Comment by Peter Boyle The Australian Democrats' revival of founder and ex-Liberal Don Chipp's slogan "Keep the bastards honest" at their February 11 campaign launch confirms their precarious niche in the Australian political establishment. They want to be the main "responsible" and pragmatic minority parliamentary party seeking to ameliorate the neo-liberal policies of Labor and Coalition governments. The Democrats go to this election with policies that are, on the whole, less conservative than those of Labor, and with a public perception that they have tried to soften some of Labor's harshest blows. They call for more spending on social welfare, health, education, environment, women and Aborigines. They are for a bill of rights, self-determination for East Timor and an end to the mining and export of uranium. They say they oppose "privatisation for its own sake" and are against the Liberals' plan to sell off a third of Telstra. They call for higher corporate taxes and lower military spending. But they claim that encouraging Australian-owned small business is the solution to high unemployment. Some of the Democrats' policies are similar to or slightly more reactionary than those of the ALP. For instance, the Democrats support the repeal of sections 45D & E of the Trade Practices Act, which prohibit solidarity strikes. But like the Labor government, they supported giving the Industrial Relations Commission power to prohibit such strikes. In general they claim to be even handed between employers and employees and to be against both big business and big unions. They say that lower youth wages amount to age discrimination, but they favour "competency based" wages, which may amount to the same thing for young workers. In the last NSW election, some Democrat candidates supported youth curfews and other undemocratic "law and order" measures. The Democrats have called for lower immigration quotas but they are also in favour of more liberal treatment of refugees. The Liberals have complained that in the Senate the Democrats have worked more closely with Labor, voting with Labor more than twice as often as they have voted with the Coalition parties. However, WA Greens Senator Christabel Chamarette says the Democrats and WA Greens vote against the major parties in 80% of cases.
Left tack
In the early 1990s the Democrats took a "left" tack. They participated in an electoral alliance with the Democratic Socialists, the Socialist Party of Australia and the Greens in Brisbane City Council elections. They opposed Labor's active support for the US in the Gulf War. Democrat Senators Sid Spindler and Janet Powell were early sponsors of the
Green Left Weekly project. But in 1991, Powell was removed from the Democrat leadership and replaced by Senator John Coulter. Following acrimonious and personal infighting, Powell and many leading Victorian Democrats resigned from the party. Under Coulter, the focus was on soft green issues. He is best remembered for suggesting that Easter bilbies replace Easter bunnies! In May 1993, he was replaced by Senator Cheryl Kernot just before the federal elections, in which the Democrats' vote dropped to 5.3% from a 1990 high of 11.3%. They lost votes to Greens, independents and to Labor. Despite this decline in votes, the Democrats were suddenly catapulted into the limelight by the establishment media. Kernot was hailed for being "someone you could do business with".
Proved responsibility
The media applause amplified when the Democrats vigorously sought to differentiate from the two WA Greens senators by presenting themselves as the more "responsible" and "pragmatic" minor party during the debate over the 1994 budget. However, the policy differences between the Australian Greens and Democrats are not great. Queensland Greens leader Drew Hutton claims that 90% of their platforms have a workable degree of common ground, and their major differences really arise from their competition for Senate seats. Kernot agrees. Five of the seven Democrat senators are up for election, and at least two of these seats are seriously threatened by the Australian Greens' most prominent candidates, Bob Brown in Tasmania and Peter Singer in Victoria. Both Greens and Democrats put most of their efforts into getting into (and staying in) parliament. Pitching for the middle-class vote, both the Greens and the Democrats have resorted on at least some occasions to splitting their preferences between Labor and Liberal or even favouring Coalition parties. In the ACT, the conservative Carnell government came in only with the votes of Green MPs. The Greens share some responsibility for the recent return of the Nationals to government in Queensland, because they gave the Nationals their preferences before Labor in four seats in the last state elections.
Safety valve
The better treatment of the Democrats by the Murdoch and Packer media since 1993 can also be understood in the light of government minorities in the Senate and in several state upper houses. Disgruntled with the poor choice between right-wing Liberal and Labor governments, voters are denying state and federal governments of both stripes majorities in upper houses. This at least slows down the attacks on living standards and the environment. Hence the Keating government and the media barons have sought to flatter the Democrats into being less obstructive. As long as the Democrats are willing to accept the role of a tame (and ultimately powerless) "opposition" to bipartisan economic rationalism, their populist rhetoric about "economic nationalism" and buying back the farm will be humoured by the Murdoch and Packer hired hands. Similar rhetoric in the Australian Greens' recently released policy was pilloried by the
Australian as a "proposal for far-reaching economic change that is plainly wrong-headed and that would have serious consequences". What makes the difference is that the Democrats have underlined their support for Labor's austerity ("budget deficit strategy") thrust through their Senate interventions around the last two federal budgets. Kernot calls on voters to "take out insurance" by voting Democrat, but the ruling class has read the fine print in her policy. When, as the
Sydney Morning Herald's Max Walsh notes, Labor and Liberal parties cannot honestly promise what most people want — security and continuity — the system needs a safety valve. A progressive-sounding but responsible minority party like the Australian Democrats has a place in the political establishment.