Friday, August 08, 2008

Alan Milburn & the Australian Election

Alan Milburn has been making headlines not just here, but in Australia. A new book has revealed the role he played advising Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd in his victorious election campaign.

The election saw Kevin Rudd defeat John Howard and become prime minister. Howard also lost his seat in Parliament. It was a remarkable victory; one for the history books. Rudd had become Labor leader only 11 months before. Howard seemed certain for victory. Rudd was the third Labor leader in two years. There was no recession nor any deep-seated animosity towards the government. Howard still had reasonable approval levels and was respected.

Milburn played an important role within the campaign structure as an adviser, but not so much within Rudd's personal staff. He did see Rudd several times during the year and was there on election night as part of a small group of staff and family. Here's an extract from the book...

Milburn was in no mood for fripperies or small talk as he was introduced to Kim Beazley's campaign strategy group...

ALP national secretary Tim Gartrell and the Labor leadership team had been introduced to the Geordie by Nick Rowley, a former staffer to NSW Premier Bob Carr, who had gone on to land a position at No. 10 Downing Street. Gartrell was impressed by Milburn's forthright style and recognised early that he might provide a valuable outsider's perspective and the "cold shower" that was often necessary in the heat of a campaign.

Milburn did not disappoint. "I was pretty blunt," he said later. "What they needed was a big bucket of directness. I told them I had no doubt that if we just continued down the same path we were heading for another loss." John Howard's "best days were behind him", Milburn told the group, but they were kidding themselves if they thought that was enough to justify a change of government when Australia's economy continued to be strong.

Instead, Milburn urged his counterparts to focus on giving voters who had supported Howard in the past a reason to change their minds. Labor urgently needed to find ways to demonstrate that the party had changed and, particularly, that it could be trusted to run the economy.

In Milburn's eyes, "it was pretty obvious there was a steam train coming down the tracks" in the form of yet another campaign by the Liberal Party framing Labor as economic incompetents. An engaging and incisive speaker, Milburn received a good hearing from Beazley and his colleagues.

"It was awful at first," a frontbencher who attended the dinner confessed later. "What Milburn didn't know was that this was probably the first time we had talked about strategy, and it was only because Milburn, as an outsider, could force it. He could get away with a lot. Kim ignored it and ignored it but ... the thing that eventually turned that conversation around was that (then treasury spokesman) Wayne Swan eventually bought into it. Until then, I think Swan had held himself out of strategy discussions because he thought anything he said would be construed as critical of Beazley, and he didn't want to risk people thinking that. But Milburn kept pushing and pushing and once he (Swan) engaged, it almost gave everyone else permission to engage and then Kim engaged and it actually became a much better calibre discussion than those we'd had in the past."

Milburn, reflecting back, was astonished at the defeat of the government, even though his ideas on strategy were important in the victory. He has said since he can cite no precedent for this type of remarkable victory, no doubt subliminally playing up his own contribution to it!

Read the full extract from the book about Milburn's role HERE.

9 comments:

strapworld said...

I have written before that Alan Milburn could and would turn around the present problems of the Labour Party and make a considerable dent in the approval ratings of the Tories.

Milburn could steal all the Tory idea's - he could even say that as a matter of trust and as the Lisbon Treaty has not been accepted by all the EU AND he firmly believes that a manifesto must be honestly followed! he will call an immediate referendum on that treaty!!

He could do many things which would pull the rug from under the feet of the tories.

There is no doubt he would bring back those former ministers who actually did impress.

He is a very able man in the television/radio studio's. He is a very personable man and he even speaks like Blair!

He is the greatest threat to Cameron and the Tories. IF Labour were to put him in charge, politics would become extremely interesting.

I do hope I am not proved right.

Anonymous said...

If indeed his influence helped to elect Ruddy Kevin's Government - I for one will never forgive him.

Yak40 said...

Howard's gov't was in power a long time such that young voters had known no other, or at least could remember no other.
This meant that they could easily fall for someone blathering on about "change". (Sound familiar ?)

An Aussie friend also said Iraq was a huge issue there.

Tom said...

Nothing about Milburn's role in the last election here, then?

Australian Labour ran on a campaign condemning Howard's 'extreme workplace legislation'. Can you really see Milburn giving Labour activists something equally totemic to motivate them?

If I didn't know better, I'd say that all this Milburn gossip was some sort of tactic to get Labour tearing itself up...

Anonymous said...

Instead, Milburn urged his counterparts to focus on giving voters who had supported Howard in the past a reason to change their minds. Labor urgently needed to find ways to demonstrate that the party had changed and, particularly, that it could be trusted to run the economy.

As we are finding out in the UK, a leopard may change its spots but it is still a leopard.

Anonymous said...

"Howard seemed certain for victory."

No he didn't. Think Iraq, terrorism, bombings of Australians. John Howard was the most consistent, unrelenting, perceptive, and, arguably, articulate of the Western leaders. He paid an electoral price for that simply because there was not much else for Australians to worry about. Except the drought.

Anonymous said...

Before Milburn became a Blairite, I have heard about him as a CND activist in Tyne, interested in Tyne as a 'nuclear-freezone'. Blair too was in CND perhaps then.

I never considered Milburn as threat to Tories, and pitted against Liam Fox he performed very poorly in 1990s as Shadow Health Secretary. Isn't he one of those who wanted to leave Blair Cabinet and 'spend time his family' which euphemistically meant that he would be taking a job in the private heath care sector, not caring about the propriety?

About being adviser to Rudd. Beazly was Australian Labour's Michael Foot. Howard's government was in power for long, he was getting on and there was no younger leader in sight in the Liberal Party whom younger voters can relate to. But Howard was strong on issues like immigration, labour laws, private enterprise etc.. and the economy under his stewardship performed well. I compare his defeat like that occurs in the Australian Cricket team when they chase a very low score in the second innings. They invariably fold up, for no reason at all!

Howard was defeated in his constituency for two reasons. First, the boundary change meant that his electorate balance changed. No longer he could count his solid Liberal base. Second, the new electorate predominantly South Asian, majority of them Chinese, resented his strict immigration stance, and this was stoked up as racism by the none other than the then
future Chinese son-in law of Rudd who camped in Howard's Chinese community and helped to secure their votes. Rudd is a good mandarin speaker, which also helped.

Australia has plenty of other problems, but credit crunch is hurting. Their insurance-driven health service is not healthy, Hospitals needing investment etc..
The gloss on Rudd will come off, but there is no David Cameron waiting in the Liberal Party.

Anonymous said...

Iain, here is some perspective from Australia:

According to the official statistics, the Coalition was dumped from office in November 2007 by 11,799 voters across nine electorates – just 0.1 per cent of the national electorate.

If these 11,799 voters change their minds again next time, the Coalition is back in office. Whether they deserve to be by then is of course the unknown quantity.

The number of voters required to change their minds ranges from 182 in Robertson to 2320 in Bennelong (former PM Howard's old seat).

Anonymous said...

When Milburn left to spend more time with his family, so her told us, he had to fight off slavering journalists going on about the subtextual anti-Gordon conspiracy of his decision.

Well, this can only add fuel to the fire. I can just see the Labour North East mafia overthrowing the Scots mafia.

It's appropriate, because this whole government is a mafia. I am in a position to inform the Serious Organised Crime Agency that the biggest gang of crooks in the country is called the Labour party.