Scare Tactics

One glance at the image of a suspiciously familiar looking, pink-suited Barbie doll plastered in the top right-hand corner of this blog should make it resoundingly clear exactly who got my vote in the last state election. However, despite my support, in the end beauty, a toothy grin and an endearing accent just weren’t enough to secure Kristina Keneally’s re-election as Premier of NSW. This video may provide some support for those still in mourning over this terrible loss:

Goodbye Kristina Keneally

Although the process may be difficult, it is time we move on and accept the fact that the spunky blonde from America has been replaced by Fatty O’Barrel Barry O’Farrell as our fearless leader. In order to understand exactly how it all went so wrong for Ms. Keneally, it would be wise to reflect back on the successes and stumbles featured in the lead up to the 2011 election.

Remember this heart-rendering, dramatic (and heavily criticised) monologue delivered by the then-Premier?

Consider yourself warned, population of New South Wales. Under a Liberal government, crime rates will be so high and police numbers so few that you will need to ‘take care of your neighbour’

O’Farrell, ever the critic, chided the Premier for having reached ‘a despicable new low’ by seeking to ‘scare the vulnerable in the community’. But really, if we take this to have been Keneally’s primary objective, is it possible to describe this as a despicable new low?

This got me thinking:

Is there anything new about politicians employing scare tactics when discussing law and order issues in the media?

 

It appears Keneally can not be considered to have invented an entirely original campaigning method. The media itself has drawn a clear parallel between the former-premier’s speech and the warning issued to the public in 1983 by then-Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser that your money would be ‘safer under your bed than in the banks’ if Bob Hawke was in power (Clenell 2011. 'Old scare tactics born of desparation'; The Daily Telegraph 2011. 'Keneally fear card just insults voters'). While in this case Fraser was referring to the economy rather than bank-robbers, this does hint at the fact that the scare tactics employed by Keneally have deep historical roots.

In fact, Keneally’s own state labor party (then led by Morris Iemma) used comparable tactics (albeit more successfully) in the 2007 election. In the lead up to the election, the Labor government introduced the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Gangs) Act 2006, which gave police more powers to disperse groups and enter and search premises. When introducing this legislation to the NSW Parliament, and perhaps more importantly, the media, MP Tony Steward delivered a speech containing ‘dramatic assertions’ about the ‘rampant lawlessness’ of gangs which appeared to be directed at creating a climate of fear in the community (Miralis 2008, p. 35).

If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because there are some striking similarities between this legislation and the Crimes (Criminal Organisations Control) Act 2009, also known as the ‘anti-bikie’ legislation. In fact, due to their increasing of police powers, both statutes are perfect examples of the ‘tough on crime’ approach regularly flouted by political parties during election time. According to Hogg and Brown (1998, p. 4), this approach utilises a ‘law and order commonsense’ conception of crime, in which crime is viewed as a ‘problem of ever-increasing gravity set to overwhelm society unless urgent, typically punitive measures are taken to control and suppress it’. 

The use of this conception to heighten the public’s fear of crime, and subsequently their dependence on and support for a particular political party, has been traced all the way back to the United States elections of the 1960s. The ‘moral panic whipped up by the conservatives’ surrounding issues of law and order, as exemplified by the campaigns of GOP nominee Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1968, has been linked to the rising of crime to the status of America’s number one domestic problem (Lee 2007, p. 201; Loo 2004, p. 50).

It seems therefore that political scare tactics have long been employed by politicians in order  to garner public support during the lead up to an election. Subsequently, through her depiction of crime as a dangerous threat which exists somewhere ‘out there’, and the police as our valiant, superhuman protectors, Keneally’s speech may be viewed as nothing more than another example of the significant role law and order commonsense conceptions play in political discourse.

We miss you Kristina, please return to politics soon



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Clenell, A. 2011, ‘Old scare tactics born of desperation’, The Daily Telegraph, 12 March, viewed on 7 May, < http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/old-scare-tactics-born-of-desperation/story-fn6b3v4f-1226020021636>.

Hogg, R. & Brown, D. 1998, Rethinking law and order, Pluto Press, Annandale.

‘Keneally fear card just insults voters’ 2011, The Daily Telegraph, 12 March, viewed on 7 May, < http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/keneally-fear-card-just-insults-voters/story-e6frezz0-1226019932824>.

Lee, M. 1996. ‘Governance and criminality: The 1995 New South Wales election campaign and law and order’, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 152-162.

Lee, M. 2007, Inventing fear of crime: Criminology and the politics of anxiety, Willan Publications, Uffculme.

Loo, D. D. & Grimes, R. M. 2004. ‘Polls, politics and crime: The ‘law and order’ issue of the 1960s, Western Criminology Review, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 50-67.

Miralis, D. ‘Law & order 2007-style’, Law Society Journal, pp. 54-57.