The formation last month of the Australia First Reform Party, following the mobilisation of tens of thousands of people at pro-gun rallies around the country, once again raises the issue of the growth of the far-right in Australian politics.
It is an issue confronting the left in all capitalist countries today — a product of mass disaffection with the traditional political parties which, whatever their hue or pre-election promises, in government implement the same basic agenda of austerity and suffering for the mass of ordinary people.
This disillusionment with "business as usual" politics creates increased opportunities for left parties and alliances to win a greater hearing. But it also opens up greater opportunities for right-wing populists, resulting in electoral gains for groups like Le Pen's National Front in France, Winston Peters' New Zealand First party and now the Australia First Reform Party formed by disaffected ALPer Graeme Campbell and the Sporting Shooters Association's Ted Drane.
The right-wing populist parties appeal to the dissatisfaction with "the system" among the most impoverished layers of the population — small property owners threatened with bankruptcy and Â鶹´«Ã½ of the working class who are threatened by unemployment and falling living standards.
While demagogically denouncing "the system" as serving the rich, the big corporations and the banks, these far-right ideologues deflect people's anger at capitalism's austerity drive away from the system and onto other Â鶹´«Ã½ of the oppressed, above all immigrant workers. In the process, they sharpen the competition between workers, eroding sentiments of class solidarity in favour of national chauvinism, and exert ideological and political pressure on all the major parties, pushing them further to the right.
We should have no doubt that Australia First is a reactionary outfit. It is founded on, among other things, anti-Asian and anti-Aboriginal racism, sexism, homophobia and "individual rights" — first and foremost, at the moment, the "right" to own guns. Neither it nor any other far-right populist organisation has the slightest interest in furthering working people's interests
The formation of Australia First will no doubt give succour to organisations such as the Citizens Electoral Councils (LaRouche Foundation), the National Front, the League of Rights and other far-right groups. While these groups may be to the right of the Shooters Party in the NSW upper house, they all represent the interests of capitalists — in particularly, at present, gun shop owners and traders — not working people.
The rise of right-wing nationalist-populist forces is conditioned by the failure of the leaderships of the workers' movement to expose their demagogy, organise and mobilise masses of people around progressive demands and exert pressure from the left on "mainstream" politics — that is, to offer a progressive alternative to the social layers it has attracted.
More than a decade of ALP-led conciliation with big business by the Australian trade union leaderships has resulted in a massive vacuum in left leadership — ideological and organisational.
Just as Laborism paved the way for a Coalition federal government to attack working people harder and faster, the co-option, depletion and confusion of most progressive social movements after years of "hard Labor" paves the way for a far-right offensive.
The only effective way to fight and defeat the extreme right is to rebuild the progressive movements and construct a class-struggle left. That means rebuilding the trade unions into active, democratic and independent organisations whose primary task is to fight for the interests of the working class, not for the election of the ALP.