Election breakthrough – action needed

Most progressive voters would be happy with the result of the August 21 federal election. A Gillard government reliant on the support of a Green member of parliament, a former green and two other independents who broke their conservative party bonds on principled grounds – that has to be good news. In July next year the new Green Senators take their place to give their party the balance of power in the Upper House

Better still. But the Labor government will act to close this window of opportunity to keep its neo-liberal agenda on track. Unions and community organisations will have to push in a concerted way to ensure the best outcomes from the current situation and, at the same time, ensure that the current partial break with the old two party ways stays broken.

Family First loose cannon, Steve Fielding, will still hold part of the balance of power until July 2011. Like everybody else he is talking stability and cooperation but has sworn to use his power to scuttle the much-weakened mining super profits tax.

A decisive factor will be how effectively conservative political forces in both of the big old parties can contain the influence of the Greens who were rewarded at the polls for presenting an appealing alternative to the rejected Howard/Rudd/Gillard policy direction.

Locking in anti-people basics

For all its crow-eating humility, the Gillard government will try to keep the country steered on its current heading – privatisation, involvement in Afghanistan, an anti-union legislative regime, disregard for asylum seekers, and so on. As independent Rob Oakeshott pointed out in his drawn-out announcement as to which side he would be supporting, nobody in the new parliament should dare use the word “mandate”. They simply don’t have it from the voters of the country. That won’t stop the parliamentary Labor Party from trying to lock in certain “given” neo-liberal policy items against the wishes of many (if not most) voters.

The US alliance is still sacrosanct. Former PM Kevin Rudd is the new Foreign Minister. Gillard says he will be authorised to act as a “one-man band”. His pro-US credentials are impeccable, further polished at the Copenhagen climate change summit where he backed the US in thwarting the demand of the international community for an appropriate binding agreement on carbon emissions. An hour after he was sworn in as minister, Rudd was meeting with the US ambassador in Canberra. Stephen Smith is now Defence Minister. Don’t expect change in this big spending department, either.

The Greens were able to get a commitment from Gillard’s team for a parliamentary debate on Australia’s participation in the war in Afghanistan. The Australian people have never supported this commitment of Australian lives by the government. It is unlikely that the numbers in parliament would favour a withdrawal unless the cue is taken for a massive increase in activity in the community in support of the people’s demand for an end to the involvement. This movement has to be built quickly. So too does opposition to the offshore processing of asylum seekers. East Timor is to be approached again about this unwanted role.

Elsewhere the Gillard government is moving to present it most rightwing face. The power broking “faceless men” who orchestrated the downfall of Rudd have all been rewarded with ministries of varying seniority. Bill Shorten, Mark Arbib, Don Farrell and David Feeney have all done well out of Gillard’s ministerial reshuffle. Negotiating a pro-people political framework with this line-up will not be easy.

The union background of some of these will not give any encouragement to the ACTU, which has called for a number of long-overdue changes in exchange for its loyalty. It wanted pattern bargaining to be permitted, fewer restrictions on the right to strike and, of course, the abolition of the anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission.

The Greens favour the winding up of that workplace Gestapo, an end to the requirement for pre-strike secret ballots, the dropping of the ban on secondary boycotts under the Trade Practices Act and other pro-worker legislative changes.

Unwanted “improvements” among the sweeteners

Their job will not be easy. They may get support from Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie but it will probably not be forthcoming from Tony Windsor, Bob Katter or Rob Oakeshott. They are all self-proclaimed supporters of small business. Rob Oakeshott wants retailers to be able to employ school age employees for shifts shorter than three hours, for example. A union and community campaign to achieve essential industrial relations changes will have to be mounted.

Announcements made elsewhere should set alarm bells ringing. The federal government is joining the states in announcing changes to fast-track public-private partnerships (PPPs). The mechanism, which shelters private investment from risk with taxpayer dollars, has become unpopular after failures like the Brisbane Clem7 tunnel, Sydney’s Cross City and Lane Cove tunnels and Melbourne’s EastLink.

In education, the ministry has been split with Peter Garrett now acting as the Minister for Schools, Early Childhood and Youth, while Chris Evans becomes Minister for Jobs, Skills and Workplace Relations. The latter portfolio will share some responsibility for higher education, including the country’s universities. As part of the inducements for independents to come onboard the Gillard express, independents were promised $15 million of the $47 million worth of “facilitation payments” allocated as part of the roll out of greater school “autonomy”. The language is borrowed from UK PM David Cameron’s devious sales pitch for privatisation in the guise of “empowering communities”.

There is no doubt other commitment to regional communities will deliver benefits. The National Broadband Network will be rolled out in regional areas first. The areas not taken in by that network will receive upgraded wireless and satellite services as a matter of priority. The tyranny of distance is set to become less tyrannical in our country. This asset should be kept in public hands and the struggle for it must be fought.

Other commitments to regional health and other infrastructure spending should be welcomed but the job will be to keep rorting private interests out of or under control. The promised boost to Aboriginal Medical Services is encouraging. Time will tell if there will be a break from the Noel Pearson inspired paternalism of the Howard/Rudd years.

No guarantees – action needed

Hopes for changes may be dashed very early in the piece if the community is not prepared to resist the “sky is falling” message that may be unleashed by the corporate media. Anybody old enough to remember the last year of the Whitlam government will know what that could be like. A wit commented at the time that if Gough Whitlam had walked across the waters of Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin, the headlines the next morning would have read “Gough fails to swim”.

There are indications already that sections of the media are gearing up for such a campaign. The Murdoch press can be counted on to pitch in if it would help limit the influence of the Greens in the parliament and progressive voices in the community. The Seven Network’s Sunrise program carried results of a viewer poll purporting to show that 88 percent of respondents would rather go back to the polls to elect a new government than go forward with the current, more open situation. Expect more of this sort of “research” to be aired in the near future.

The forces for progressive change must make it clear that a corner has been turned. We are not going back to the days of false “choices” between rightwing programs from Labor and the Coalition. A new politics is needed. We have seen glimpses of the possibilities. The changes currently within reach must be campaigned for vigorously and new political forces made ready to join the fight.

Next article – Anti-bikie laws will criminalise innocent group activity

for more see
http://cpa.org.au/guardian/index.html