BY JOHN PASSANT
For me it was the defining image of the year — Bob Carr on the steps of the NSW Parliament House giving the finger to unionists protesting against his workers' compensation cuts.
It captured the ALP's contempt for ordinary people and the party's "rule for the rich" reality. And that pro-capitalist logic is the reason Kim Beazley lost the November 10 federal election.
Six months ago the electorate despised the Coalition government. Workers hated Howard for the GST and his tax cuts for the rich. They hated him for the longer unpaid hours they were working. They hated him for his attacks on unions like the Maritime Union and more militant unions prepared to defend workers' wages and conditions. They hated him for destroying the public health and public education systems.
Workers wanted to get rid of Howard and his economic rationalism. But they remembered Labor's own 13 years of economic rationalism: things like cutting public health and education, privatisation, "freeing up" the labour market, cutting taxes for the rich.
So while the ALP was in front in the polls, the support was always soft. Labor did nothing to give workers a reason to actually vote ALP — other than not being the Liberals.
Then along came the Tampa affair. Australia was a colonial outpost built on genocide and raised on racism. The Tampa gave the PM the opportunity to play to the xenophobia of many people.
And the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York reinforced all sorts of conservative fears in people. Because Labor had not established itself as an alternative, it could not stop people responding positively to Howard's racism and warmongering. Instead, the ALP disgustingly echoed and supported Howard on the war on refugees and the war on Afghanistan.
To what effect? Labor received its lowest primary vote since the 1930s. The support Beazley gave to Howard on these issues reinforced the idea that in fact the ALP was the same as the Liberals. It also reminded people that when Labor last ruled they were a pack of rationalist bastards — just like the Coalition.
Why vote for the imitation when you can vote for the real thing?
To some extent the Labor vote fractured. Some workers turned to the Coalition. Others voted Green. In fact the Greens more than doubled their vote precisely because they were the party who condemned the government's treatment of refugees and raised some doubts about the war on Afghanistan.
We in the Socialist Alliance received around 1% of the vote in those 15 House of Representatives seats we stood in. We developed into an activist organisation of over a thousand people and helped build anti-war and pro-refugee rallies. Our biggest vote was in working-class areas.
We established contacts with groups all around the country. And we laid the groundwork for future development as a political organisation which appeals to workers and unions.
As the ALP reflects on the reasons for its defeat, some leading members are calling for the destruction of union influence in the party. This is code for turning the party into an Australian version of the American Democrats — the real B team of US capitalism.
Without union influence the ALP will be free to adopt even more anti-working class positions — which, despite the rhetoric, is precisely what Simon Crean, Mark Latham and Lindsay Tanner want to do.
Some trade unionists have begun to talk about establishing a workers' party. We in the Socialist Alliance would like to discuss this with comrades in the unions and elsewhere.
After all, our policies in the election were those of an organisation wanting to establish itself as a working-class party. We argued for things like taxing the rich, abolishing the GST, increasing spending on health, aged care, childcare and education, and welcoming refugees. Our opposition to the war in Afghanistan was unequivocal.
As the world economy sinks into recession, unemployment in Australia will increase. Howard supports such attacks because he thinks that "cost-cutting" will increase profits. Now that the election is over, Howard will mount his next war — the war on workers and their jobs. Crean will stand by and do nothing, except perhaps offer a few tokenistic job creation programs.
Only the unions stand between us and a jobs massacre. And only a new workers' party in Australia — a party built on people committed to a better world — can offer an alternative to the pro-capitalist, pro-unemployment policies of the major parties. Cut the working week without loss of pay and conditions to spread the work around.
Let's join together in the fight against unemployment. Let's join together to defend basic public services. Let's defend refugees. Let's oppose the US war on Afghanistan and the other "troublesome" countries it will attack in the months and years to come.
We all have a world to win. Together we can do it.
[John Passant is a member of Socialist Alliance in Canberra.]
From Green Left Weekly, December 5, 2001.
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