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Ian West - Election Reflections

The NSW MLC and all-round Workers' Friend gives his take on the federal election.

	Ian West MLC

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The Federal Coalition, with 42.69% of the primary vote, has already commenced its attempt to paint the khaki election campaign as a mandate for an expansion of narrow sectional economic rationalism and deregulation; individualism; obligation free corporate welfarism; and state sponsored capitalism. The Liberals polled 37.16% of primary votes, the ALP polled 38.45%.

It's a question of just how quickly the next three years will go. It might be longer than we think, given the comments of John Howard since the election, where he has argued that the Coalition secured an emphatic mandate to implement policies consistent with its philosophies, saying "You're not limited to just being about ... only these things that you mentioned during the campaign .... but plainly you have a mandate to implement things that are consistent with your philosophy." With these words, John Howard has attempted to write himself a blank cheque.

Visionless Howard Repaints the Fence

The Australian public has nothing, yet can expect the same. It's a bit like aspirational politics - an inwardly focused view of life and the world, where people are concerned exclusively for themselves and their families. A focus that necessarily pitches the individual against the community. Add the dearth of a vision for our society and you end up with a materialistic, short term, self-obsessed community frightened of the outside world and of change. Ultimately we have aspirations, but no plan to get there. With this election, Australia's white picket fence has just got a new coat of paint.

What was clear to me in the weeks up to the election, and even more so on polling day was that people have disengaged from politics. In some ways it appeared to me that people felt they must go it alone out of both want and necessity. The degradation of our social support infrastructure, our welfare system, our industrial relations system, our ABC, our tertiary and medicare systems has left a void. The collective long term framework and fortune of our society is suffering under the weight of people's forced self-reliance.

People get really upset if they sense or believe that someone else is getting more than them unjustifiably. And when people feel threatened it is easy to turn upon each other. Scapegoating without a need to find the causes of social and economic dislocation. It is so easy to hate when you've only got yourself. Working people become animated when talking about illegals, ethnics, dole bludgers, welfare rorters. It is the politics of divide, isolate and rule and it has, and will, cost the Australian community dearly.

There is a general alienation with and distrust of all Government institutions because of their inadequacies and incapabilities of solving social problems. Disengagement from public institutions has been fuelled by privatisation. The Australian public will hopefully be waiting in 2004 for some return on all that they have given up, all that has been lost.

The cynicism of the Conservative government in making laws which threaten the security of people's employment and of their social safety nets, and sales of public assets which erode our social and democratic infrastructure - is something of which people ought to be truly afraid.

We all hoped that the Australian Labor Party would win last Saturday's election, and feared it would not. In many ways the election was about fears and false hopes, unfortunately mostly about fear. The Federal Coalition Government will deliver both in big quantities over the next three years. It is the perfect mix of division, envy, loathing, greed and fear that a Liberal Government needs to govern. It's a Liberal potpourri of aspirational politics.

International Issues

The international issues which dominated the election - those of the Tampa refugees and the September 11 attack on Washington and New York and the deployment of our armed forces on both fronts - made it easy for the Coalition to avoid any opportunity for a public and comprehensive inspection of their record. At the same time, the Australian public's memory of what has occurred domestically since 1996 was switched off. The Howard Government was in deep trouble a few months ago and was saved by a miracle that was deceitfully exploited.

It was a one issue election - in the words of Paul Keating, the election was won on "an appeal to racism." And he is right, that the "soul of the nation has been stained" in the process. The day after the election John Howard shut the gate on the world when he said the Government would be "continuing the asylum seekers policy ... we're not going to reassess it."

Malcolm's Malcontent

It was gratifying to hear the views of the former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser on ABC's Lateline program on 14/11/01.

Malcolm Fraser said, "The destitute were a major part of this campaign at the beginning and again at the end ... I never thought I'd see the day when discrimination and race would play such a large part in an election program ...

It's possible to appeal to the better things in our nature, the things that ought to happen to make the world a better place. It is also possible to play upon our fears and our concerns about the unknown, people unknown because they come from a different land, they look different and they come from a religion that is different to that which most of us follow. Now, when you appeal to these things, you're really appealing to the worst part of our nature and not to the best ...

I think you need to look at Australia's post-war history. When Arthur Caldwell persuaded the union movement to accept a major migration program so that Australia could expand and become more independent in the future, he didn't ask the ACTU to poll their members. It was only seven years after the worst depression the modern world had known with 30% unemployment, many ex-servicemen had their first jobs in the army and seven years after that, the ACTU, acting responsibly, decided to back the Government's major migration program which was supported by all political parties at the time. But if that had gone to a vote of union members, I believe 80 or 90% would have voted no - "Gosh, before the war I was unemployed. I didn't have a job for 10 years. We can't bring a lot more people here." But ... leaders of those times ... recognised that Australia had to grow, had to expand, so they made the decision and then argued that that decision was right ...

Can anyone picture John Howard making the same transformation in years to come?

Great Economic Managers? - Liberal Fallacy must be debunked

The most galling fallacy peddled so successfully by the Coalition is that the Conservatives are better economic managers than the people who create the nation's wealth - the labour movement. It needs to be debunked or at least met with the disrespect it deserves.

The front page of the Business Review Weekly with a picture of Kim Beazley and the headline "Do not vote for this man" just a week out from the election or for that matter any of the major newspaper editorials urging the Australian public to vote for the Coalition were naked reminders that the historical struggle of capital and labour is a perennial if not permanent theme of Australian politics and probably more so throughout the world.

The next three years will bring more reasons for the Australian public to assess not "who is the better economic manager - Labor or Liberal?" but rather "what does the Liberal Party's economic philosophy when implemented do to our community, our social and public infrastructure?"

Let's look at the Liberal's economic management record to date. The Howard Government has overseen the bargain sale of $60 billion plus of Australian public assets.

Mum and Dad Shareholders - the big con

In November 1999, 2.2 million lots of shares of Telstra 2 (T2) were bought at a cost of $7.40 per share. As at 15th November 2001, just a couple of months after Telstra announced a $4 billion profit, they were $5.06 - a loss of 32%. The average shareholding is between 600 and 800 shares, and so on the above figures shareholding families now have a $2000 paper loss for their efforts in buying what they already owned.

On Telstra's profit results announced on 29th August 2001 - based on Telstra 1 (T1) dividends - the Commonwealth taxpayer has foregone $499 million in dividends. The first Telstra float had within the hour after it was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange shown that Telstra was undersold by at least $3 billion, and by as much as $16 billion when a market valuation was made 12 months later.

Further, the public dividends foregone since the sale of the first third of Telstra amount to over $3.5 billion. Peter Costello may argue that interest payments in the order of $3.3 billion have been avoided through debt reduction. But surely as any great economic manager would know interest payments remained and would continue to remain static, whilst Telstra profits continue to rise.

Worse still, the cost borne by Commonwealth taxpayers to sell T1 shares to ourselves in the form of Government advertising, under the guardianship of John Fahey and John Howard, was $260 million. That should come as no surprise - we are all familiar with the million dollars a day the Federal Government has spent advertising itself with public money over the past three (3) years. That's over $1 billion.

Undersold Underhand

Yet more on the economic front, our great economic masters the Liberal Party have engaged in some truly wacky irrational economics over the past five years. Former Finance Minister John Fahey oversaw the sale in his own words "of some 42 or 43 asset sales," adding "I suppose there's few people that have done more privatisations if any, in the world than I have done."

Taxpayers have conservatively lost at least $20 billion in assets sold at undervalued prices, in poor foreign exchange management and in "corporate welfare" whereby the Federal Government has privatised profits and socialised losses.

The total sell off of public assets in the last five years is over $60 billion - items like Telstra, Government buildings, computer systems, and so forth - and we'll pay for many years to come. Meanwhile the public institutional memory and human assets have been cut or have left in disgust.

The Australian public's privilege of selling their own assets to themselves has also involved massive advisors' fees. The audit office has found that the Federal Government paid $375 million (over a million dollars a day) to consultants in just the last year. Risk management principles were ignored and Department of Finance and Administration guidelines were not complied with - losses for just four (4) departments audited were big - there's another $3 billion last year.

Employment National, the public job agency went from a profit in 1998 of $72 million to a loss of $92 million a year later. Information technology outsourcing was supposed to raise $1 billion, the auditor-general identified only $70 million savings. John Fahey refused to make public the information he had on it, and don't expect to see it now.

The 16,000 Commonwealth cars were privatised in 1997 - whoops - there goes another $40 million.

What else is in the "pipeline"?

So what else is in the "pipeline", apart from refugees, for the Australian public? Sales, it seems, spearheaded by:

� The sale of Australian airports once economic conditions and air travel improves.

� The complete sale of Telstra

There's the issue of a GST on fresh food to help iron out the inconsistencies in applying the tax. Then there's the issue of whether or not the GST ought to be raised.

We can expect Corporate welfare amounting to tens of billions in the next three years, as with the past term. It is my hope that people realise where there taxes are going, that there is some recognition of the amount of assistance provided through the Australian public's taxes to companies, in the same way that the Australian public appear to have accepted that companies need to be internationally competitive to create employment.

What other great economic philosophic mountains will our so-called economic managers climb?

� John Howard has already said that he wants to soften merger and taxation laws for big business and foreign investment. We can expect net job losses with mergers, yet the Coalition will argue that without mergers companies will collapse. It is an incredibly short term vision on offer.

� The "public interest test" of National Competition Policy and the administration of the Hilmer reforms will be reviewed. Expect wholesale destruction of publicly owned and operated services and infrastructure. Failing their destruction, expect a shifting of our public infrastructure to the needs of big business.

� Economic deregulation will further loosen the reins on big business. On the theme of deregulation, the labour market will be further deregulated so that workers will be less protected and less represented. Employers not only have the ultimate right to hire and fire, but will further dictate the price of labour as well as when and how that labour will work (ie hours of work, casual employment, subcontracting, franchising etc).

� The "tax burden" on foreigners working in Australia will be relieved, but we have not heard a squeak about what will be done to bring back the Australians who have left in our national brain drain.

� Foreign and cross media ownership laws will be reviewed - an economic and political feast awaits Australia's media giants.

� And ironically, the Coalition intends to offer small business expanded rights to "bargain collectively" with large firms.

The Coalition's rules for Liberal mates will provide "State-sponsored" Monopoly Capitalism and obligation free Corporate Welfarism on a scale that will make it extremely difficult for an ALP Government to repair.

Let's hope voting will still be compulsory in three years time!

The labour movement must do even more to provide solid reasons and show the Australian people why they should vote for the ALP, why they should be collectivists, be involved and be part of a community. We need to try harder to capture people's imaginations, whilst meeting their needs. We can't be sucked into the easy, corrupt alternative of enticing people with an appeal to greed or fear. It's a lot harder to convince people, even more so now, of the benefits of collectivism. Whatever vision the ALP produces, it needs to overcome the barriers of individualism - the "I'm all right Jack" syndrome - and connect with the Australian people. The ALP needs to be able to market a vision that people can feel enthusiastic about and take ownership of. At the same time, the Australian people will need to believe that they can participate in that vision.

Kim Beazley said at the launch of the ALP's campaign in Hurstville, "I believe we can build a prosperous, secure Australia - a country in which everyone gets a share in our prosperity; a nation united because it is fair and strong because the government is on the side of the people it represents; a nation at peace with itself because we turn to each other, not against each other."

The challenge and opportunity in the next three years is to articulate a future Labor vision, whilst exploding the Liberal myths. In some ways, we need to go to the next election as the "biggest possible policy targets" because there is no point in agreeing with someone to negate their agenda. It doesn't work.

Social Audit

A Social Audit is irresistable to me. Surely it would provide an opportunity to find out what's going on in the Australian community, and at the same time engage and inform the public as to how our collective structures and institutions function, what they provide, and who pays for them.

In some ways it would humanise economics, and assist in focusing on social and community outcomes. It would be a huge enabler in properly targeting economic management. Without a measurable and proper database of social needs, we cannot economically manage fairly or responsibly, or for that matter provide the international and domestic private sectors with a charter setting out their obligations to the Australian community. Corporate welfare could become a two-way street. And people would be more able to identify the extent of assistance granted to the private sector by Australian taxpayers.

And a Social Audit will become more vital as our national boundaries become less and less economically relevant. With no national borders, Governments will be severely restricted in what they can do in terms of creating employment, or building human wealth or capital for example. In the face of continuing globalisation, Social spending will become the fundamental reason for the existence of a Federal Government. The common good, the community interest, will need a voice to convey to the world what we want in a civilised society defined by inclusiveness, social equity, justice and a fair go.

  View entire issue - print all of the articles!

  Issue 120 contents

»	Calls for ALP Fundraising Code
»	Mad Monk Keeps IR
»	Ignored Warnings Bring Tragic Results
»	ACTU Executive To Mark Union Bounce Back
»	Workers Will Lose from Unfair Contract Changes
»	Tassie On Top, While NSW And WA Slip
»	Costa Gets First Union Call
»	Hamberger in Hot Water
»	Egan to Pay for Welfare Win
»	Sweet Victory for Sugar Workers
»	Selectron Demise Spells Death of Tech Inustry
»	Telco Industry Growth Hits The Wall
»	Shocking Conditions in Clothing Industry
»	Workers Force Council Backdown
»	New Dili Project Launched
»	Airport Guards Welcome Work Study Case
»	No News is Bad News for the Bush
»	Getonboard Closes Doors
»	Activists Notebook
»	Organiser of the Year Nominations Open

»	The Soapbox
»	The Soapbox
»	Trades Hall
»	Tool Shed

»	The Cost a Costa
»	Unionism and the ALP - a Workers View.
»	Is 60-40 Good Odds?
»	Ancient OHS - The Wergild Sysstem

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