Contemporary_Progressive_Politics

The middle-class progressives are killing the party to which I once belonged. LABOR is being frog-marched towards political irrelevance by a coming together of the self-styled progressives from the party's hard Left and a breed of right-wing official and parliamentarian who has forsaken the religious beliefs and traditional family values of earlier right-wingers for a new creed: "Whatever it takes". This new breed turned to polling and focus groups as a substitute for ideology and scant branch membership in its battles with the hard Left's eclectic mix of isms. But now this once all-powerful NSW branch machine gives its blessing to the co-opting of Labor's policy-making by progressives, leaving no room for the values of the socially conservative working class. And let's be clear at the outset, social conservatism is a humane political and moral belief, despite progressives saying it is mean-spirited and insinuating it is racist, sexist, homophobic, environmentally irresponsible (denialist) and so on. Their smearing of policies that appeal to working-class social conservatism as populist is at best intellectually bankrupt. The working class is awake to this betrayal of its values and will be looking about for a new political home. Several things post-election have led me to this realisation: Labor's alliance with the Greens; public pronouncements by party officials; the media and books on the ALP; terms of reference of the review launched in the wake of the election debacle; along with reflections on the paucity of working-class candidates preselected to stand for seats in low-socioeconomic electorates. Where has all the working class gone' Long time passing. Labor candidacy is now the preserve of the tertiary educated so-called "quality candidates". Back when it all began: The ALP's embrace of the progressives began during the reign of Gough Whitlam. Two "activists" who joined the party back then were senator John Faulkner and former NSW minister Rodney Cavalier. The progressives now refer to themselves as the party's "true believers" and "traditional supporters", phrases that were once reserved for Labor's working-class base. In the SBS documentary Gough Whitlam: In His Own Words, Faulkner noted pointedly that Whitlam was "neither working class nor a trade unionist", implying that these traditions no longer resonate in today's Labor Party. Moreover, as he "changed Australia forever, and for the better", Whitlam's legacy cannot be challenged. The ambition of apparatchiks such as Faulkner and Cavalier led them to recruit those with the same unstated, unconscious mores as themselves: young lawyers, schoolteachers, public servants and academics. Working-class union members need not apply: Unions should be the main recruiting ground for working-class candidates. However, as a consequence of its president Bill Kelty pushing his policy of "20 super unions" through the ACTU in the late 1980s, unions are fast being infiltrated by progressives. The amalgamations led inevitably to bureaucratisation of unions. This meant that time spent on the shop floor was no longer necessary for a career in the unions, and so students straight out of university jumped at the opportunity of jobs in the unions as stepping stones on their paths to political careers. Whereas in the past workers off the shop floor could hope to progress through the ranks from delegate or shop steward to organiser, then on to their union's executive, and maybe the secretary ship of their union or a seat in parliament, now few make it much past organiser. The effects of bureaucratisation were compounded by big amalgamations that had more to do with political alignment than being industry-based, as had been envisaged by former ACTU secretary Kelty. Unions became more attuned to politics (officials joined the ALP and were elected to state and federal conferences), with the focus shifting from their future as unions, members' industrial interests and educating workers on how politics affected their lives to individuals' political careers and social causes irrelevant to their members' lives. An act of desperation: Fast forward to 2010. Why formalise anything with the Greens' They would have supported Labor forming government anyway. The alliance gave the Greens the garb of responsible government with which to cloak their extremism while handing the opposition ammunition with which to target Labor as being "hostage to the Greens on carbon pricing", and as having moved further to the Left. The sight of a desperate Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan signing the alliance with a smug, smirking Bob Brown and his merry Green wo/men will be the enduring image of the election for Labor's working-class supporters. The Greens are now beautifully positioned to pressure Gillard into enacting their extreme left policies and, if she buckles on one of them, to take credit for it, as Sarah Hanson-Young did when she grabbed the headlines by foreshadowing the government's change to refugee policy. It was brilliant political opportunism. But the crunch will come on carbon pricing. If Gillard keeps her nerve on that issue, the Greens will bring down the government. They have no choice. Their inner-city supporters are at least as extreme as any Greens parliamentarian and will turn on them if they compromise on climate change (although they will risk losing those who voted Greens at the last election as a protest against Kevin Rudd postponing the emissions trading system). If Gillard caves in, the ensuing rise in electricity prices will hurt most in low-income households, Labor's support base, not that of the Greens (a point Tony Abbott will make time and time again). And the Greens will increase their primary vote at the next election. With its primary vote stuck in the mid-30s, however, the ALP's future would then be as a political rump. The Greens aim to be the left political party in Australia and they will happily ally with Labor short term as a means to that end; they're the enemy of Labor and its working-class supporters. The gods have spoken: The disastrous result has not forced the party to reflect on, or even pay lip service to, the vote of its traditional working-class supporters. In answer to a question about the party's irreconcilable suburban and inner-city constituencies, ALP national secretary Karl Bitar went on and on about the Greens but said not a word about the working-class vote. Party officials have uttered little publicly to indicate that the loss of working-class support was a factor in the collapse of Labor's primary vote, as it was in 2001, when it fell to its lowest level since the 30s. Nor has there been mention of Labor holding on to several seats in Sydney's western suburbs because of the resources thrown at them by Bitar and NSW right-wing powerbroker and federal minister Mark Arbib (as much to protect their own reputations as win the election), or the abysmal performance of the dysfunctional NSW branch of the Liberal Party. Instead, the careerists have embraced the progressive agenda, forsaking all others, 'til death do them part. Any lingering doubts that the party has jettisoned its traditional two wings to fly electoral strategy in its mad scramble to win back the Left were surely dispelled by Arbib's breaking ranks in support of gay marriage, only to be followed a few days later by news that Labor would support an amended Greens motion calling on MPs to gauge their constituents' feelings on the issue. I get by with a little help from my friends . . . Perhaps their silence is because party officials have fallen under the media's spell, which only reports the threat to Labor from the Left; not surprisingly, as it is left-dominated, save for the Murdoch press and talkback radio. Then there are the recent publications dealing with the ALP, many offering advice, most with a green tinge. At the launch of Cavalier's book Power Crisis, Faulkner was reported as saying Labor was now "struggling with the perception [that] we are wholly and solely driven by polling and focus groups. For the Labor Party, steeling our spine and showing real courage . . . is the challenge that lies before us." One suspects that Faulkner's (and Cavalier's) disdain of focus groups has to do with the participants being ordinary Australians, while his calls for courage and a steely spine have the hallmarks of a cunning activist's signal to party officials -- or perhaps more to the inner-city elites -- that he believes Labor should champion left policies on climate change, gay marriage and the like irrespective of whether that risks further alienating working-class supporters. Cavalier argues the party is dying from below, its members having left the branches in droves, while socially irrelevant unions control Labor's policy-making body, its conferences. His twist is in arguing that the Left is bereft of an ideology, unlike in his day when "to be on the Left meant being committed to the social reconstruction of our society" (whatever that means); instead, it indulges in "gesture politics" on refugees and the like. The Greens have filled this ideological vacuum in the inner-city electorates. Adherents of the Greens include "former communists and refugees from the ALP's inner-city wars of the 1980s. They know the language of what used to be the Left, because that is what they are, unchanged, unrevised, unquestioning," Cavalier writes. His idea is to replace union control with a "modern electorate and the broad mass of Labor voters". Of course, there's no room for the working class. After all, what place would there be for the socially conservative in his modern party of yesterday's left-wing political warriors and a defunct ideology that saw the working class as so much political cannon fodder. Not even in discussing the foundation of the Labor Party by the trade unions in the 1890s does Cavalier use the term working class; it's as if he would choke on it. Let's have a review and a good lie down: Naturally, the party's review of this year's federal election performance is fixated on the term progressive and like words and phrases. The blurb on the "about the review" page of Labor's website describes the review's aims as representing the "views and aspirations of progressive Australians" (italics added) and to look at improving "community connections", and how the party's organisation can be made more inclusive. It lists 14 terms of reference, most of which deal with the election campaign and Labor's performance during the preceding term of government. However, four of the terms of reference go to the issues emphasised in the blurb: "The relationship between the party campaign and other progressive campaigns [italics added], including those of affiliated trade unions. "The need to review and modernise Labor's platform with particular reference to giving the party a more clearly articulated vision and purpose in the 21st century. "The need to broaden participation in the party to ensure a greater say for members, supporters and stakeholders [whoever they are]. "The need to improve dialogue and engagement between progressive Australians and the party, including progressive third-party organisations [italics added]." Moreover, the blurb concludes that these comprehensive terms of reference will enable Labor to improve the party and "secure a progressive future for all Australians" (italics added). Not one term of reference could be said to acknowledge the working-class vote as the bedrock on which Labor's electoral strategy has been built. It's just progressive this, progressive that. Home alone' And so where may the ALP's alienated working-class supporters find a new political home' Not with the Greens, given their extremism and contempt for socially conservative values. John Howard won support from many disaffected working-class voters, for a while anyway. But, in his "battlers", Howard failed to realise what he had until he lost them. Tony Abbott, with his instinct for saying what he thinks, has appeal for these same voters (when not making gaffes such as saying he was too jet-lagged to visit Australian troops in Afghanistan, or advocating an expansion in middle-class welfare that would add to the call on scarce public funds), and should he court them as part of a new, grand Coalition electoral strategy, not merely at election times, the chickens from Labor's alliance with the Greens would come home to roost. Turbulent political and economic times such as ours throw up all sorts of personalities and ideas. The conspirators' worst nightmare should be the emergence of a politician who can appeal to the party's alienated, socially conservative suburban working class on cultural issues -- as Pauline Hanson did to rural and regional Australia -- one who will inflict gaping wounds on Labor. And if, unlike Hanson, that politician put forward rational economic policies that cater to working class aspirations for jobs for their children (not pie-in-the-sky green jobs) and a chance to improve their lot in life, the demise of the once great ALP will be at hand. Conclusion: I have nothing but respect for the dwindling band of party parliamentarians and officials who, in representing the interests of Labor's traditional working-class supporters, must daily fight a rearguard action against social movement acolytes within the party and the careerists who have abandoned any pretext of Labor being a party of, or for, the working class. But I will not be renewing my membership of the ALP, as there is no place in today's Labor "brand" for someone such as me who upholds the socially conservative values and aspirations of their working-class parents and grandparents. Michael Thompson is author of Labor Without Class: The Gentrification of the ALP (Pluto Press, 1999). He is a lawyer and former member of the Builders Labourers Federation.