Comments on: Have the Liberals run out of money?

By: John Malcolm

John Malcolm — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 02:07:37 +0000

Maybe voters don’t need party ads to tell them what is going on.

By: Richo

Richo — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:54:20 +0000

Frankly the Coalition were spending a million dollars a day on government “information” ads proclaiming how great everything from superannuation to workchoices was – and the polls didn’t move. People have switched off from this Government. No amount of extra Liberal party advertising at this stage is going to change that.
No matter how good the advertising, if people don’t like the brand, they are going to pay little if any attention.

By: Benno

Benno — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:35:02 +0000

I am not aware of any extensive research on the voting effect of the IR laws, but I think I heard/read somewhere that it had ‘only’ shifted about 3% of the TPP towards the ALP, alone giving it 50% of the vote compared with 2004.
Intuitively I think the effect should be much greater, perhaps a 6% point swing. Do you have a handle on it Graham?
The union workchoices ads early on were quite effective and the government didn’t put out ads of their own until too late. Do you think that they would have benefited from a GST style campaign where it was advertised even before the law was passed by parliament? Getting in first to frame the issue.
“Advertising works – that’s why it’s such a huge industry.” – Ok good point, so I withdraw my ‘glib’ criticism. But I despair of ever understanding the why and wherefore, it is so IRRATIONAL. Immagonna check out “how advertising works” on “how stuff works” now.

By: Andrew Elder

Andrew Elder — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:19:27 +0000

Graham,
Two weeks ago in Crikey I hypothesised that the Libs had run out of money – there were too many fires to put out and too few resources coming in.
The phenomenon you describe is not a Queensland one. It was well and truly entrenched in the NSW division during the ’90s, and their results at state level are testament to the success of the lazy, easily-countered lunge, and to their refusal to learn from experience.

By: Graham Young

Graham Young — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:26:51 +0000

Benno, the nature of government advertising is that from a political view you can only deliver a general message – not a specfic one. The polls moved decisively against Howard when the IR ads started running over 12 months ago.
Advertising works – that’s why it’s such a huge industry.

By: mac

mac — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:20:12 +0000

Benno,
The economy isn’t good, foreign debt equals half our GDP, and the country has a chronic current account deficit, we have been living on foreigners’ money. Perhaps some of the voters are waking up to this.

By: Benno

Benno — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:16:44 +0000

“It’s the disparity in campaign spend over the last 12 months, starting with the Union campaign, that explains why Howard is so far behind in the polls despite the fact that electors are mostly happy with the job that he’s done.”
I don’t think so, that is a pretty glib answer for the state of the polls. What about all the money the government has spent on advertising on behalf of the liberal party? You point out that it has been ineffective, then the reason in the polling gap would not be about spending but that people are tuning out to anything the government says.
There is still a disparity, but this says more about the loss of morale amongst those who could have been counted upon in recent elections to fund the liberals campaign.
It is a very wierd situation, economy good, people supposedly broadly happy with the government and the prime minister and yet huge swings measured against it. Such a complex scenario cannot be explained by union workchoices ads earlier, or Kevin Rudds ads about who he is and that he likes education. The swing was on long before the latest round of ALP ads came in.
I don’t know about non-advertising campaign spending by the ALP over the last 12 months.