A turnaround is in the stars for LaborSydney Morning HeraldFebruary 8 2005By Louise DodsonIn ancient times soothsayers pored over the gizzards of birds to predict who was up and who was down in political life. More recently opinion polls have emerged to do much the same thing, only more scientifically.
Those who don't trust polls swear predictions of election outcomes can be made using the fashion in skirt lengths or tie widths. The theory is when skirts are high and ties wide, voters are feeling bold and prepared to throw a government out and try something new. Astrologers even examine the configuration of the stars to see if they can determine what will happen in elections.
Debate continues on whether election prediction is an art, a science, or a combination of both, but few in politics can swear never to have dabbled in the odd prediction or two. Not many though would appear to have enjoyed the success rate of the federal Labor MP Rod Sawford, the convener of the party's independent faction (an oxymoron, if ever there was one).
Six months before the October 9 election, opinion polls were showing Labor under Mark Latham well ahead. Many in the Government and Liberal Party feared John Howard would lose.
Pollster AC Nielsen, which correctly pointed to an easy Coalition win during the campaign, was showing Labor ahead by 53 per cent to 47 per cent in two-party votes six months before the election. Even so, Sawford predicted then that the Coalition would win by 10 seats, which turned out to be the correct margin. He also picked accurately both of George Bush's election victories, he says.
Sawford has a long history of plumping for the correct results. In 1993 almost everyone had written off Paul Keating. Sawford was so confident that Keating would hang on as prime minister, he even had a $200 bet with a Liberal frontbencher. The Liberal MP paid up some months later.
It seems it is something of a family tradition. In 1961 Sawford's father bet his grandfather that Robert Menzies would lose to Labor. The bet started out as £5, a quarter of his father's weekly earnings, but by the end of the night it had finished up as his entire pay packet, which he lost.
Sawford was 17 then and not enthralled with being forced by his father to hand out party leaflets for the election, but his grandfather's certainty about the election outcome struck him forcibly.
Years later he developed a model for predicting election outcomes, which he says is infallible. It demonstrates the veracity of the political maxim, "it's the economy, stupid", beloved of the Clinton campaign in 1992.
Looking at just three indications of economic health - interest rates, inflation and unemployment - Sawford says election results can be predicted. If all three go down over a term, the Government will be returned; if all three go up, the Opposition will win.
Last year all of these economic factors were lower than in 2001, so Sawford was confident the Government would be returned. So much for the importance of leadership. If economic factors are so paramount, why does Labor turn itself inside out with leadership destabilisation and battles, if the result is written in the economic stars anyway?
Leadership is important, Sawford says. But policies and how they affect the management of the economy are the most important of all.
And it is this which keeps Sawford speaking out. He incurred the wrath of many colleagues when he dared to mention the "L" word when Kim Beazley was again anointed as Labor leader just over a week ago.
The party was keen to put on a show of unity after powerbrokers, from the Left and Right, organised for Beazley to be appointed unopposed.
Sawford, a supporter of Kevin Rudd who switched to favour Julia Gillard when Rudd decided against standing against Beazely for the leadership, thought it was time for generational change. When Gillard failed, Sawford warned that Beazley had an opportunity to reform the party and produce policies to differentiate Labor from the Coalition. If Beazley did not satisfy, then people would again look at the party's leadership in a year's time.
Sawford says he received quite a few emails and phone calls from party members complaining that he dared to mention that Beazley could face leadership questions down the track, but he believes these were orchestrated.
And what of Labor's prospects at the next elections? Sawford believes there is a reasonable chance for the ALP because interest rates may rise and inflation has already crept up, although unemployment has fallen.
The Reserve Bank has just given its strongest suggestion for a while that interest rates are on the way up, so Labor's fortunes could also turn around.
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