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  Issue No 32 Official Organ of LaborNet 24 September 1999  

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Politics

Requiem to the Third Way

By John Passant

The swing to Labor in Victoria shows clearly that once again Australian voters have rejected economic rationalism. The result, and the reasons for it, should worry John Howard.

The outcome should also put an end to the calls from those within the Labor Party for an extension of the market philosophy of the Hawke and Keating Governments. But it won't.

Instead, those advocating the New Thatcherism (which masquerades under names like the Third Way and the Radical Centre) will continue to push their agenda in the belief that it is economically sensible and electorally popular. It is neither.

Years of Tory rule in Britain did not produce a better life for people. Years of Labor rule in Australia, following much the same sort of policy prescriptions as the Conservatives but incorporating the trade union bureaucracy into the decision making process, failed to deliver benefits for ordinary working people.

The experience of countries where Third Way politics has won elections recently shows that if the ALP were to become a shadow of the Coalition it may permanently alienate Labor's natural constituency.

So what is the Third Way? This new radical centre is supposed to replace the old Left/Right dichotomy by constructing, in Mark Latham's words, "a new social consensus around the values of social responsibility, reward for effort, devolution and the interdependence of society." This looks suspiciously like individualism with a communal gloss.

The Third Way is supposed to be so inherently attractive to the fragmented working class that the likes of Perry Anderson of New Left Review have hailed one example, the Red-Green coalition in Germany, as marking "the potential emergence of a long run sociological majority for the left" in that country.

A more somber analysis of recent election results in the UK and Germany suggests otherwise.

In regional elections in Scotland and Wales earlier this year Tony Blair's New Labour in Britain suffered large swings against it in working class areas.

Two years of Tony Blair's budget cuts and a penchant for privatisation saw New Labour lose half its European seats in June. The Tories under William Hague were for the first time able to beat New Labour.

The most recent country in which the Third Way has been put to the electoral test has been Germany.

Just on a year ago Gerhard Schroder won a landslide victory. His Social Democratic Party (SPD) victory, in conjunction with the Greens, ended 16 years of conservative rule.

There was euphoria among working class and progressive people. But now there is widespread disillusionment with the Schroder Government. Why? Because the new centre cannot fulfill the hopes of those who vote it in.

The German Government had a few internal problems. The business friendly Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, manoeuvred successfully to get rid of the left-wing Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine.

But it was Lafontaine who best expressed the political reality of the SPD victory which was in fact a shift to the left by German society. His calls to increase taxes on the rich and business proved popular with workers, but not business.

Since Lafontaine's resignation, the Red-Green Government has moved rapidly to the right. Tony Blair and Schroder released an historic document calling for flexible labour markets, corporate tax cuts, and welfare reform. The document was so anti-working class that the French Socialist Prime Minister, far from joining in, lambasted it to protect his own political position.

The Red-Green German Government wants pension increases to be tied to the rate of inflation rather than rises in earnings. This will impoverish pensioners over time. Schr�der followed this up by cutting public spending by around $25 billion.

The degeneration of the Greens, the junior partner in Government, is even more marked. Joschka Fischer, Germany's Green foreign minister, was one of the main cheerleaders for the NATO slaughter in Serbia and Kosovo.

And what has this conservatism produced electorally?

In the European elections the SPD performed badly. In recent state elections it lost control of Brandenburg and Saarland. Nationally, the Conservatives have opened up a ten percent lead in the polls over the Government.

There was an SPD and union reaction to Schroder's reforms - 40 left-wing Party parliamentarians condemned them. And the reformed communists have seen their vote strengthen.

However the New Thatcherism in Germany has driven many voters to the right. East Germany supported the SPD on the basis that it would attack unemployment. It has done nothing. The East has now become fertile ground not only for the Conservatives but also the neo-fascists.

With Third Way disasters like Germany, why would the ALP adopt the New Thatcherism?


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*   View entire issue - print all of the articles!

*   Issue 32 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: His Daily Fix
Graham Richardson talks of his transition from national politics to talkback radio and his ongoing jobs as a fixer.
*
*  Politics: Requiem to the Third Way
The swing to Labor in Victoria shows clearly that once again Australian voters have rejected economic rationalism. The result, and the reasons for it, should worry John Howard.
*
*  International: A Common Struggle for Freedom
It may not get the headlines, but Western Sahara has some chilling similarities with East Timor.
*
*  Unions: Woolscour Workers say No to Peter Reith
Workers at Canobolas Wooltopping - a woolscour plant near Orange, in central west New South Wales, have just sent a message to Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith: thanks, but no thanks.
*
*  Legal: Outlawed Acts of Consicence
The recent boycotts in support of East Timorese indepndence highlights the extremism of Reith's second wave.
*
*  History: Was Manning Clark A True Believer
A Canberra history conference shines the spotlight on Australia's most famous historian.
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*  Review: Paranoid Echoes
The calls to examine the Australian�Soviet documents in the Moscow Literary archives have grown in volume over the past year.
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*  Labour Review: What's New at the Information Centre
The latest issue of Labour Review - a resource for officals and students.
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*  Satire: Kennett Boosts Chances: Two More Independents Dead
Caretaker Premier Jeff Kennett today admitted that voters perceived him as arrogant and out of touch, but insisted that they were wrong.
*

News
»  Public Servants Seek Leave For Timor
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»  Goodbye Green Bans - Dumped by the Wave
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»  Government Rules Nobble Public Sector
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»  ACTU Pushes On With Privatised Portal
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»  Powerful New Years Eve Deal for TransGrid
*
»  Banks Grill Staff on New Fees
*
»  Off the Rails - Workers Gagged
*
»  Staff Frustration Boils Over at Sydney Water
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»  Kennett Nose-Dive: Botsman Picks It
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»  Academics Fail Non-Union Deal
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»  Nike in Indonesia: Military Employed to Intimidate Workers
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»  The Laugh�s On Barry
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Columns
»  Guest Report
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»  Sport
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Piers Watch
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Letters to the editor
»  Freeloader Push on Track
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»  It's Worse in Detroit
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»  Working Class Aesthetics
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»  WorkCover Inspectors: Shaw Replies
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