Peter Boyle
"Labor gets with the program", rejoiced the December 1 editorial in Rupert Murdoch's Australian. "With two key backflips yesterday, Labor finally appears to be coming around to the understanding that it needs to demonstrate its economic credentials, not just talk about them", the editorial enthused.
"By agreeing to Howard government legislation that effectively enshrines in law the High Court's Electrolux case, which limits the range of matters that can be included in enterprise bargaining agreements and over which unions can strike during a protected period, Labor has offended its union heavies but struck a blow for the workers, who benefit from anything that frees up workplace culture and promotes growth and new jobs.
"But wait, there's more. Labor has ignored the cries of the manufacturing unions and of the 'fair trade' activists in the latte belt, and supported the government's plans to reduce tariffs on most clothing to 5 per cent by 2015. No slowdowns, no 'reviews'. The curtain that Kim Beazley decided to draw on the tariff reforms of the Hawke-Keating years in an ill-judged attempt to fast-track his way into The Lodge has finally been rent. Perhaps Paul Keating's powerful reminder last week — that forcing working people to pay higher prices for clothing and cars never contributed to a more compassionate society — cut through the fog."
The same day's Sydney Morning Herald also celebrated the ALP's prostration before the god of neoliberalism with a front-page article headlined "New-look Labor's pitch to business". It listed the following election policies so far dropped by Labor:
"* Industrial relations: Labor agrees to trim workplace agreements covering issues outside work conditions — a measure it had previously said was 'fundamentally flawed'.
"* Tariffs: Abandons plan to slow tariff reductions for textile, clothing and footwear industries.
"* Private schools: Drops hit-list of private schools to have funds cut but keeps plan to redistribute funding to needy schools.
"* Health insurance: Will not block higher rebates for older health fund members, which it had opposed.
"* 100 per cent Medicare: Accepts untied increases in Medicare payments to GPs. Election policy was to link increases to bulk billing.
"* Tasmanian forests: Retains principle of preserving old-growth forests but drops promised inquiry and $800m jobs preservation fund."
Mark Latham's November 19 speech "Modern Labor: A Tradition of Change" () indicates the right-wing course he is pushing the ALP to take.
"After four election losses in a row", Latham said, "we need to be brutally honest about the changing nature of Australian society and its economy, and the ways in which Labor must change.
"Sure, there are other things we can blame for our defeat last month — foremost among them, the Liberals' dishonest scare campaign on interest rates and economic management.
"There are policies that could have been improved. Things that could have been said and done differently. And other, one-off factors that went against us. All of them, valid explanations. But none of them address the long-term trend. None of them confront the seriousness of our position: Labor has not won a federal election since 1993."
So what is this problem and what is the solution, according to Latham?
"Having secured nation-building reforms under the Hawke and Keating governments (the internationalisation of the Australian economy), we surrendered our legacy after the 1996 election. We failed to defend our economic record, precisely at the time when these reforms established the foundations for a new era of growth and prosperity.
"John Howard could hardly believe his luck. Having squibbed the tough decisions as Fraser's treasurer, he watched Labor modernise the economy and then hand its benefits to him on a platter.
"Our party has not recovered from this error. We haven't been able to reclaim our legacy of reform from the '80s and '90s. Nor have we, in the eyes of the electorate, successfully crafted a new generation of economic policies and credibility.
"As a result, our base — political and industrial — has steadily declined. Labor's primary vote has fallen well below 40 per cent while, in the industrial wing of the movement, trade union membership has also fallen away."
The Hawke and Keating Labor governments carried out this country's biggest neoliberal/economic rationalist "reforms" — reactionary changes similar to those Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan carried out in Britain and the US. They deregulated the exchange rate and banking sector, and introduced enterprise bargaining. The union movement was hobbled and membership dropped away dramatically. That's the "modernisation agenda" that Latham says the ALP has to embrace more enthusiastically.
All the rest of ALP policy has to fit around this, Latham declared. If it doesn't fit, then it has to go.
The Hawke and Keating governments were the neoliberal ground-breakers in the 1980s and early 1990s and, as Latham points out, Howard's Liberal-National Coalition government has simply carried on that agenda, and enjoyed the benefits.
Part of the neoliberal agenda has been a relentless campaign to convince working-class people that "there is no alternative", as Thatcher famously quipped. Working people may not like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, they may not like the degradation of public health, transport and education services and the environment, but they are told to be "realistic".
For those who now accept this claim, voting for a change from the incumbent neoliberal party to the "opposition" neoliberal party does not seem very appealing, unless the economy is crashing. So the federal ALP can only hope to prove itself the "better" neoliberal manager if there is a serious economic crisis. Until then, the very fear of triggering such a crisis — skilfully manipulated by Howard — plays in the Coalition's favour.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, December 8, 2004.
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