Once the natural party of government, the Liberal Party has been performing badly across Australia for thirty years or more, writes Tim Colebatch. Mike Baird has shown the party a way out

Mike Baird’s victory in Saturday’s NSW election is far more unusual than it looks. And if Baird as premier continues as he has begun, he could become more unusual still – and eventually, come under party pressure to take that act to Canberra.

Consider two little-known facts:

1. Since the federal election in mid 2010, when Julia Gillard scraped back into power with the support of the independents, Australia has had twelve federal, state or territory elections. In eight of them, the voters threw the government out.

2. Since the long Liberal rule in Victoria ended way back in 1982, the Coalition has been out of power more often than it has been in it: not only at federal level, but also in every single state.

Over the past thirty-three years, the Coalition has ruled New South Wales for just eleven years, and spent twenty-two years in opposition. It has likewise spent just eleven years in government in Victoria, twelve in Queensland – though just five of the past twenty-five – and nine in South Australia (see below). At federal level, it has been in government for just fourteen years, and in opposition for nineteen. Even in Western Australia and Tasmania, where it has done best, it has spent more time out of power than in it.

The conclusion is inescapable. The Liberal Party used to be the natural party of government. But since 1982, it has become the natural party of opposition.

In the face of all that, Baird has led his Coalition team to a second term in office with a comfortable majority, roughly 55 per cent of the two-party vote, despite several issues working strongly against him: his plan to partially privatise the state’s electricity transmission network, the threat of coal-seam gas to farming, and the unpopularity of the Abbott government.

That is unusual, particularly after five years in which government after government has been defeated across Australia. In that time, voters have thrown out governments twice in succession in Victoria, twice in succession in Queensland, and once each in New South Wales, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and, of course, federally.

The voters meant to throw out a ninth government: a year ago in South Australia, the Weatherill government was re-elected even though the Liberals won 53 per cent of the two-party vote.

But something like that often happens in South Australia, not because of a gerrymander – the SA electoral boundaries are rigorously fair – but because the Liberal vote is concentrated in the country and in Adelaide’s posh eastern and inner southern suburbs. They win seats in those places with big majorities, while Labor just squeaks home in seat after seat on the other side of town. (The best solution for the SA Liberals would be to get big donors to set up new private schools in the western suburbs.)

Until Saturday, the only two governments voters have chosen to re-elect since 2010 are Colin Barnett’s Liberal government in Western Australia, re-elected in 2013 at the height of the mining boom, and the Labor–Greens coalition in the Australian Capital Territory, re-elected in 2012. But then, it’s hard for Labor to lose an election in the ACT, although right now it seems to be doing its best to lose the next one by building a $1 billion light railway that, on normal cost–benefit criteria, will cost ACT taxpayers twice as much as the benefits they can expect to get from it.

It would have been hard for Mike Baird to lose this election. In 2011, the smell of the Obeid affair and years of poor government saw the Coalition swept into office with a national record swing of 16.5 per cent, and a record 64.2 per cent of the two-party vote. At that election alone, it gained thirty-five seats from Labor and the independents. Labor was left with just twenty seats in a ninety-three-member Assembly, a primary vote of just 25.6 per cent, and a two-party vote of 35.8 per cent. How could Labor get back from there into office in just one election?

Queensland showed one way: all it took was a government as narrow, self-indulgent and headstrong as Campbell Newman’s, which decided that voters could be ignored, and governed instead for a small cabal of like-minded chaps. But neither Barry O’Farrell nor Mike Baird governed that way.

By and large, they ran a sensible, moderate, centre-right government that gave voters something like what it had promised, fixed the budget without victimising particular groups, and kept its political capital for when it really needed it, such as in pushing through privatisation of the poles and wires.

But the main reason for the Coalition’s big win on Saturday was “the Baird factor.” This was not a vote for policies – every poll found voters opposed his privatisation plans – so much as a vote for Mike Baird and his style of government. To many, he has become a breath of fresh air in the stale, foul atmosphere of Australia’s political blame game.

Most of our political leaders churn out endless streams of vituperation, exaggeration, distortion and ad hominem attack that turn off everyone except their partisans. Baird takes a novel approach: he appears to tell the truth.

By and large, he answers the question he is asked. A viewer gets the sense he is telling you what he genuinely believes. He is courteous, not bullying. He doesn’t just slag opponents, he tries to persuade you of the merits of doing it his way rather than theirs.

Nor does he pretend that he agrees with everything other Liberals do. He has made it clear that he does not share the Abbott government’s hostility to refugees, and that he supports the consensus of climate science and wants serious action against global warming. When Joe Hockey revealed that the federal government planned to get its budget back into surplus by shifting future growth in hospital costs to the states – surely the big sleeping issue of Australian politics – Baird pointed out quickly that it was simply shifting its budget problem to the states.

In short, Mike Baird is popular because he seems to be genuine, and to be someone you can trust. The full story is complex. His Christian beliefs appear to be a huge influence on his approach to politics, and anyone interested in understanding the man should read an excellent profile by Stephanie Wood two years ago in The Good Weekend.

Mike Baird reminds me of two other former Liberals. One is his father Bruce Baird, a decent, intelligent man of principle who was blocked by the right from becoming NSW premier, and by John Howard from becoming a federal minister. The other is Dick Hamer, premier of Victoria from 1972 to 1981. (Disclosure of interest: I have recently written Hamer’s biography, Dick Hamer: the liberal Liberal.)

The Hamer parallel is an important one. Hamer was the last Liberal premier anywhere in Australia to win three elections in a row – and that was back in the 1970s. Like Baird, he was a politician of the centre-right who became someone voters felt they could trust. They saw him as an intelligent, reliable, hard-working man who was genuinely concerned about ordinary people, and made decisions in their interest, not his own.

The real problem with Baird’s plan to sell the state’s electricity assets to build infrastructure is not that it will raise power prices, as Labor claimed; it won’t. The real problem is that his $20 billion will build only a small part of the infrastructure New South Wales needs, and if you sell off a bit more of the farm every time you need to invest more, you end up with no farm.

A country with rapid population growth needs to sustain a high level of infrastructure investment to maintain its service levels. This can’t be done while the states maintain a fetish for AAA credit ratings, which are designed for countries with little population growth and hence little need to borrow to build new infrastructure.

Baird has set himself a high standard to maintain in future. It won’t be easy. On last night’s numbers, it looks like he and the Christian Democrats will end up with just enough seats to get electricity privatisation through the Legislative Council. But the number of MPs on the other side of the Assembly chamber will have almost doubled, and they will put him under more pressure on a range of issues.

The NSW economy is clearly the strongest in Australia right now, but part of that strength comes from a long-overdue rebound after years of underperformance; that won’t last forever, and economically, we are in very uncertain times.

It may be, as Labor leader Luke Foley slyly suggested in his otherwise gracious concession speech on Saturday night, that Mike Baird is now enjoying the peak of his popularity – which implies that it will be downhill for him from here on. But if he can keep up the example he has set in this remarkable debut year, he could become the first Liberal premier since Hamer to last more than two terms – or he could be drafted into federal politics as leader to try to make the Liberal Party, once again, the natural party of government. •