After the debacle that was Mark Latham's exit from politics, the decline in the fortunes of the Australian Labor Party proceeds unabated.
With a state poll fast approaching in Western Australia — which may see Labor lose office there — any hope that the ALP can quickly re-position itself as a credible electoral force must be considered forlorn. News that the party may even lose the upcoming by-election for Latham's safe ALP seat of Werriwa has only encouraged Labor to gloss over its glaring deficiencies and appeal to its "underdog" status instead.
Rather than arresting this decline, Kim Beazley's recent elevation to the party leadership is widely being seen as an exercise in swapping deckchairs on the Titanic. Like a broken record this time around, there's nothing of the excitement that greeted the Latham ascendency a year ago. Despite Beazley's assertions that he will lead an opposition "that sharpens the distinctions between ourselves and the government", Labor has been quick to highlight how little distinction actually exists between the major parties by doing the exact opposite, and dumping major policy planks from the last election. Now gone is the party's verbal commitment to save Tasmanian old-growth forests. Also trashed is the attack on elite private school funding and the half-cocked Medicare Gold package for free hospital care for those over 75.
Exploiting Latham's exit as an excuse to remake the party by dropping elements that distinguished it from the Coalition indicates how little leadership changes actually mean to the trajectory of the ALP. Since the election, party post-mortems have chosen to converge ALP politics with those of the Coalition rather than consider another tack. The abrupt leadership change is merely window dressing for the rot that set in long ago.
This continuing exercise in realpolitik is best indicated by Beazley's attempt to go on the attack over the Iraq occupation. Now that the "troops-home-by-Christmas" line has been put to rest, and the electorate has been told that its use-by date has passed, Labor is now keener than ever to run dead on the question of troop withdrawl. To hear Beazley wing it, it's a Catch 22. "While there are Australian diplomats in Iraq", he told his inaugural press conference, "Australian troops are needed to protect them".
If it is your impression that the ALP is now on side with the Coalition over its Iraq policy, the new ALP leader is keen to differ. While Howard toadies to the US on Iraq, and places no conditions on Australia's continuing cooperation, Beazley's ALP promises a new purpose by encouraging the US to withdraw as soon as possible to avoid being stuck in a quagmire. According to Beazley, Labor was prepared to be the ally the Americans needed, not the one they wanted.
As Sydney Morning Herald web diarist Margo Kingston put it, Beazley "has solid pro-American credentials, and today he used them to argue that Labor was the true pro-American party, the party which was prepared to give the Yanks advice they didn't want to hear to ensure the superpower stayed strong, solvent, and capable of leading the world in the fight against WMDs and terrorism. Want a strong America to look after Australia? Vote Beazley."
If this is not the policy differential you hoped to hear, it is unfortunately what's on offer as Labor searches for any chink with which to mark itself off as a bona fide opposition without actually getting into too much technical detail about what it actually opposes. Beazley says that he is going to give Howard the fight of his life and win the next election. Assuming he lasts that long, Kim Beazley isn't saying on what grounds he is preparing to lose the election — let alone win it.
Dave Riley
[Dave Riley is a member of the Socialist Alliance]
From Green Left Weekly, February 9, 2005.
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