AFTER having reins of government snatched from its grasp at the recent state election, it is time for the SA Liberal opposition to reappraise the campaign and show party unity, according to Associate Professor Haydon Manning, of Flinders University's School of Social and Policy Studies.
Professor Manning, university lecturer, psephologist and political commentator, was addressing an audience on Reflections on the SA election - hopeless, shameless and unfair? as part of the Research for the Real World professional lecture series at the university's city campus.
He admitted to being one of the political analysts who had believed that the Liberals would win on March 15, but suggested that their campaign had lacked direction and had failed on a number of fronts.
"It began with leadership," Prof Manning said. "The Liberal Party has had eight different leaders since the controversial conflict between John Olsen and Dean Brown in the 1980s, and Steven Marshall, as a relative newcomer to the party and its leader for only 13 months, simply didn't have time for the 'household name' factor to work to his advantage.
"He was not in the role long enough to be recognised by a large section of the electorate and he failed to define what he stood for as a leader and where his party's priorities lay in areas important to swinging voters," Prof Manning said.
"The Liberal agenda proved to be too narrow. Debt and deficit policies resonated with those who already supported the party, but strategies addressing social policy appeared to be overlooked or, at least, regarded as of secondary importance, and it is those policies which tend to sway the genuine swinging voter.
"As a result, the Liberals' focus on state debt did not strike a chord with the electorate, and the party missed its opportunity to explore any broader issues," he said.
Prof Manning attributed this fault to a lack of experience and an inability for the leader to establish and consolidate his position in the brief run-up to his first election.
He also noted that Labor Party campaigners did not waste time, resources and energy in electorates which they believed were unwinnable, but instead focused and channelled all their efforts into fighting tenaciously in marginal seats, which ultimately won them government, albeit by the most slender of margins.
Prof Manning was extremely critical of the ALP's descent into racist innuendo with its attack on candidate Carolyn Habib, based on her surname with its Middle Eastern sound, and its thinly-veiled allusion to terrorism.
"No wonder it is becoming increasingly difficult for contemporary political parties to attract quality candidates, particularly at the state level," Prof Manning said.
"No candidate should be subjected to this sort of campaign. It was a classic example of a shameless stop-at-nothing grasp for power, which has absolutely no place in a multicultural Australia."
* Full report in Stock Journal, June 12, 2014 issue.
