Be afraid, be very afraid…
What do you do if you have become unpopular, your policies are unpopular, you can't convince the voters that taking away their rights is actually good for them and the billions you have spent on advertising yourself can't seem to lift your approval ratings? Resort to the tried and true way of winning elections - scare the hell out of the electorate! If you can just convince the voters that the other guy is a bogeyman in disguise, well, then half the battle is won.
Over the last four terms in office Howard has become an expert in this technique.
Remember the panic the government created when Tampa conveniently showed up shortly before an election, carrying a few hundred desperate refugees and providing Howard with the perfect means of scaring the voters into supporting his government. Vote for me or these nasty queue-jumpers will flood the entire country, steal your children and throw them overboard!
Remember the interest rates that were supposed to sky-rocket the moment Labor won power? (Yep, its the same interest rates that Howard claimed to have no control over when they rose, but claimed credit for when they fell) Or the bogeyman L-plate Latham campaign?
Fear is such a great political tool! No need to have good policies, no need to have any policies at all. Fear is not about reason or rationality, it is just about making voters more scared of the other guy than they are of you.
Given that the politics of fear have been the Howard government trademark, it was surprising to read Joe Hockey's statement that the IR debate has "been characterised by ideology and fear rather than substance and considered thought." Wow, I though, does that mean that from now on the government will approach political discussions with considered thought and debate the substance of the issues? Alas, the next few lines of Hockey's article showed how misplaced this hope was. Considered thought, it seems, need not apply to the government. Same goes for "ideology" and "fear". The bogeywoman of the day is, of course, Julia Gillard who apparently forces Rudd "into an extreme position based on pro-union ideology" (extreme anti-worker ideology would be much more acceptable to Hockey). You see, any policy that would protect worker rights is "inflationary" and "job-destroying". Hockey doesn't actually give any evidence of that, but we already know that "considered thought" in political debate doesn't apply to the government, so no point complaining. There is an obligatory mention of Therese Rein, Hockey seems to think that the government's mud-slinging brought about "a sudden outbreak of considered caution" (if anyone saw any consideration or caution in that fiasco, please let me know, as I've obviously missed it).
Having finished demonising Gillard, the unions and the Labor party, Hockey complains that Gillard is "spending her every waking hour demonising AWAs" and calls for Labor and unions to read the new Bill before commenting on it. That may have been a good idea had the government actually drafted and tabled the Bill before advertising it. There is no doubt, says Hockey, that "unions are running a tricky and highly sophisticated fear campaign."
And it must be working, because Hockey is afraid, very afraid. Why else would he resort to such obvious hypocrisy and such weak arguments? Why else would he be denouncing tactics that the government successfully employed for the last decade? The Howard government loves politics of fear - but it only likes them when it is the voters that are afraid.
Thanks for reading
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