By Pip Hinman
With the budget negotiations at a stalemate and the polls showing a rise in support for minor parties and independents, the Labor Party has stepped up its attack on the Green senators. Despite the pressure, Christabel Chamarette and Dee Margetts are standing firm. Labor's budget benefits the rich at the expense of the poor, and they want to change it. By taking this stand, they have put social justice, which the Labor government thought it had buried, back on the political agenda.
As Prime Minister Keating departed for the United States, the establishment media's editorials reached a crescendo of vitriol against the Greens. "Greens or Gangrenes?" the Age asked on September 13, attributing the fall in the dollar to them. The Sydney Morning Herald of the same day accused the Greens of "holding the government to ransom" with "some very bizarre demands".
The following day, the Financial Review's editorial described the Green Senators as "political neophytes", passing them off as naive, inexperienced amateurs.
But the patronising tone from the powers that be fails to mask their alarm at the Greens' political impact. Some cracks are starting to appear in the two-party parliamentary game.
Of real concern to Labor is its, and Keating's, declining popularity. The polls show that support for the Greens, the Democrats, minor parties and independents is on the rise.
A Morgan poll published in the September 20 Time put the Democrats at 9%, up 3 points; the Greens at 4%, up half a point, and other minor parties and independents at 6%, up one point. Support for both major parties fell: Labor by 2.5 points to 34% and the Liberal-National Coalition down 2 to 47%. Keating's popularity has hit an all time low at 24%.
Not only are the Greens being accused of wrecking the country's economy, they are also being charged with not being "true" greens.
"The Greens have deteriorated from a movement with a genuine environmental focus to merely the latest incarnation of the soft Left", warned the Financial Review.
Senator Dee Margetts laughs at the suggestion that the Greens are not acting like "Greens". "The platform we stood on included equity, social justice, community participation in decision making, as well as environmental integrity and peace and disarmament", she told Green Left Weekly.
"You'd have to be blind and deaf not to know that we did stand for more than the environment. Around election time, the two major parties were very clear about the politics of the WA Greens, which is more than you could say for their Senate tickets."
As for the charge that the WA Greens are being "irresponsible" and "holding the government to ransom" by refusing to strike a deal with the treasurer before the Senate sits again on September 27, Margetts replies that the Greens are simply about trying to fulfil their mandate. "We have been left in the unenviable position of trying to defend the less well off. We received the same amount of votes as any other elected member of parliament. The difference is that most other elected members have given up their responsibilities."
Despite the media hype, the Greens have consistently stated they do not intend to block the budget and force a double dissolution. Senator Christabel Chamarette reiterated on September 12, "If the government rejected our amendments and sent it back again, at that point we would bow out. The budget is the government's responsibility. Our Senate role is to review it and push for changes where appropriate, such as easing the impact on low income earners."
Bob Brown, a spokesperson for the confederation of parties which make up the national Green Party (which does not include the WA Greens) told Green Left that the Green senators had every right to represent their electorate and to push for the best results they can get.
Brown acknowledged that the Green senators were under enormous pressure. He said he supported their determination to push ahead with their package even though it had been rejected by the government.
But, for Brown, the most important aspect of the WA senators' strategy was that they had managed to democratise parliament. "They have ensured that executive decision-making over issues affecting all Australians goes back to the floor of the parliament, where it always should be. The government may hold out against the Green's budget package, but while the Greens are there — as happened in Tasmania for three years — there will be a great improvement in the way the budget and other issues are debated. In other words, parliament again becomes important in our democracy."
Labor is feeling the pressure from having brought in a very unpopular budget so soon after its unexpected election victory. Growing frustration among Labor's ranks, the so-called "true believers", is being reflected in the unease in selling the budget by many in the parliamentary party. At a recent parliamentary meeting of caucus and backbenchers, Keating was hauled over the coals, and not just because of the budget. Labor parliamentarians were also extremely angry at his handling of the Democrats and the Greens.
As one backbencher complained at the time, "We've been working for 10 years to marginalise the minor parties, and then, in the space of a few days, Keating brings them back onto centre stage".
Initially the spotlight fell on the Democrats. They struck a deal with the treasurer which involved a $50 increase in the tax rebate for low income earners; the retention of optometry within Medicare; the abandonment of retrospective taxation on long service leave and holiday pay and the scrapping of the second three cent rise in tax on leaded petrol.
In announcing the deal on August 30, Democrat leader Cheryl Kernot commented that "it is now time to put certainty back into the budget debate". Directing her comments at the Greens and the Coalition, she said it would be irresponsible to prolong uncertainty over the budget. "There is a limit to the change that can be responsibly achieved."
But the Greens have held out. Margetts explains why. "The Greens have a different strategy. We want to do politics in a different way and some people have difficulty with the fact that we are not doing deals with Labor. We did not want to put all our eggs in one basket.
"We have so many concerns with the budget, and the whole strategy on which the budget is based. We want some recognition by the government of the problem. But in order for them to make any changes either on expenditure cuts or taxation of people on lower incomes, they had to look at the prospect of alternative sources of revenue. That's where they felt we were rising above our station in life. How dare we suggest alternative sources of revenue!
"I imagine many people in the Labor Party would have been very annoyed with the fact that a Labor government promised give-aways to the corporate sector which end up being funded by the poor."
A background document issued by the WA Greens explains why they had to oppose the budget, and the costing on their proposed amendments. Labor's budget, they argue is "highly regressive" and "fundamentally flawed" because it seeks reduce the deficit and cut income taxes by increasing indirect taxes, principally through increases to wholesale sales tax and excise rates on fuel and tobacco.
"Indirect taxes have a far greater impact on low income earners. In addition, low income earners are more likely to own cars that require leaded petrol and live in outer suburbs, exacerbating the impact of fuel price increases. The hardest hit group are low income households who pay little or no tax, do not receive social security benefits, as these people will not benefit from the new tax rebate or the indexation of benefits.
"We cannot commit ourselves to supporting the government's purported strategy which places the greatest burden on the poor, gives benefits to those who need it least, and in the final analysis does not deliver the financial responsibility it trumpets."
The Greens propose to raise the company tax rate to 35%, mid-way between the old and the new rates and introduce a "top-up tax" of 5% on incomes above $100,000. According to the Greens document, "The top-up tax would effect less than 1% of taxpayers. After factoring in the tax cuts scheduled for November 15, someone with a taxable income of $120,000 would pay around $86 a year more in tax after the change.
"Possible expenditure savings would involve freezing defence spending at current levels and only passing on 25% of the proposed increase in the diesel fuel rebate for the mining industry. The government estimates indicate that these measures would raise an additional $375 million in this financial year, and contribute more than $5 billion by 1996-97."
The Greens estimate, on the basis of the information supplied by the treasurer, that their entire package would involve a total cost to revenue of $166 million this year, but save over $600 million by 1996-97.
They are also concerned that there has been no provision made for the legal costs associated with compensation for Aborigines as a result of the Mabo decision, or for labour market programs. They argue that their package would significantly improve the equity impact of the budget, by raising sufficient revenue to compensate the worst affected by the increases in indirect taxes.
Not surprisingly, the Greens' proposals have been dismissed by Treasurer John Dawkins as "at odds with the government's economic and social strategy".
In a letter to the Green senators on September 8, Dawkins spelled out Labor's economic rationalist line. Economic recovery, he said, will come from an increase in exports generated from an increase in private sector investment.
"The government has made a quite deliberate decision to reduce the tax rate for companies operating in Australia, to encourage investment to stay here and to attract investment here", Dawkins said. "We cannot now agree to unwinding that decision. To do so would have profound effects on Australia's reputation and its attractiveness as a location for investment."
It's clear why Labor is losing support, Margetts said. "When the government has to choose between listening to their corporate friends and doing what is right — or finding out what the community wants — they always go for the advice given by their corporate friends.
"Any time the word 'uncertainty' gets mentioned, Labor goes weak at the knees — whether it's Mabo or industrial relations. It seems to me that the Treasury's and the government's corporate friends are the ones writing the tune. Now they weren't elected, any of them! So whose mandate is it?"
Given the stalemate in negotiations, the ALP has had to change tack. Its most experienced wheeler and dealer, Senator Graham Richardson, renowned for securing Labor crucial green preferences in the 1990 federal elections, is on a mopping-up operation.
At a Sydney Press Club speech on September 14, Richardson attempted to damp down budget criticism, commenting that while Labor had distanced itself from its socialist objective, it was still a party of reform. "I'm like the rest of the true believers", he said. "I won't vote to sell [public enterprises] off."
He said that Labor may be prepared to compromise with the Greens, but used the opportunity to take a public swipe at them. "The Greens and the stance they are taking at the moment really show how a vision can be distorted. The kind of instability they are providing at the moment — it has the effect of driving down the Australian dollar even further — will affect every Australian worker and low-income family worse than it ever will the rich." He also accused the Greens of "putting a stain on the name of green politics".
Margetts is outraged. "Richardson accuses us of putting a gun to Keating's head, but it's really the other way around. Every time we've spoken to them, they start that lie and end up waving double disillusion at us.
"They've tried to beat us over the head with the dollar. They've actually given us statistics on interest rates, saying it will be our fault if they rise and that we have to pass the budget for the benefit of the economy. And this line is pretty well uncritically repeated by the media."
With one exception, the confederation of Green parties have expressed support for the Green senators' stand.
The September 19 Illawarra Mercury reported that Al Oshlack, a Greens "national spokesperson" from the Richmond Clarence Greens in NSW, was critical of their strategy. According to the article, "Oshlack said in a statement the actions of the West Australian Greens Senators were breaking the potential for the Greens to effectively ally with the Australian and the Federal Labor Caucus to achieve social justice and environmental protection".
Bob Brown and spokesperson for the NSW Greens Paul Fitzgerald told Green Left that Oshlack was not a spokesperson for the Greens, and that this was not the Greens' position. "It is his point of view, nothing more than that", Brown said.
A September 6 media release from the NSW Greens supports the efforts of the WA senators to "remove regressive measures from the federal government's budget" and adds that Oshlack's comments "should be ignored".
The Queensland Greens believe that the WA Green senators "have done us all a big favour by showing that there are some people in parliament who are prepared to take a firm and principled stand against the economic consensus that would give us regressive consumption taxes, lowered tax rates for the wealthy and increasing disparities between rich and poor".
Spokesperson Drew Hutton added: "They could have done what the Democrats did, which was to tinker with the edges of the government's budget and show everyone how cleverly they could play the parliamentary game. Instead they have drawn a line in the sand and stated to all parties that, as far as the Greens are concerned, Australian society needs to become more just and more egalitarian."
Brown agrees that the Greens, in sticking to their guns, have managed to do more than the Democrats. And more changes can be made, Brown said, given that Labor and the Democrats do not have a majority in the Senate.
"I think that it is very easy to make some minor gains and then fit comfortably back into the parliament and be satisfied. But the world and politics are difficult for people who are going to make major changes, and that's what the Greens are about."
But, he added, "What Cheryl Kernot says about limits is true. There are limits on what people holding the balance of power in the house of government and the house of review can achieve. It takes a while to sort out just what you can get, and [the Green senators] have to be very mindful of the ramifications of holding up a budget for too long. The big question for the WA Greens is what can they achieve short of blocking the budget in the Senate?"
The WA Greens' decision not to make deals with Labor contrasts with the Tasmanian Labor-Green Independent Accord from 1989 to 1991. Green critics of that deal pointed out that the Green Independents were likely to be compromised by the arrangement, which implicated them in harsh austerity measures.
While Brown believes that the Green Independents were "enormously successful" in using the balance of power to get both social justice and environmental reforms, this was not reflected in the polls. In 1989 five Green Independents held the balance of power in the Tasmanian parliament. In 1992, the five were re-elected, but with a 25% drop in their vote.
South Australian Green Alliance and Environmental Youth Alliance activist Leslie High told Green Left that the ground swell of support for the Green senators is the result of their principled stand — especially in relation to the ALP. "Despite the pressure, they have stood firm and demonstrated that 'new politics' has to be about maintaining independence from both major political parties.
"Green activists from around the country are heartened by the Senators' strong stand. The time is right to start to rebuild the green political movement. But the Tasmanian experience shows that we cannot afford to simply rely on green parliamentarians, important though their role is. For the green vision to grow strong, we need a much bigger and more organised political movement."
Margetts agrees that support for the WA Greens comes as a result of their uncompromising stand — despite the media hounding. "The more bagging headlines, the more cards, letters, faxes and phone calls we get, including from people who didn't vote Green but tell us they think we're wonderful. We are really surprised. We thought people really believed the headlines. They don't!"