Election 2016: Malcolm Turnbull needs to study Bob Hawke's 1984 campaign, and fast

Extract from  ABC The Drum

Opinion

By Barrie Cassidy

Updated yesterday at 4:19pm

Photo: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announces the 2016 federal election. To win, he must do better than Bob Hawke did in 1984. (ABC News)

Even governments led by a very popular prime minister can lose ground in a lengthy campaign, as happened in 1984. But Malcolm Turnbull actually needs to increase his government's support over the next eight weeks, writes Barrie Cassidy.

Australia has had precious few election campaigns that ran for more than 50 days, but there's enough in the outcome of the one in 1984 to keep Malcolm Turnbull awake at night.
Bob Hawke won that election but that's almost beside the point. As popular as he was, he lost a stack of ground through the seven weeks.
Fortunately for him, Hawke had ground to lose. Turnbull has none. In the light of current polls, he must hold or gain ground through this campaign.
In other words, to win, Malcolm Turnbull must do better than Bob Hawke did in 1984; he must campaign better than Hawke did; and he must not allow his opponent to grow in stature as Andrew Peacock did through those seven weeks.
Hawke went into that 53 day campaign well ahead in the polls. Some of them in the months leading up to December, 1984, had Labor ahead by as much as 54 per cent to 46 per cent two party preferred.
The Turnbull government goes into the election with the polls 50-50 at best. The latest Ipsos poll - and Essential - has it narrowly behind.

Photo: At the beginning of the 1984 campaign Bob Hawke hit an approval rating of 75 per cent. Malcolm Turnbull is nowhere near those levels. (Patrick Riviere: Getty Images)

It is often argued that Malcolm Turnbull will turn around the polls because his personal popularity far outstrips Bill Shorten.
But Hawke - in a Newspoll at the beginning of the 1984 election campaign - hit an approval rating of 75 per cent, the highest a prime minister has ever achieved.
Though popular, Turnbull by comparison is nowhere near those levels. In the latest Ipsos poll, he had an approval of 51 per cent; and just 36 per cent in Newspoll. He has been on a steady decline all year.
Comparisons only go so far because the players are different; the issues are different; the campaign is yet to be played out; and Hawke lost ground but still won.
However, the Hawke government suffered a swing against of it of 1.93 per cent. Almost all analysts at the time concluded all of that ground was lost during the campaign itself.
The government's majority was cut from 25 seats to 16, but the result was worse than that because the number of seats in the House of Representatives was increased from 125 to 148.
Hawke ultimately won a two party preferred vote of 51.8 per cent to 48.2 per cent, but of course, he was expected to do much better than that.
Peacock came into his own partly because he won the debate, the first ever to be televised. Hawke argued unsuccessfully during the 1983 campaign that Malcolm Fraser should debate him. Having done that he was committed to meeting Peacock's challenge.

In 1984, Labor had a four week strategy that it tried to spread too thinly over seven weeks.

Peacock in a controlled environment was formidable. His presentation in speeches and advertisements was impressive.
His performance in the debate caused the country to take a fresh look at him.
The long campaign in '84 obviously tested the country's patience.
There were however, other factors at work that are not directly parallel this time.
The election was held 18 months ahead of time; this one just months.
Labor had a four week strategy that it tried to spread too thinly over seven weeks. It ran out of material at critical times. The strategic planning was inadequate.
After the election, the party secretary, Bob McMullan, complained that party headquarters was not well informed on government policy or intentions; and they often knew little of statements of substance and the tone and content of major speeches. In short, the campaign lacked cohesion.
The Coalition will be better than that. But will Turnbull be better than Hawke? Both Turnbull and Shorten are going into a campaign as leader for the first time. Shorten has an advantage because he has at least been more heavily involved in campaign strategies and planning. His immediate instincts and feel for politics are likely to be better than those of Turnbull.
On the other hand, Turnbull will not have to deal with the significant sideshow that bled votes from Hawke - the emergence of Peter Garrett and the Nuclear Disarmament Party. Garrett struck a chord with younger voters. Post 1983 election research conducted by the ALP showed support for Hawke among 18 to 20 year olds at an astonishing 69 per cent. Two years later, it stood at 55 per cent.
And in 1984, there was a high informal vote, again in part a deliberate act from those disenchanted with Labor's stance on nuclear issues.
It's instructive though to go back to Hawke's first pitch at his news conference the day the election was called.
He said then that the previous election (1983) was in part about dealing with a deepening economic crisis; while this election (1984) was a time to consolidate, sustain and build upon the previous couple of years.
That's the Coalition's budget strategy right there 32 years later.
Like 1984, this election - as so many are - will rise or fall on the record of the government between elections. Government performance is almost always the key.
This time it's complicated because the electorate will be judging two governments - the Abbott government and the Turnbull government; and adding to the confusion they'll need to decide whether the Turnbull government has had enough time to be fairly judged anyway.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC TV program Insiders.