Peter Boyle
In the wake of the October federal election, former Australian Labor Party president and current senior vice-president of the ALP Barry Jones has condemned the rightward trajectory of his party.
"Australia now has two mainstream parties of the right: the ALP in the centre right and the Liberal Party on the hard right", he wrote in an article published in the October 22 Melbourne Age. The choice offered to voters by those parties was like that "between McDonald's and KFC".
Jones' dramatic criticism was published after the ALP's ideological leaders, party leader Mark Latham (of the Right faction) and Lindsay Tanner (of the Left faction) declared, in their post-election analyses, that they both think the ALP should more aggressively present itself as a party of neoliberal economic reform and globalisation.
Tanner declared on ABC TV's October 12 Lateline program that the ALP's "core problem" is "that we haven't yet really worked out where we stand on a whole range of fault lines in national political life, like, are we a party of Hawke and Keating and the open international economy, or are we are a party that seeks to look after particular producer interests?
"Are we a party that supports loggers or environmentalists?
"I believe very strongly that we have to be the party of competition, the open international economy integrating into the world economy with an appropriate industrial relations framework and safety net, and the party of productivity, the party of economic growth, the party of ensuring that people get economic opportunity."
Latham reaffirmed this on October 20 in the ABC's 7.30 Report: "We believe in the open market economy. In the election campaign I advanced the most extensive improvement to the Trade Practices Act, private sector competition reform that we've seen in Australia for 30 years.
"We believe in those values and I think Lindsay is asking those questions that have been answered long ago."
No wonder Barry Jones, the party's honorary "Keeper of the dream" is in despair. "Several policy elements Labor produced in the 2004 election campaign had radical aspects (priorities in schools funding, the Tasmanian forests)", he wrote, "but they appeared to be anomalous".
"On the social and intellectual agenda (for example, the 'history wars'), Labor was indistinguishable from the Coalition. Labor fought on a very narrow agenda. Given a choice between two conservative parties, voters reasonably chose the real one.
"Labor essentially fought the election on the terrain chosen by the Government and seemed oddly reluctant to raise some issues on which the Government appeared vulnerable. John Howard determined the Coalition's strategy — and Labor's too. Labor seemed to be dancing the tango with him, just as it had in 2001. Labor fought on the economy, stupid, so that interest rates was a recurrent, even obsessive, issue — precisely the area perceived to be the Government's strength. But Labor failed to set out its strong economic credentials from the Hawke-Keating years, or to identify areas of Coalition weakness, on trade, investment and private debt.
"There was no sustained debate on weapons of mass destruction, security, intelligence failures, the Iraq war, or politicisation of the public service and armed forces. It is as if Howard said to Labor, 'Don't mention the war, or Aborigines or refugees', and the ALP responded, 'We were never going to mention them anyway'. George Bush and Tony Blair have suffered collateral damage over Iraq, but Howard has been completely unscathed. The US ambassador would have been thrilled by the campaign. Howard was quoted as expressing surprise at Labor's restraint.
"Labor failed to pursue the issue of credibility and truth in government. Truth in government was raised by the 43 retired diplomats and military officers, but Labor let the subject drop."
Jones argued that the election result was a triumph for "wedge politics": "A clear illustration of 'wedge politics' was the continual attack on trade union influence (except for the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union). Unionists have declined as a percentage of the population since 1954, so they are an easy target. Their operations can be attacked as a threat to the economy (such as opposing unfair dismissal, a very sexy issue for Howard).
"If Labor criticised the influence of the rich and powerful (which rarely happened), this was attacked as a revival of class war. So Australia emerges from the campaign with a majority feeling good about themselves but with an alienated underclass in a deeply divided society.
"Aborigines were never mentioned in the campaign, nor refugees, because they are perceived as minority causes, completely repudiated under 'wedge politics'." Jones draws the brutal conclusion: "The Government is morally bankrupt — and Labor is not too far behind.
"Labor failed to stitch up a coalition between the aspirationals, who were presumed to have narrow economic preoccupations, and people who were preoccupied with moral or quality of life agendas. It was not necessary to offer much to people with non-economic priorities (for example, the Friends of the ABC) — but Labor should have at least acknowledged that they were there.
"Labor lacks a set of core beliefs. The party must identify and promote them."
The ALP's now notorious decision to direct critical Senate preferences to the new Christian fundamentalist Family First party ahead of the Greens was condemned. "Giving ALP Senate preferences to Family First in Victoria and Tasmania is a classic example of a tactical decision that would have probably looked clever if it helped Labor win seats at no cost to itself. But clearly this decision was never considered strategically — when Labor's vote collapses, would the party really prefer a Family First senator to a Greens senator?
"Targeting Peter Costello was both a tactical and strategic mistake. So was Medicare Gold, which proved to be a turkey, after an enthusiastic debut. The substance of the Tasmanian forests policy was right, but the timing was appalling."
Jones claimed that "Mark Latham's metaphor about 'climbing the rungs of the ladder of opportunity' has some unfortunate connotations". "Does everybody climb up the ladder? Who gets left behind? Does it mean displacing people on the lower rungs? I hope the ladder fades from view."
Jones also charged that the ALP's internal factional preselection battles were demoralising branch members. The Wran review of the ALP set up after the 2001 federal election defeat had attacked "the deadening impact of factionalism and the associated phenomenon of branch stacking" and "the cancerous effect this activity has had on the democratic traditions that have been the strength of our party". But nothing had been done about this, according to Jones.
The review, continued Jones, had urged that "in its policies the ALP must have a strong commitment to: the collective responsibility of society (that is, not leaving everything to the market); unqualified opposition to discrimination of all kinds; recognition of Aboriginal prior ownership of the continent; an independent foreign policy; protection of the natural environment (I would have added the cultural environment); an enlarged population, including more genuine refugees; the right of workers to organise and bargain collectively; 'a correct and humane policy' for boat people and refugees; and overcoming 'a perceived lack of policy differentiation from our conservative opponents'".
But this was not reflected in the 2004 election policies, Jones wrote. "At present, there is a significant disenfranchisement of Labor's traditional vote, people who feel lonely and alienated from the party they have always voted for. If Labor does not bring them home, the party's heart and mind will die."
[To read more post-election analyses and debate visit the Green Left Weekly discussion list: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/>.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 27, 2004.
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