By Joan Coxsedge
For those of us who have spent the last few decades in the Labor Party and watched the revolting machinations of the machine boys — they were and are nearly all boys — wheeling and dealing away hard fought-for policies and principles, the "revelations" about their internecine back-stabbing and throat-cutting wars on the ABC series were hardly revealing.
It is probably true that things have got a lot worse over the past decade, especially with the rise of Hawke and Keating and the institutionalisation of "mateship", along with the dominance of the ultra-right NSW machine, which has descended like a flyblown blanket over the entire Labor Party.
Nothing was ever perfect, but at least once upon a time we had a left wing with some principles and political clout and people who were prepared to have a bit of a go. Looking back, I feel the rot that has effectively destroyed the ALP as a progressive force in this country set in at the 1982 national conference in Canberra in the days leading up to the debate on the ALP's previously anti-uranium policy.
This policy, which had been put in place by a solid ground swell of anti-uranium and antiwar views was an important symbol for those who saw the ALP as offering some hope for the future. It was thrown out by an unholy alliance — or so we thought at the time — of Bob Hogg, then a member of the Socialist Left and Paul Keating, hard man of the Right. These two operated in tandem, using lies and strong-arm tactics to "persuade" sufficient delegates to vote for the destruction of the policy.
In retrospect, this bitter fight was really about who held power inside the ALP and how that power would be used. It certainly sounded the death knell for any genuine rank-and-file say in party decision-making and any effective left-wing influence.
But it went further than that. It was also a clear signal to the international power brokers — the ones behind the destruction of the Whitlam government — that the party had changed course and was "Labor" in name only and could be relied on to carry out the dictates of overseas capital, regardless of its effect on the Australian economy and the Australian people.
Within weeks of the national conference, Hawke — a new chum, Member for Wills, known for his connections with US organisations, big business and mateship with dodgy funny money-men — made his first challenge to Bill Hayden's leadership. Although strongly supported by the media, Hawke lost, but not for long. He finally ousted Hayden at the beginning of 1983, immediately prior to the federal election which saw him elected as prime minister.
Over the years, the media treated this reformed drunk and womaniser, a man reported in the media as advocating the "nuking" of Arabs, as some sort of messiah, but they must have had more on him than that. This knowledge, held by certain key media people and others, meant that every time a string was pulled, Hawke had to jump. And jump he did.
In short order, Australia's carefully constructed and very necessary financial controls were thrown overboard, and open slather was given to foreign imports, leading to the demise of our manufacturing and rural base.
"High fliers" in the labour movement who played along with these destructive policies must have seen the catastrophic effect they were having on the country, and yet they kept pushing them in the media and in the party forums. Efforts to build a strong alternative economic agenda were always neutered or completely derailed. We are forced to watch with mounting anger as unemployment continues to go through the roof and those lucky enough to still have a job see their hard-won conditions and wages eroded while business profits climb. A classic "free market" good, unions bad syndrome under a "Labor" government.
This was the exact policy being advocated for Australia at that time by the flagships of international financial capital. Not surprisingly, as a leader in this evil deregulatory direction, we were the first country to go into an economic decline, and it's been downhill all the way ever since.
We now have the dubious reputation of being one of the least egalitarian nations in the world, with one of the smallest public sectors. We spend less on foreign aid and less on jobs, have lower taxes and deteriorating health and education systems, once the finest in the Western world. Subservience to overseas interests created a climate within the ALP where these wretched sell-out merchants felt they could get away with anything, and they have, even involving us is a disgusting war in the Gulf on behalf of Washington.
From a tough right-wing machine, they have become a political mafia, ruthlessly enforcing their rule by numbers-crunching, shouting down opposition and, of course, offering the well-tried carrot, the promise of "jobs for the boys".
Once concern with policies went out the window, it was inevitable that infighting was the name of the game. The only thing that surprised me (a little) was their crassness and insensitivity as to how ordinary people think, shooting their mouths off about each other and going into great detail about their sordid behind-the-scenes power plays to journalists. This is, of course, common among US politicians, so perhaps it comes naturally to the "true believers" Hawke and Keating and their mates in the right-wing Labor machine.
[Joan Coxsedge was for many years a Labor MLC in Victoria. This is reprinted from her newsletter, Hard Facts.]