
Issue No 6		26 March 1999

Campaign Diary

It's Time For a Real Labor Government

By Peter Lewis

A returned Carr Government must use its increased majority to promote a genuine Labor agenda rather than just clinging to power for another four years.

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If you are reading this message now, it means that the Carr Government has been returned.

The No Mistakes game paid off, the professionalism of the campaign a personal triumph for both Carr and John Della Bosca, who will leave his position as General Secretary of the Party for the ministerial offices of the second Carr Government.

It was a campaign where, despite being outbid on spending promises by a ratio of nearly four to one, Carr refused to run negative; not once uttering his opponent's name. And he made very few promises, instead emphasising experience.

Remarkably brash or calculatedly cautious, the move was a winner. The final week's advertisements struck a chord which was at once sincere and reassuring; the hard-working leader reporting back to his people. Carr's performance was almost flawless; dominating the news agenda without firepower; remaining composed and focussed.

But Carr's mastery of the campaign can not mitigate some of the shortcomings of his Administration. As a one-time Ministerial staffer, I don't want to gratuitously dump on my old masters. Running a state government is, above all, a shitty job; dealing with the refuse of the age without having the mechanisms to deal with its source; channeling increasingly scarce funds into a health system collapsing under the weight of an aging population, an education system coming to terms with the new demands of the Information Age and a social security sector struggling to deal with the distress and dislocation caused by economic reform.

But there are still aspects of this Premiership which bear scrutiny, even at the moment of victory, in the hope of seeing a better government this time around.

One recurring complaint has been the reactive nature of Carr's Government. With a narrow majority, it was argued, Carr was too preoccupied with winning the daily media. He and his minders regarded the media as an endlessly recurring battle to secure the nightly news grab. This focused policy on a very narrow basis; each day requiring a story that trumps anything the Opposition could come up with.

This deferral to the tight timeline of the news cycle prevented some issues being properly thought through. Indeed, some of the Carr Government's biggest mistakes were the result of attempts to win the day. The ill-fated decision to close St Vincent's Hospital, for instance, was released to coincide with Carr's appearance before the ICAC. The consequent backflip, when it was realised that key stakeholders like the nurses' union had not been consulted was as predictable as it was unnecessary. In the process an important part of the government's health reform agenda was abandoned essentially because of lack of preparation.

On one level this is the price of modern media management done well. But there's another price for this style of leadership. You risk losing your sense of purpose. By setting a series of policy signposts that lay the path for your rule, you can give it some meaning.

So what does Carr stand for? When you consider the Carr Government was the sole ALP administration at the end of the Keating era, there's not much to get excited about. Just law and order and the failed attempt to sell the power industry.

Carr can rightly blame the media for whipping up the law and order issues, but at the end of the day they can only feed on what they're thrown. And Carr has been a master thrower; reacting to each crime headline with a "solution", creating a false impression of his control over the vagaries of life. Fairly or otherwise, this feeds the idea that it is an innately reactive media which has ultimate control of the public agenda.

Where Jeff Kennett stimulates debate, Carr has attempted to control it; and in doing so he has narrowed the notion of leadership to a sort of superintendent of public sentiment. In doing so, he has fed the prejudices that Labor purports to change. Too timid for gay law reform or drug law reform, Carr has been more interested in holding on to power than using it to promote a Labor agenda.

And then there's the great unwritten story of the first term, the influence of the Cabinet Office. It was established by Greiner to act as a barrier between the Premier and his Ministers and drive the market-oriented economic reforms which characterised his government. This process can delay, frustrate and often kill off proposals before they even get to Cabinet. The failure to abolish the Cabinet Office and return it to Premier's Department was in fact the first broken promise of the Carr Government, not the tolls as is often supposed. Frustration with this impediment in the Carr Government has permeated all ministries.

This central role of the bureaucracy was matched by an acceptance of the economic orthodoxy, which saw the public sector reforms initiated by the Greiner Government such as the contracting out of government services continued, albeit within a "no forced redundancy" strait-jacket. At a time when the public was losing faith in an economic rationalist agenda, Carr saw the wind change too late, and even now has offered nothing else apart from a sophisticated form of crisis management.

Carr has played a game that set a none too healthy tone of public governance in this state. It is a tone that tapped the same vein of isolation and mutual mistrust that drives wedge politics - reinforcing the stereotypes of disconnection rather than working at fostering a stronger community. Being tough on crime, rather than generating a public discussion about its causes. Banning heroin trials rather than debating them. Chasing investment without ever asking: what kind of investment do we need or want in NSW?

In attempting to control the public debate, Carr narrowed it at the very time the community needed a mature discussion about the State and what we should expect of its government. Carr might argue that a government that started with a one seat majority and a hung Upper House could never be too bold. But to accept this is to embrace a conservative breed of Laborism which is not so much social democratic as conservative reactive.

At the end of the day Carr received the support of the trade union movement at this election on the back of Jeff Shaw's industrial relations platform and a fear of what a Coalition Government dominated by the uglies could do to it. Indeed, several unions who had supported the Party at previous elections refused to endorse Carr's Government. One branch passed a resolution explicitly forbidding its executive from endorsing Labor. Another withdrew their normal financial support for the Labor campaign. This is a sign of Labor's drift away from its people, a drift that needs to stop in the second term.

Unions also expect greater access to the Ministers they have helped re-elect. It was a common complaint that Ministers and their senior staffers had an open door for business but not for unions, curious for a Labor Government. This increased the distance between the government and its supporters.

Labor needs to realise the extent to which it is the energy of the union movement that gets them elected to office. They don't need to do everything the unions say, but they must give them access and due consideration. The Government must realise that the views of the workers and the unions who represent them are at least as valid as the spivs in the Senior Executive Service advising on corporatisation and competition policy.

A majority like the one Carr has won, will give the Premier an opportunity to redefine his leadership. It provides him with great stature and a great opportunity to, in the words of his Attorney General, place "a stronger focus on social justice, on equality and on the free society". In doing so, he may help convince those of us who congratulate him on being a successful Premier, that he is also a great Labor leader.

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  Issue 6 contents

Interview: Jeff Shaw - Keeping the Peace in NSW
We talk to the Carr Government's best minister about his plans and aspirations for a second term.

Unions: Labor's IR Promises
Read the full ALP Industrial Relations policy. Only on Workers Online!

History: A History of Struggle on the Wharves
As the first anniversary of the Reith-Corrigan assault on the waterfront approaches, we remember that it was only the latest in a long line of attacks on the union.

Review: Rats in the Ranks
This Australian political masterpiece about the battle for power in an inner-city council is well worth going back to.

Campaign Diary: It's Time For a Real Labor Government
A returned Carr Government must use its increased majority to promote a genuine Labor agenda rather than just clinging to power for another four years.

» '96 Revisited - Ditched Laws May Get Second Run

» Opposition IR - A Dog�s Breakfast

» Union Plan To Give Mobile Workers Security

» Mergers Wave To Hit Insurance Industry

» AAP Pushes To Create Virtual Reporters

» Wharfies Help Out Aboriginal Kids

» ACTU Asks Workers: How�s Life?

» Bracks Gets Pallas Envoy

» South Coast Labor Council Battle Heads for Court