A Second Term for Fraser

Voters provide him with another big majority

For most Australians, the campaign was little more than a distraction from the annual Christmas rush--in part because it seemed to be getting almost as regular. For the fourth time in five years --a pace that left many voters wishing that political leaders would go back to serving out their three-year mandates --the people were being called on to elect a national government. Furthermore, the electorate was doubtful whether the complex economic problems on which the campaign centered could be quickly solved by either of the major candidates, Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and his immediate predecessor, Gough Whitlam.

Even so, when the political gift-giving season finally arrived last Saturday, Australia's voters delivered an unexpectedly lavish package to the incumbent. They not only returned Fraser to office for a second term, but also provided him with a parliamentary majority close to the all-time high of 55 seats he won in the previous election!

By early counts, Fraser's conservative coalition of the Liberal and National Country parties chalked up an 81-to-36 lead in the House of Representatives, with seven seats still in doubt. A new party, the Australian Democrats, captured a creditable 10% of the overall vote and seemed certain to win seats in the Senate.

The day's biggest loser by far was Whitlam, 61, the burly, blunt-spoken lawyer who in 1972 engineered Labor's first victory in 23 years and as Prime Minister managed to install many of the fixtures of welfare-state-ism in Australia, notably its first national health service. As soon as Labor's massive defeat became obvious, Whitlam announced that he would step down as party leader, thus leaving his former treasurer, Bill Hayden, 44, as his most likely successor. By contrast, the results were a minor victory for the Democrats' Don Chipp, 52, a Liberal renegade whose centrist views and unabashed idealism apparently struck a welcome chord among voters. Said he: "We offer an alternative to the politics of cynicism, character assassination and misleading statistics."

There was an abundance of all three in the closely fought campaign. The primary issues were unemployment, which last week reached a 45-year high of 5.8%, and inflation, which ballooned to 16.9% annually during Whitlam's prime ministership and still grinds on at the painful rate of 9%. Most economists expect increases in the cost of living to keep moderating somewhat, but they forecast still higher unemployment next year. Fraser evidently agreed with those general estimates; most political observers conclude that he called the election a year early to avoid having to go to the voters in somewhat worse shape then than now.

Whitlam promised to combat joblessness with a $550 million public spending program of capital-works projects, local job training and an employer subsidy for each new worker hired before March 1. Fraser relied heavily for voter appeal on an income tax cut scheduled to take effect in February; in the last days of campaigning, he even set up a nationwide "dial-your-tax-cut" gimmick that enabled telephone callers to inquire about their individual bonanzas. As for unemployment, Fraser called Whitlam's political spending plan inflationary, insisting the Liberals had "the real answer": programs aimed at stimulating private investment and holding down government spending.

Australia's voters obviously agreed. After his victory, Fraser expressed confidence about the future. "We still have substantial economic problems to overcome," the Prime Minister declared. "In the three years ahead of us I have not the slightest doubt that Australians working together will be able to overcome these particular problems." As for the top priorities in his second term, Fraser might be well advised to reprogram the government's dial-in telephone circuitry with a different sort of information. The result, which would be joyfully received by 357,000 out-of-work Australians, could be called dial-a-job. -

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