As soon as the result of the Australian election was announced, the BBC assured us that the campaign and its outcome had been driven solely by domestic concerns.
“People abroad thought Iraq might be an issue, but Australians wanted to talk about domestic issues; that’s what the election was about.” (BBC News analyst, 9th October 2004, quoted from memory)
Remarks to the same effect appeared on Ceefax and elsewhere.
Doubtless local issues were important. Unless John Howard’s acceptance speech was unrepresentative, he did not avoid international issues. I’ll let people nearer Australia than the far side of the world say whether Iraq was as irrelevant to the result as the BBC is telling me. My interest is slightly different.
If the election had gone the other way, would we be hearing so much about the outcome being driven by domestic concerns and having no Iraq-war dimension?
Would pigs be flying?
The Labor Party website has 7 “election policy” links on its front page, of which none refer to Iraq. In fact it’s not referred to anywhere on the page at all. Same story at the Liberal site. But then maybe the voters saw it differently. After all, it’s impossible that the BBC wasn’t twisting its coverage rather than just reporting what happened, right?
SWK – it is possible that the the BBC wasn’t twisting its coverage, but my recollection of their pre-poll coverage of the Australian election was that Iraq was a major point of contention between Mark ‘thump a tax driver’ Latham’s bring ’em home by Christmas pledge and John Howard’s stand by our friends and do what is right stance.
The point is that the BBC does twist and warp coverage (both on an institutional and a personal level) – not all the time, but here and there, all the while maintaining it is impartial and objective, appealing for the benefit of the doubt where there is ambiguity etc.
You can bet that had Thumper Latham won the election we’d be seeing the BBC spinning away that it was Iraq wot won it…
P.S. Care to explain how ‘you know’?
The australian results were but a blip on the BBC website. Like an unwelcome shooting star, it came and went in an instant.
Obviously better left out until BBC spiders can apply the correct spin.
Taken off their guard were they by the leftist Australian media who naturally predicted a Labor victory ?
Odd, isn’t it. A few weeks ago ‘National security is fast becoming a key issue’ and ‘it is national security that is now dominating the debate’ (link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3655034.stm). And a few days ago Iraq and national security were two of the eight ‘key issues’ at stake (link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3713926.stm). But now ‘the election was fought largely on domestic issues’ (link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3729184.stm) and there’s barely a whisper about it on the radio or TV. How disappointing for the BBC journos itching to write their ‘massive blow to Bush’ and ‘So-called “War on Terror” faces new setback’ stories.
How many elections, anywhere in the world, are NOT fought largely on domestic issues?
“How many elections, anywhere in the world, are NOT fought largely on domestic issues?”
Peter, not many…But the premise of the Beeb’s coverage prior to the Australian election was that Iraq and terrorism was were the keys to the election. I do seem to recall hearing the words “Bali bombing” and “troops home by Christmas” batted about quite a bit in their broadcast reports prior to the election. (Admittedly, immigration was mentioned a couple of times, too, but not as much as the Iraq/War on Terror angle.) The impression one would come away with the BBC’s coverage was that the election was an Australian referendum on the relationship with the US in these two areas.
Instead, that thought has since been put into memory hole to be replaced by domestic issues…
The Associated Press all but ignored it too. They wrote one story that didn’t stay up on Yahoo news very long. It didn’t appear at all on another news site I view daily. I can only imaging the lengthy coverage had the election gone the other way.
I’ll take it as it stands though. 😆
Congrats to our Aussie readers.
James you have summed it up better than I ever could.
The BBC’s coverage of the Australian election was it’s usual triumph of hope over experience.
The latest BBC website story on this opens with Howard saying “national security and the economy” will be his priorities. The second and third paragraphs mention Iraq and no other policy area. Fourth mentions economy again, then the fight against terrorism. But otherwise, yeah, the BBC is still peddling evil lies about how this election was all about domestic issues.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3732270.stm
Someone Who Knows: The page you’ve cited reports what John Howard himself says will be his priorities.
The BBC’s post-election report (by unnamed reporter) plays up the importance of the economy. This contrasts with Phil Mercer’s pre-election report cited by Henry where “it is national security that is now dominating the debate”.
It is this change in emphasis by the BBC that people have highlighted on this blog.
You can just imagine the head shaking in the BBC at the Australian election result.
In the US, if Bush should win next month it will be tricky for the Beeb to claim the US voters went for him for economic reasons after their previous reporting:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3651324.stm
Iraq didn’t particularly figure in the election debate. After Mr Latham failed to get any traction in the polls with his ‘troops home by Christmas’ promise, the issue by and large disappeared off the radar.
As Greg Sheridan of The Australian points out: ‘the fact that Labor did not challenge Howard on the war shows that the Prime Minister had already won that particular argument before the campaign began.’
People here might not be absolutely crazy about the war in Iraq, but as a general rule I don’t think they want to cut and run either. Most people seem to think that now we are there, we are there to stay the distance.
It is, of course, impossible to say whether the Jakarta bombing (on 9 September) was designed to produce a ‘Spanish’ effect. If it were, the plan seems to have misfired badly: Mr Latham lost whatever momentum he might have had and, perhaps more importantly, people didn’t like the idea of giving in to terrorists.
Phil Mercer’s article is clearly focusing on one aspect of the campaign dominant at that moment. Like a UK election, I imagine the debate ebbed and flowed around different issues. It’s not as if Mercer totally ignores the domestic scene, or assumes that on Iraq voters will shun Howard. In fact at first reference he says the opposite: “In such uncertain times, they could well turn again to the safe hands of Prime Minister John Howard…”.
As for the other article cited as “evidence” above (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3713926.stm): Yes, Iraq and national security are listed as 2 of 8 ‘key issues’, but it could equally be pointed out that they get 9 paragraphs on that page compared to 34 for all other issues. Yes, the result article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3729184.stm) says domestic issues dominated the debate, but is that not often the way at the end of an election, that one issue comes to dominate? See bettiwettiwoo comment above and the main parties’ own websites.
Certainly election issues can ebb and flow during a campaign. However, I feel the sort of issues that can cause short term swings in the mood of an electorate include security (as in Spain’s election in the aftermath of the 11-Mar atrocity and Aznar’s botched response) and gaffes made by one candidate.
I think that the economy is an area that is less turbulent in a campaign. Either the electorate is satisfied with the situation under the incumbent and votes them back in (Clinton ’96, Howard ’04) or they are not and they boot them out (Bush senior ’92). Generally I feel it takes more than 1 month for a change in economic factors to cause a significant swing in voting patterns.
So I think from reading Phil Mercer’s September 14th article that either he has overplayed the importance of security or he was right, that it was an issue and that the Aussie electorate are not so opposed to the war on terror and involvement in Iraq as the BBC would wish.
My two cents.
Obviously, any election concerns many issues; that’s why they’re elections rather than referenda. Iraq was less of an issue than expected, but only, I think, because a majority of Australians actually agree with Mr Howard’s policies. There is no doubt in my mind that had Mr Howard lost the election, Iraq would have featured heavily as an ‘explanation’ for his defeat.
The party that ran on an aggressively anti-war platform, viz., the Greens, did not do as well as was expected. Mr Latham’s somewhat more cautious anti-war statements failed to produce much of a response with the electorate, and so the issue itself was more or less dropped from the Labor campaign.
Attempts from the media to claim that Mr Howard had lied about WMD were also rejected: people seemed to think that Mr Howard had reasonably relied on intelligence put before him and had good reasons to go to war; and if he had lied, well, so what? he’s a politician, isn’t he?! they lie as a matter of course, don’t t
Also, Australians tend to take great pride in their military; ANZAC Day is celebrated annually with past and present troops parading down the streets in front of cheering crowds waving flags. There is a tradition and a willingness to send troops to where-ever. The only time people seem to get cranky is when troops are sacrificed for no good reason: Gallipoli is still discussed; to a certain extent, Vietnam fits into the same category.
The first Australian troops deployed in Iraq were special forces performing some super-secret operations behind enemy lines and those there now apparently train police etc. Further, no Australians have as yet been killed in Iraq.
Now add to that that most Australians, I would say, see the US as a desirable ally (past, present and future) and what you end up with is the war in Iraq being something of a non-issue simply because it is non-contentious.