Saddest Show in Town

As parties go, this is a dud. The Labor faithful began milling outside a function room at Mount Pritchard Community Club, in Sydney’s outer west, shortly before 7 p.m. By the time some 200 of them are allowed inside, the writing’s on the wall. It’s like a rugby match where fans show up thinking their team is a chance, only to see them concede three tries in the first five minutes. Within minutes of polls closing on the mainland, it’s clear Labor, which needs an extra 13 seats, has lost two – Bass and Braddon – in Tasmania. By 6:45, the count is showing a swing to the Coalition. Before partygoers sample their first spring roll, the grim faces of Labor heavies on the big screen herald a night to forget.

From there it’s a matter of waiting for Mark Latham to appear and concede. And it’s quite a wait. The blonde, spirited Member for Fowler, Julia Irwin, tries to lift the mood with an address in which she lauds her leader as someone “who never stands behind people, nor in front of them – he stands side by side with them.” She gets a cheer, but former Labor leader Kim Beazley draws groans while being interviewed on the screen, when he argues that the result is better than some internal polls had forecast; he even manages to squeeze in the word “terrific.”

Among the crowd – mostly volunteers and local branch members – the inclination is to face up to a disastrous result rather than spin it. Self-described “Labor stalwart” Phil Fullerton says Latham hadn’t been long enough in the job to convince enough people he was ready for the big one. “A lot of people like John Howard,” he adds. “I don’t know why. But they do.” Young father Scott Ison says the P.M. had appealed successfully to Australians’ basest instincts, adding: “People would struggle to agree on one theme he believes in.” Many are convinced that ads predicting interest rates would rise under Labor were decisive. “When you knock on thousands of doors,” says the winning candidate for Prospect, Chris Bowen, “you get a sense of things. People wanted to vote Labor because of health and education, but felt they couldn’t risk it.”

Latham reaches the podium at 9:45. Pale and subdued, he looks as one might expect a man to look who’s been billed as a savior but whose party has lost ground in his first shot at power. Acknowledging a long ovation, he can muster only brief, brave smiles; the sting of defeat has stripped him of his usual self-consciousness and he’s the more appealing for it. In this sense nothing in his campaign became him like the leaving it, and his speech is magnanimous, though this is a pleasing tradition in Australian politics – in what must have been some parallel universe, Howard gave just such a speech as the loser of the 1987 poll. After promising to “see you again,” Latham is gone and guests stream for the exit. This party, which never really got going, is over.