when their pencil meets the ballot paper.
But an examination of how the electoral mandate argument has
been used (some might suggest, manipulated) over the past few years in the
Newcastle area makes a fascinating study in political contortion and
rationalisation.
The election of Tim Owen and Jeff McCloy as Newcastle’s state
member and Lord Mayor respectively back in 2011 and 2012 was the basis for
their supporters claiming an electoral mandate for cutting the Newcastle rail
line.
Local political insiders were certainly aware of where both Owen
and McCloy stood on the rail line issue before they were elected, but both
candidates astutely avoided mentioning this in their mass-distributed election
campaign advertising and publicity material.
Cashed-up election campaigns and some simple marketing
allowed Owen and McCloy to ride the conservative groundswell of political
vengeance against the Labor Party that washed over NSW in that era of Obeid
Labor.
But the local development lobby and elements of the local
media hailed these local electoral victories as indicating popular support for cutting
the Newcastle rail line. After decades of failing to convince governments of the
merits of their case for cutting the rail line, they saw the opportunity of a
compliant government and grasped it.
You couldn’t criticise the NSW government for tardiness in
giving the anti-rail lobby what it wanted.
Without further consultation and on
the grounds of discredited evidence later condemned by a parliamentary inquiry,
the government cut the Newcastle rail line, bringing the truncation date
forward - against the advice of its own transport department and at significant
extra expense – to the start of the festive season, when public attention is
usually focussed on other matters.
Then came ICAC, Bentleys, brown-paper bags full of illegal cash
donations, political resignations, a parliamentary inquiry and a series of revelations
from previously secret documents that blew the cover off the shadowy relationship
between development interests and governments in Newcastle.
And elections.
Firstly, we had the by-election to replace our self-described
walking ATM Lord Mayor, then the by-elections for state members to replace some
of those who drew from that ATM, then a council ward by-election. In all these,
parties and candidates who favoured retaining the rail line won significant
majorities, easily outpolling those supporting rail removal.
Then the big one – the March state election.
Big because the
Baird government itself had declared that, locally, that election would constitute
a “referendum” on the rail line and on the Baird government’s particular approach
to Newcastle’s revitalisation.
The result was another clear victory to parties and candidates
who advocated restoring Newcastle’s lost rail services. Some of the biggest
swings against the Baird government were in the Hunter, despite the Liberals
allocating significant resources to stop this.
In the world of mandate theory, a “referendum” is about as
close as you get to a pure mandate vote.
In calling – and losing – it’s
proclaimed referendum on the rail line, the Coalition has been hoist by its own
petard.
Understandably, pro-rail candidates and groups have leapt on
the result to proclaim the outcome of the “referendum”, and to announce the end
of any “mandate” for cutting the rail line.
A major difficulty for the state government is that they not
only lost the referendum they called, but that the argument they are now using to
justify their claimed electoral mandate for privatising the poles and wires works
entirely against them on the issue of the rail line.
In the case of the rail line, the pro-rail mandate isn’t
even complicated by a counter-mandate in the NSW upper house, where the numbers
favour rail restoration.
It will be a fascinating test of whether the Baird
government really does believe the mandate argument, or whether it’s just
another convenient piece of electoral rhetoric to trot out when it suits them.
