Labor pays for lousy position on war

April 23, 2003
Issue 

There have been many theories floated in Australia's newspapers as to why federal Labor leader Simon Crean is doing so badly in the polls. Two polls in as many days indicated most Labor supporters prefer former PM Kim Beazley to lead the party. The problem is, most of their theories turn reality on its head.

On April 19, for example, the Age's international editor Tony Parkinson explained the poor poll results: "Having been seen to succumb to the populist slogans of the peace movement and the reflexive anti-Americanism coursing through sections of its political base, the opposition finds itself at risk of ending up on the wrong side of history."

Sydney Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Ackerman expressed similar sentiments, blaming "radicals" such as anti-war MP Tanya Plibersek for the collapse in Labor's support. (The irony is that Plibersek was one of the MPs to rally most vehemently behind Crean when he backtracked on the demand that Australian troops be brought home.)

Ackerman and Parkinson are part of a corporate-media-hack push to re-write history to claim that the US-British-Australian invasion of Iraq is a popular war. It is not.

Not only do the polls show that it was the most unpopular war in Australian history, the huge protests against the war indicate that the opposition was active and deeply felt. Throughout February and March, anti-war protests were attended by at least 1 million people. Many came out again and again, desperately trying to halt Australia's involvement in a brutal war for US domination of the Middle East.

The parliamentary party most identified with an anti-war stance, the Greens, has continued its rapid rise in the polls, eating into much of the Labor Party's electoral space. The Greens have inspired a layer of voters, primarily because they are viewed as principled, gutsy and progressive.

A number of ALP betrayals have contributed to its losses — including its anti-refugee stance, its anti-environment policies and state Labor governments' attacks on unions. And now its fudging and obfuscation on its actual position on the war has cost it big time.

From the beginning, Labor's opposition to the war was weak. Around the New Year, its insistence that the "UN process" looked more like an insistence that the UN Security Council approve war before the US went in anyway. (Some Labor MPs, Beazley prominent among them, still believe this should have happened.)

Even the no-war-without-the-UN position was too bold for the Labor Party. If the UN did not endorse the war, Labor had a series of criteria that allowed it to buckle and support the war. Aside from the infamous "We'll-support-war-if-only-one-Security-Council-member-vetoes-it" position, the ALP also indicated that it would support war if there was "credible" evidence of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction.

These qualifications were rightly viewed by most Australians as having two-bob each way.

One event scared the Labor Party leadership into identifying itself more with the anti-war camp: the vast size of the anti-war protests on the February 14-16 weekend. The day after the 220,000-strong February 14 Melbourne protest, Crean was on the radio "congratulating" anti-war protesters. By February 16, he had wangled his way onto the platform of a Brisbane anti-war protest, where, not surprisingly, he was heckled.

For the next few weeks, those Labor MPs who had consistently supported the anti-war movement — especially Harry Quick and Carmen Lawrence — were given more space by the Labor leadership to try to recover the party's credibility among anti-war activists. On March 20, two days before the NSW election, hundreds of full-colour Labor peace placards suddenly appeared at the Sydney emergency protest against the war and several rally marshals wore Labor T-shirts, despite the "official" ALP profile at these rallies having been low before (although many local ALP branch members had been active in the anti-war campaign).

Two days later, Crean pulled the plug again on the party's anti-war stance, telling the ABC's Insiders program that he thought the troops "should do their job as quickly as possible and come home". The resulting confusion around the ALP's position on the war led to another slump in the party's poll showing.

Now that the main discussion has moved on to the occupation of Iraq, the ALP is still fudging, calling for a UN "role" in the political administration of Iraq, and for Australian troops to remain in the meantime. Already, the Australian Council of Trade Unions has fallen behind this call, initiating a statement which calls on the UN to administer a "mediated resolution".

Of course, any right-thinking person would support UN humanitarian aid for Iraq — there is a glaring need for an immediate, wide-scale effort to provide food and water and to restore basic services. But this is not the same as asking the UN to, in effect, help administer — and legitimise — the occupation of Iraq by foreign invaders.

Labor's slump in the polls is directly connected with its inability to take a principled stand against the war in Iraq. It is not that voters object to Crean's personality, but that he is associated with a policy that most believe is more about wanting to win the support of Washington, Australian big business and the corporate media than with taking a stand based on morality and justice.

From Green Left Weekly, April 23, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

You need Green Left, and we need you!

Green Left is funded by contributions from readers and supporters. Help us reach our funding target.

Make a One-off Donation or choose from one of our Monthly Donation options.

Become a supporter to get the digital edition for $5 per month or the print edition for $10 per month. One-time payment options are available.

You can also call 1800 634 206 to make a donation or to become a supporter. Thank you.