The legacy of Rudd Labor - and the challenge confronting Julia Gillard

“Kicking in” only at profits of 12 per cent or higher, this truly was to be a tax of “super-profits” in a meaningful sense of the word.

But Rudd could not stand against a combination of factors which set a truly dangerous precedent for Australian politics, and the meaningfulness of our democracy.

The mining companies had a potential war chest running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and were able to saturate much of Australia’s media with a cunning and ingenuous fear campaign. In this they were aided by conservative Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, who parroted daily the required line as part of some unholy and opportunistic alliance. Abbott tried to have us believe that putting a premium on the minerals that belong to all of us would mean “the end” of the industry and of tens of thousands of jobs.

What must be assumed to be a convergence of interests between the mining companies, the conservatives and sections of the media, manifested in a crude framing of the debate - to discredit the government, and to destroy Rudd.

What this shows quite plainly is that Australian democracy is not so robust as to stand against the power of wealth in some circumstances. So long as wealth is able to dominate the public sphere, and set the terms for debate, democratic institutions and movements do not have a chance when it comes to challenging the most powerful vested interests. The interests responsible in this sense for Rudd’s demise will want to obscure this to prevent Australians from drawing these obviously radical conclusions. Instead they will try and ensure “history” is written on their terms: that Rudd’s demise was purely the consequence of flaws in his judgement and character.

That said, while Rudd sometimes disappointed his supporters dreadfully - think, for instance, of his failure to abolish the anti-union ABCC (Australian Building and Construction Commission), and his failure to restore unions rights to pattern bargaining - reflecting upon his legacy it is plain that this was a man with a genuine reform agenda.

While not fully “rolling back” the repugnant industrial relations agenda of the former Howard conservative government, Rudd did enact changes that improved the wages, conditions, job security and rights of a great many Australian workers.

Rudd Labor sought to use the mining super-profits tax as the foundation from which to achieve an increase in employer contributions to worker’s superannuation funds.

Rudd Labor ratified Kyoto, and Rudd himself worked himself to exhaustion fighting for action on climate change at Copenhagen. He also had the foresight to make a massive public commitment to building a National Broadband Network which would position Australia to grow the knowledge industries which will arise in the coming decades.

Rudd Labor enacted landmark legislation for paid parental leave, made a genuine and heartfelt apology to Indigenous Australia’s “stolen generation”, and passed critical reform of pensions: especially in favour of those struggling on the single aged pension. Stimulatory “cash payments” were also targeted to some of Australia’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable.

Critically, Rudd Labor’s counter-cyclical investment and expenditure saved Australia from recession, standing in stark contrast to events elsewhere in the world. For those who reflect upon this experience, the perceived superiority of the conservative parties on economic management should now well and truly have been refuted.

Further: reform of public health - shifting the burden proportionately towards the Federal government - while not sufficiently redressing funding gaps in the here and now - may have set the scene for future reform. By this I infer that if the Federal government is accountable for health, and in contrast with the states has the tax-levers at its disposal to increase funding, this might well place further reform on the agenda for the future.