Domestic policies are often regarded as more important than foreign affairs and defence policies in influencing Australian election campaigns. But national security campaigns by the government of the day, known as either khaki elections or reds under the beds, have such a long history in Australian federal elections that they challenge the conventional wisdom.
It is all about fear. Many critics of the Morrison government, although buoyed by the Opposition’s lead in the public opinion polls, now worry that the combination of community fears of Chinese expansionism and the Russian invasion of Ukraine will save the government’s skin at the federal election.
Khaki elections conjure up images of the deployment of troops and military operations. But they can be about cold as well as hot wars and as much about states of mind as war itself. They are most effective when the other side of politics can be portrayed as disloyal, weak and/or misguided in the face of an international threat.
The history of national security politics in Australia includes the portrayal by the Menzies government of Labor as ‘soft on communism’ during the 1950s. This portrayal equated socialism and communism and was built on a mixture of international and domestic fears of communist influence. Trade union politics and alleged Labor links with the Communist Party of Australia were part of the mix. The era included the Petrov Russian Spy case prior to the 1954 election, the Labor Split, and the emergence of the anti-communist Democratic Labour Party. It was all one part of a winning recipe.
The potency of ‘reds under the bed’ slowly eased despite the Vietnam War, but even in 1972 Gough Whitlam could be derided as ‘the Manchurian candidate’ because of his visit to China as Opposition Leader. By the 1983 campaign Bob Hawke could make a telling joke about ‘reds under the bed’ when Malcolm Fraser claimed that, if Labor were elected, people’s money would be safer under the bed.
In 2001 national security was linked by John Howard to border security during the Tampa affair and more traditional threats of war following the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. Commitment to the US alliance has also been a regular element of these campaigns.
'National security campaigns can overwhelm most other issues. Some issues like climate action, political corruption, refugees, gender equality or Indigenous representation can suddenly seem to be not as immediate or important.'
Now we