Day 35- And what have we learnt, Australia?

This morning everyone's talking about the Newspoll (2 party 50-50, with another installment in tomorrow's paper) and the Galaxy poll (52-48 to the ALP), and they're saying the same thing. It's close. Too close to call even! Many predict a close Labor victory, then qualify that with a second chance option of a hung parliament, with Labor returned via Green support (assuming Melbourne will fall Green). Oh it's close. Said closeness is reflected in the Labor poll that dropped, mysteriously, to all radio and TV and papers yesterday. And the popular mail on that 'leak' is: Labor want you to know it's close (have I mentioned how close it is?). So they're pointing out how a casual Labor voter, assuming Labor will sneak in and giving the Libs a protest vote, just a light kick in the ass, might lose the whole shebang for the party they ostensibly support. So, the leaked poll says, your protest vote could have disastrous consequences. Disastrous!

It's a close run thing. It's in the marginals. It's the same thing we've been saying and reading since the leaks of week two crushed Labor's primary vote and exposed a party in all states of crazy. What have we learnt then? Why is it so close? How has it come to this?

Let's go back in time.....

Remember the week of the coup? It was the assumed final sitting week of the 42nd Parliament, with two stories leading the reportage- that an election would be called shortly, probably for October 23 or 30, and that there was chatter of a party room rolling of PM Rudd. Rudd was polling around 51, 52 two-party. A huge drop for a man without friends in the caucus. It was assumed that something might happen on the Monday of that week. And on that Monday, Rudd had a party room meeting and nothing happened. The pundits said-ok, no coup. He's survived. Rudd had a good day on Monday, and on the Tuesday. He was effective in the Parliament. And yet, it was a classic fake- a pysche from Arbib and Howes and the NSW right. On the Wednesday night it went mental, and on Thursday we woke with a new PM. Gillard took the photo ops and spoke well. She was brilliant in Question Time, which I attended in person, getting in ahead of maybe 500 people who were left outside the chamber, keen to see the history.

Thing is, the history was already tainted. Did anyone expect such a touching, human speech from a man widely known as the Ruddbott? Did anyone expect him to show up, on the backbench, in QT? And did Labor realise the sheer carnage that this decision would cause?

After the ructions of Hawke/Keating and the damage of the Howard/Costello 'partnerships', there seemed to be a thought that getting these things done, ripping the band-aid off, was the new way forward. These being accelerated times and all. But for that to work, everything had to go well for Labor. And it has not. Clearly.

Labor's problem has been threefold. Firstly, a Prime Minister was elected on a wave of goodwill, with excitement. The nation, we were told, had changed. We had recognised that the ambient soul of the nation, the stuff that doesn't pop up in polling and rational, scientific assessment, had been tainted by the Howard era. And here was a man with a desire to keep the books steady whilst re-establishing a kinder place. Rudd had the mandate. And Rudd didn't make it work. It was Climate Change primarily, but it was an inability to be seen to be working on the difficult pledges, the leadership questions. He had a chance to reframe the immigration question and did not. He didn't follow through on the 'root and branch' tax reform paper to a level that justified the effort and the noise of that review. He became a figurehead for weasel words. he was just as dull as his predecessor, but without the conviction. And conviction became the key word, strangely. Suddenly it was more important to believe in something, in anything, regardless.

Secondly, that dislike of Rudd did not translate into an understanding of why he was no longer Prime Minister. In this presidential style of campaigning, the nation somehow feel that they voted for Rudd. They never did of course- they voted for Labor. But Labor's story was Rudd's story, and without that leader explaining why he had done what he had, and had not done, they became Rudderless (ahem).

And thirdly, the campaign has not engaged. It has pushed people further away from political process. The election for marginals has never been so obvious. And since Labor has not stuck its neck out, has not lead and sought to convince, it looks lame. It needed to sell its victories- and it has had several. Many have expressed amazement at a place in the economic shape this place is even thinking of turfing a first term Government. But that story is tainted by pink batts and expensive school halls. Labor wedged itself in getting rid of a toxic leader.

More than all that though, is what this says about us, here and now. Is it just me, or is there a feeling that Tony Blair could pay in the not too distant future for his work post 2001? Not just through Polanski films, but through the people of Britain. They seem disgusted by that period in their nations life. Bush will escape serious scrutiny, as Kissenger has before him, but Blair might have some hard days in European courts soon. And our country is associated. The early noughties (what a horrible term btw) seem to be a time we're still to make full sense of. But certainly something in this place changed. Howard, in seeing a political opportunity in Tampa and making a policy in light of that that stemmed a year of terrible polls and gave him another term in office, shifted the nation not just to the right, but to somewhere less engaged and connected to itself, to notions of community. This isn't simply a cry from the left, but a recognition of how we seem to regard each other, how we live, what we do with our time. Social capitalism had won. Duty to nation and community had been usurped in favour of spending, of protecting one's investment, one's home, one's stuff. There are forces out to get us, so lets board the place up. And Labor had a chance to re-set that thinking just a little in 2007, and they failed. Tony Abbott seemed to be a farcical choice in 2008. Less so in 2009. And today, he's a possible- a very possible Prime Minister.

We've never been near as open, as relaxed and as decent as we've given ourselves popular credit for. Perhaps no place is. National identity is a brand. It's an ad campaign. It never fully expresses the extent of a place, and nor can it. But the idea of Australia and the reality of it seemed to be more divided than before around 2001, and through the decade. So it remains.

So what have we? And what will happen? Is Politics increasingly irrelevant? It seems so. For this is a culture of 'what's in it for me'. Labor people quote Chifley a lot, his light on the hill, but modern Labor has little to do with all that. Modern Labor, like Blair's New Labor, is about power. That's not exactly revelatory, but it sticks in the proverbial of people who join the party at 18 full of ideals and inspired by Chifley and Curtin and Whitlam, who recognise the balance struck by Hawke and Keating between economics and social responsibilities, civic duty, a sense of worth delivered by putting yourself out. Modern Labor isn't really worth the effort. Conservative politics appeals to the passing voter maybe because it has the look of 'meaning it', even if the 'it' is less than savory.

A Gillard government can re-set all this. It can look forward to a Hockey-lead Coalition, a Green senate, and if it acts on Climate Change (in what would be known as 'the good backflip') it can win some hearts. Gillard is the right person- she's personable and she's steady. Simply having her as PM could make us feel like we're progressive. Once we've voted 'for her'. Once she's ours.

Will she become ours?

My feeling is that Labor will win with a majority of 4-6 seats.

UPDATE- 12:40
Wait a minute. Why don't things feel right? Is it the terse mood of the PM at her morning presser? Was it the heckler at bennelong, as she released doves? Is it the idea of realising fucking doves a day before closest election in memory? Or is it these financials, whacked on the ALP web site, sans a presser, making all Swan's protestations earlier this week look, in a headline sense, pretty shoddy? What gives?

I'll update this during the day if anything significant happens. And I'm revising that figure. First number is always the best number, but the day isn't going so well for Labor. 2-4 seat majority.

Also, Labor will keep Eden Monaro, but lose Bennelong. Maxine, I await your tell-all book.

UPDATE- 16.24
Labor are panicking, apparently. I don't know how that actually materialises, but it's being said. Chris Uhlmann says Abbott, today, has momentum. Everyone's commenting on his 36hr no-doze festival. I wonder how Uhlmann will be read once his wife takes her place in the Reps as a Labor member. Annabel Crabb says if she was betting with her money, she'd back Labor to win, just. But if she had your money, she'd back Abbott. 

UPDATE 11:07

Ok- two polls. Newspoll remains 50-50 says a smug Denis Shanahan on Lateline ('my work is almost done!!!'), but as Peter Hartcher points out while he offers tomorrows Neilson (52-48), of the last 10 phone polls, this Newspoll is whack. Considering those 10, it's tough to see anything but a tight Labor win. But we shall see. As stated previously, you know something? It's gonna be close.

Good luck Australia.