How The ALP Can Save Face Over Aboriginal Affairs

The ALP has trumped nearly everything that the Coalition has put on the table this year, from broadband to climate change to IR. What’s more, they’ve done it before the Coalition, so that they always seem ahead of the game. This week’s new policy on Indigenous Affairs is bold and volatile, and while it’s also being considered to being a clever wedge tactic, just like 2001’s Tampa, it is politically smart for a simpler reason. It puts the Government back on the front foot.

With no new Indigenous Affairs policies to show, the ALP has made the wise but reactive response to support the measures. This will ensure that their vote won’t plummet like it did in 2001, but some of the soft polling numbers will drift back to Howard over this bold new strategy.

For Rudd and the team to get back on the offensive, they need to be arguing vehemently that the Government offer appropriate services in the NT Aboriginal communities to deal with alcohol addiction. They need to say something like that it will ensure that the vacuum of time and money from the forcibly sober won’t be wasted on drugs, or on going to the white towns to drink. This needs to be done before the Coalition cough up the details of their plans. It will make the ALP out to be not only more compassionate, but also more stable. To work with the compassion angle, they shouldn’t talk about rehab as an election promise, but to lobby the Government to make sure that they happen.

And if NT Chief Minister wants to take one for the team, she should continue to complain about how she wasn’t told about the plans until they were announced to the public. It will paint the Coalition as being brash and impulsive, and reinforce Rudd’s image as being a safe pair of hands.

The ALP should pray that Noel Pearson keeps quiet for a good few news cycles, though it isn’t likely. If the most respected advocate for Aboriginal rights comes out in verbal support of the Government, it will undermine Labor’s position as being the best party to deal with Aboriginal affairs.

Even with this damage control, Labor will take a hit in the polls, but it will soften the blow considerably.