She's hot and sweaty under a burning sun, slurping Pepsi Max through a straw. Pushing a pre-schooler in a stroller through the markets at Penrith Showground, the 30-ish woman has three things on her shopping list: plants, pants and politics. She finds her Federal M.P.'s stall next to a van selling wood-fired bread. In no time she is gently wagging her finger at Jackie Kelly, Minister for Sport and Tourism and Liberal Party member for the western Sydney seat of Lindsay. Kelly, who is pregnant, is wearing runners, a striped top and denim overalls; her toddler Dominique plays nearby. To other shoppers on this Wednesday morning, they must look like two suburban mothers having a friendly chat.
"I'm pissed off, and so are lots of people in this area," says the mother of two after speaking to Kelly about a proposed housing development nearby, on a vast site that once housed a munitions factory. "All these politicians are as bad as each other. At least [Kelly] listened to what I had to say." Kelly says the site's fate is the main local issue preoccupying her constituents in the lead-up to the Nov. 10 poll: home owners want to stop the suburban sprawl, parents want a nice place for children to play, environmentalists want to preserve endangered woodland. "People don't care which party you're from or which level of government has responsibility for the problem," says Kelly. "Voters say You're a politician, you know who's in charge, fix it.' So we have to take their concerns on board." A week after this encounter, the Federal Government announced that an extra 250 hectares of the site would be protected from development.
Politicians are never happier than when talking about themselves or announcing a giveaway of taxpayers' funds-especially at election time. But in this campaign, candidates from the two major parties are listening carefully to local voters. Away from the presidential tussle between Liberal Prime Minister John Howard and Australian Labor Party leader Kim Beazley and the white noise of the national media and opinion polls, another contest, lower-key but just as vital, is being played out in marginal seats across the country.
The numbers speak for themselves: to win government, Labor needs to pick up seven seats. That will mean changing the vote of less than 0.8% of voters-just 3,000 in all-in the party's most winnable seats. With a uniform swing of 1%, Labor would capture 11 Liberal-National seats; with a swing of 3%, 22 could fall its way. Regardless of what the national polls are saying, no one can be confident about Saturday's result. That's a nightmare for the grim-faced suits who orchestrate the campaigns, because each marginal electorate has its own individual character. Some are in cities, others on the suburban fringes; some are in coastal retirement areas, others in depressed rural regions. They range from racially diverse to homogeneous; from stagnating to dynamic. The issues engaging voters in one seat may hardly ruffle those in a neighboring electorate.
The marginal seats of New South Wales reflect those differences-and the issues that concern ordinary people all over Australia. To court swinging voters in these seats, candidates are taking different approaches, and stressing different issues, from those that inform the high-flown debates of the national campaigns.
Howard vs. Beazley, the rematch-with its research-driven putdowns, flag-waving and nostalgia-has not captured the public imagination. Instead of posturing, voters want the real thing: candidates who understand the needs of their electorate, keep promises and follow through on local issues. They've been burned by the smart political types who don't deliver. Yet they're reluctant to embrace the minor parties. The Australian Democrats are running on a "Change Politics" platform, but voters-especially swinging voters-have dallied with protest in past elections; now they're sticking with the devils they know. They understand that their votes are powerful. They worry about the big national and global issues, but they are more concerned about their immediate surroundings and their day-to-day problems. The party that has chosen the most suitable front person in each electorate-and given him or her the resources to listen and respond-will win on Nov. 10. A new breed of politician is emerging within Australia's predominantly two-party system, one who knows that the electorate refuses to be taken for granted. At street level, it's an exciting time in politics.
it's called shoring up the base," says Labor's John Murphy, federal M.P. for Lowe, in Sydney's inner west. He's knocking on doors in migrant, working-class Homebush, showing his face, reconnecting with the faithful. "A lot of candidates couldn't be bothered," he says. "They are only interested in targeting swinging voters." On a recent Friday afternoon, Murphy worked in tandem with Strathfield Mayor Virginia Judge, who tries to greet residents-Tamils, Koreans, Vietnamese and Chinese-in their native tongue. The perky Judge knows this street well; she recalls particular development applications and disputes. "I got these people to pull out all the concrete in their front yard," she says sheepishly at one house. "The stormwater was flooding the place next door." Murphy, a natural at close campaigning, is setting a cracking pace. "John, tell her what a lovely garden she has!" says Judge as they arrive at another house. He's warm, friendly, quick to assess the person who answers each door. "Hello, it's only John Murphy, your local federal member," he tells an Asian woman who speaks little English and peers around a security door. "This is what I've done in federal Parliament over the last three years," he says, passing her a campaign brochure and standing well back so as not to frighten her. "If you have any problems, and you need some help with anything, you can call me or Virginia."
Doorknocking is tedious and tiring. Covering a small street, even when only three homes in five are occupied, can take an hour. Yet candidates say the process is extremely effective. "It's easily the best way to get votes," says Murphy. "When you make the effort to see people on their own ground, they appreciate it." David Borger, the Labor candidate for Parramatta, west of Sydney, who has been doorknocking in his electorate since April, says repeat visits and encounters on the street have allowed him to build rapport: "I call it cumulative campaigning." Borger thinks the ALP can learn a great deal from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his "New Labour" Party. "Blair's message to his M.P.s and Labour candidates is that people want politicians not just to listen to their concerns but to feel them, too," he says. "Swapping personal experiences with voters is one way of showing your humanity."
Jim Lloyd, the Liberal M.P. for Robertson, on the N.S.W. central coast, is an indefatigable campaigner who finds that year- round doorknocking keeps him close to the concerns of constituents. Looking polished and relaxed in his Gosford office, Lloyd says personal contact breaks down barriers and lets people see beyond the public image. "I ask people to call me Jim," says the former milkman, Hawkesbury River ferry captain and gas-station proprietor. "I try and learn something from every person I meet." When governments are criticized for being out of touch, it's often because leaders and party chiefs are not listening to backbenchers like him. Voters may be angry with politicians in general, says Lloyd, but "You'll often hear them say, My local bloke is a good person.'" Adds Parramatta's Borger: "Increasingly, people do not believe the hype and the political spin, but they do believe a candidate who is genuine and sincere." Candidates are once again looking like the people they represent. Like "Lloydie," who successfully crusaded to have the F3 freeway widened, and whose publicity material boasts, "Jim isn't like some other M.P.s. He knows from experience what the world is really like."
Party headquarters have no excuse to be out of touch with their targets, says one Labor campaign manager. "The amount of information we have on voters is scary. There are lots of databases available to us, many of them, like the Australian Electoral Commission's, in the public domain. Add in the sort of information that sitting members can compile-from surveys of their electorate, the complaints they receive and the issues they deal with-and it's easy to build a very useful picture of voters. Then you target them." Parties know householders' age and sex, and the issues they have raised with their M.P.s. "We personalize the message to them," he says. Information helps parties stay in touch with voters' needs and serve them accordingly. But, combined with opinion polling, it also helps "unseen, unheard" party machine men deliver political spin. "You'll never see me again-I'm going back to the bunker," ALP national director Geoff Walsh told journalists after his party's campaign launch in Sydney last week. But his presence was felt. "We get our lines faxed to us every day from head office," says one Labor Party worker. "You've got to stay on message."
The machine is ruthlessly efficient. In the marginal-seat campaigns, dollars can't be wasted on hopeless causes. "I'm glad you think it's a marginal seat," says one candidate, who is pleading in vain for resources from head office. "No one else in the party thinks it's marginal." He needs a swing of less than 5% to win. The same complaint is heard, from both Labor and Coalition aspirants, in the 35 seats where the margin is less than 3%. The neglect may result from a factional payback, a realistic assessment of priorities or a loss of faith in the contender. "She hasn't raised enough of her own money," says one Labor observer of a N.S.W. candidate. "And the word's got back to [ALP headquarters] that she hasn't done enough doorknocking." Decisions by a pragmatic machine are usually proven right, of course; negativity is self-fulfilling.
Yet excessive "handling," "packaging" or media management can stifle candidates' local appeal or rob them of spontaneity. Pat Farmer, an ultra-marathon runner who has raised millions of dollars for charities, is a regular guy with a superhuman will. John Howard asked Farmer to run as a Liberal in Macarthur, on the southwestern outskirts of Sydney. Some observers think Farmer, a former motor mechanic and landscaper, is out of his depth and that he is being protected from the media, from his Labor opponent and from engagements where he might be quizzed about policies. But this is not Farmer's fault; the Liberal party and campaign workers are to blame.
On a Thursday evening halfway through the campaign, Farmer asks a woman 10 years his junior for permission to wind things up early after a street walk through central Campbelltown. It's going to be another 16-hour day, and Farmer, a sole parent of two children, wants to go grocery shopping for the family. He's embarrassed and frustrated by the view that the party is keeping him in cotton wool, but he seems determined to be himself-warm, sympathetic, sincere. "Ask me anything you want," he says. For the next two hours he chats about local issues, his background, the schedule, his plans. He's charming, and more skilled at handling himself than a dozen other candidates working N.S.W. marginal seats-and he has the party line down pat. He's fond of saying, "I'll be honest with you" and "I shouldn't be saying this" about the most mundane things.
If politics is changing, then the cathedrals of the new faith are shopping malls. They're not only the hub of community life, a sanctuary from the street; they're also an apt metaphor for what voters want from the political system: convenience, comfort, choice and good value. Shoppers prefer a tidy environment, and if you think politicians can just walk in and start talking about issues and distributing their leaflets, you're wrong. Mall owners don't like politicians disturbing the ambience. So candidates have changed their tactics: they'll choose the mall as the interview venue with a journalist, or stroll through it with 20 of their closest friends-who just happen to be passing out balloons and wearing campaign T shirts.
Candidates also have a lot in common with retailers. "I'm a product in the market place," says central coast M.P. Lloyd. "You have to show people that you're working hard for them and that you can achieve things for the community." The worst thing you can do in the current climate, he says, is to claim traditional ownership of an electorate. "If more seats were marginal, people would get better value from their politicians." Building a media brand is the key; politicians need to be visibly associated with their triumphs and causes-roads, hospitals, aircraft noise or heritage sites. Don't ever stand between a candidate and a TV cameraman or photographer.
Political fashions are as volatile as those in food, clothing and hairstyles. More than one-third of the nation's 150 electorates are officially designated marginal (which means the incumbent received less than 56% of the two-party-preferred vote). Voters are less "rusted on" to parties; with people on the move and party loyalties stretched thin, the outer fringes of Australian cities are subject to political whirlwinds. Michael Lee, Labor M.P. for Dobell, on the N.S.W. central coast, has been the seat's only member since it was established in 1984. "He's taken a safe seat and made it a marginal one," says a party critic. But Lee had to fight skilfully to retain Dobell through the 1990s. The area has grown rapidly over the past two decades, and its voter profile keeps shifting as new homeowners, overwhelmingly Australian-born and poorly educated, flee Sydney for the coast. Government aid for first-home buyers has created a new lower middle class that is surprisingly anti-politician.
Meg Oates, the Labor candidate for Macarthur, has set up her campaign office in a former hamburger restaurant on a prominent corner in Narellan. The drive-through window seems to take the idea of service to a new level. A zip around the sprawling 573-sq.-km electorate in Oates' car reveals bright homes smelling as if they were painted yesterday, run-down public housing, vast market gardens and genteel heritage towns. Oates is a spruiker for the area's hidden charms and a fighter for its struggling families. A teacher who's clocked up 14 years as a Campbelltown city councillor and mayor, she's a home-grown champion. Her slogan is "A Fair Go for Macarthur." "I chose it myself," she says -and she won her pre-selection unopposed. Labor's Borger has gone for "Putting Parramatta First"; Trish Moran, the Labor candidate for Robertson, has "Fighting for the Coast" on her street signs.
Local appeal, particularly in outer urban areas with strong identities, is crucial in marginal seats; candidates who've been given a visible leg-up by head office, or who appear to be out of sync with the demographic, will struggle to win. Candidates with crossover appeal are doing well in the marginals: Macarthur Liberal Pat Farmer will win votes from low-paid workers, Labor's traditional base. Parramatta Labor candidate Borger, who is articulate and looks at home in a suit, will capture young, well-educated professionals, who are usually seen as being in the Liberal camp.
Higher expectations from constituents have changed the M.P.'s role. "We are moving down the American path," wrote Australian Broadcasting Corp. election analyst Antony Green during the campaign, "where M.P.s have become local ombudsmen, smoothing the access of constituents to an increasingly remote and confusing bureaucracy." For Labor's Murphy, in inner-western Sydney, this means keeping a close watch on constituents' requests and making sure his office is efficiently processing them: "I always say to people when they ask for help on an issue, What are you going to do for me? Have you written a letter or started a petition?'" he says. The reward for staying in touch-taxpayer funding-can be a powerful tool for incumbents in close seats.
Locally focused Indians need nationally focused chiefs to keep their parties in order. But ideas from the grassroots can be valuable in policy-making. Labor's policy on early-childhood education is based on an innovative program in central-coast Dobell, the seat of shadow Education Minister Michael Lee. Niagara Park Primary School gives four-year-olds the chance to attend "play school" once a fortnight to sharpen learning and social skills in the year before they start "big school." Both parties' platforms contain scores of programs-in health, aged care, environment and education-that had their genesis in small, community-based initiatives like this.
The local edge shines through when uncommitted voters speak about the issues in the marginal seats. In the era of globalization and the war on terrorism, people are switching off from the big issues and focusing on their own quality of life: on roads, bus stops, bank branches and playgrounds. "People are worried about their environment," says Jackie Kelly in Penrith. "But they're not the tree-hugging type. They just want a nice place to live." Says Lloyd: "The bread-and-butter issues-interest rates, taxes, health, jobs-are always there."
The big issue that does cloud this campaign, especially in the marginal seats, is border protection. Tampa, asylum seekers, boat people-call it what you will, it is about race. And it affects voters no matter where they live. For average Australians, it's not about solutions but about fear. "Have you been to those shopping centers?" asks the chief of staff of a Liberal minister, who has been touring the country's marginal seats. "They're full of racist people wearing tracksuits, with dribble running down their chins. And they're the ones who are going to be deciding who runs this country. When I look at the Sunday papers-and page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 is all boat people and the election's on page 7-I start to think we've got this election in the bag." This is a political insider's view, but it's close to the truth. The consistent message from voters in the marginals is that Australia needs to take a tough stand on border protection or it will be overrun by queue-jumping illegal immigrants.
As Macarthur votes, so does Australia-it's been that way since the seat was created in 1949. And on the eve of the 2001 election, Macarthur reveals much about the new politics. Both candidates here are presenting their party lines clearly; both also have enough personality and tenacity to win the swingers-or at least their second preferences. Both candidates are running good local campaigns and are backed by committed party machines. But neither can be sure of victory. Although one poll suggests the Liberals will win easily here, the gap between Farmer and Oates is too small to measure. For voters who swing to Labor or to the Liberals on Saturday, it won't be a case of joining Howard's battlers or Beazley's bourgeoisie. For the first time in recent memory, it appears that either major party's candidate could win-even if his or her leader loses. And if that happens, Macarthur will confirm how intimate and down-to-earth Australian politics has become.