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Issue No. 135 | 10 May 2002 |
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The Costs of War
Interview: Squaring Off Industrial: Heroes Betrayed History: At The Coalface International: Wobblies With Chinese Characters? Politics: Dancing with Trotsky Economics: You Are What You Eat Poetry: Alexander's Bragtime Band Satire: Stott Despoja Celebrates Engagement With Minor Party Review: Painting Paradise
The Soapbox The Locker Room Postcard Bosswatch Week in Review Tool Shed
 Heaps and Heaps of Hate MailNo ChoiceWho Rules Australia?No Wrap for Song Comp Abbott's Contempt
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The Soapbox Live a Little!
******************** Good Morning Young Laborites I'm honoured to be a guest speaker at your conference today. I trust these two days have and will be fruitful for you and allow you to determine what sort of Labor Party you want into the future but more importantly give you time to think about and articulate what sort of society you want for Australia, now and when you take your place as leaders of Australia. Of course, you will have the opportunity to present these ideas to us old and older laborites at State and Federal conferences in the not too distant future in 2002. What type of society does the Labor Party want for Australia and how will our leadership persuade our nation to its vision. I joined the Labor Party in the early 1980's after a three year working stint in Europe. You know, I think I was too old to be a member of young labor then (and I think it was really young Labor blokes in those days). When I joined the party, many were leaving it to join the Greens over the Party's stance on uranium mining. Many laborites were inspired by Peter Garrett's charisma and Midnight Oil's music and lyrics, which caught the hearts and minds of many Australian political activists and delivered them to the Greens. In the 2001 Federal elections we witnessed another exodus of both Labor party members and Labor voters to the Greens. This time it was a protest against Labor's nervousness in fighting Howard's stance on refugees/our Tampa boat people. Labor lost its Third Federal election! Why? I personally think we lost the last election for a number of reasons. 1. We did not get a "Labor" message to Australian voters; 2. Our leaders failed to grab the hearts and minds of Australian voters; 3. We ran some unelectable candidates; and 4. Most importantly there was no perceivable difference between Labor and the Liberal Coalition parties. Until the Labor Party shows Australians that it is different to the Liberal coalition mob we will not win a federal election. What does make our party, the Labor party different to the Liberal coalition? Our history and our reason for existence. As you know, the Australian Labor Party is Australia's oldest surviving political party, formed in the 19th century in the wake of the great strikes of the 1890's. The trade unions then sponsored a national body which became the Labor Party. The Australian Labor Party is one of a small group of political parties in the world which are genuine Labor Parties, where the trade unions are affiliated directly to the party. Trade unions do not merely support our party but they form part of our structure through their affiliations. This is what distinguishes us from the Liberal party which was formed initially in 1931 arising from a series of business parties and finally as the Liberal Party in 1944. Labor - labor rights! Liberal - business rights! So what is the Party doing about trying to inspire a labor vote? It has decided it must distance itself from trade unions, from the industrial arm of the party, from labor, the labor movement. Why? Because we have achieved all we needed to do to secure labor rights? No. Because, so it goes, we lost the federal election because we are too close to the trade unions! Pleeeease Do any of you really think Australian voters woke up last year on election day and all said in one voice, "I'm not going to vote for Labor this year because its too close to the union movement. And because I do not agree with the 60/40 rule." Pleeeease again How many labor party members (the miserable 200,000 nationwide) do you think even understood the 60/40 voting rule in the party, last year when they voted let alone anyone else. But in reviewing the party structure the trade unions are perceived as the problem. This is a furphy, this is dangerous and this is wrong. How many more seats would labor have lost at the last federal election if the industrial arm of the party had not worked tirelessly on the election campaign? I ask you? If Australian Labor follows Blair with the mantra of new labor without the labor movement we will have to determine a new reason to exist otherwise we will be a party for "no-one in particular" functioning solely for reasons of political expediency - a party with no core. I would support this if I thought that the Australian Labor movement had succeeded in creating a genuine market democracy and cured the ills of the corporate system. But it has not. There is still work to do. The Australian Labor Party has a proud history of inclusiveness, embracing a broad range of social, cultural and economic issues. At the last election we threw this proud history away for a punt (a bad one at that) on political expediency. Since the last federal election I perceive the party as becoming more doctrinal and insular - we were proud - we were not these things - it says so on the ALP internet site. OK so what is or should be important to our Party and our Australian society? 1. First and foremost it is our duty to dethrone corporate aristocracy and expose the myth of the devine right of capitalism. Not overthrow it - change it - make it accountable. Whilst corporations focus solely on making profits for shareholders (and their CEO's) to the exclusion of everyone else's interests we have plenty of work to do before we move to the third way. We need to consider how to design more equitable alternatives for the corporate system, new property rights, new forms of citizenship in corporate governance, new ways of looking at corporate performance. Marjory Kelly an American journalist, an expert on Corporate ethics argues, "why shouldn't the rising incomes of employees be a reasonable measure of a company's success." And most importantly Labor must influence the global corporate aristocracy. We must question the right to determine world trade treaties behind closed doors, which effectively override individual countries democratically formed laws and social justice policies. 2. We must be perceived as and be a party and a society of tolerance, fairness, embracing of the diverse character of our nation. How? q We must include our indigenous people and their issues, we must reconcile with our Aborigines. q We must embrace our political views across the spectrum - left/right factionalism should not be a clear demarcation line with swords drawn at 10 paces. Left/right must be an engine for debate to determine the party's direction. If the NSW Labor Council can move to eradicate and minimalise factional warring so can Young Labor. As the left wing Vice President of Labor Council I am confident that my Council includes me, my union and other left wing affiliates in our critical decision making processes and campaigns. Two campaigns spring to mind that reflect the NSW union movement working together. 1. The unionisation of the Olympics which enhanced the Sydney Olympic Games. 2. The Workers Compensation campaign - less successful and unfortunately against our political arm of the party. Why is factional savagery a waste of time? We are a small Party in a small country with many outside enemies and much work to do. Not only that - why would anyone waste their precious spare time involved in a political party that merely fights internal battles. Of course potential activists will find an issue based group to divest their energies to achieve their goals. More importantly factional savagery means you miss out on a lot of fun. q As a party we must also address the gender imbalance in our Parliamentary ranks. Mr Carr look no further than the industrial arm of the party to do this. Look to our Women Labor leaders to fill those safe seats. Pick me, pick my women colleagues. perhaps one of Carr's advisors could offer him a copy of the NSW Labor Council Directory to identify women leaders, there are more than five, Mr Carr - as luck may have it you also might find we don't need those workshops - we have the skills and are eminently electable now. 3. We must make our party 'sexy' - not full of sex but appealing - I do not think any political party in Australia has appeal - a political party that Australian voters want to support and endorse. To transform ourselves into an "appealing" party we need to adopt a direction and get it out there. 4. and finally (you'll be pleased) .. We need to smash this insidious current of racism in our country. Our Party and our country were known for a fair go for all, a tough but fair society. It is our responsibility to reclaim this ethos. On Friday night I got a ride with an Australian Pakistan taxi driver. A gentle, thoughtful man, 20 years in this country. His two girls were born here. He has decided this year to return to Pakistan because in his and his children's lives they are ever increasingly the subject of racial slurs and taunts and he thinks, however difficult it will be for his family in Pakistan, his Australian girls will at least be free from this abuse. I cannot tell you how much it saddens me that we will loose this wonderful Australian citizen and his family to Pakistan. On the world stage Australia is loosing it's "appeal" due to our handling of refugees, our detention camps and our perceived bigotry and racism. In February 2002 in the States prior to Howard's visit to see Bush in Washington for economic talks, the Wall Street Journal ran a front page article denouncing Howard and Australian politics on Tampa and mandatory sentencing. We must fix this now. OK Young labor - those are my thoughts for you I hope they are of value, get busy working out the Labor Party direction, give us older Laborites the answers but also have lots of fun doing it.
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