'Battlelines' - what’s Tony Abbott really about?

For Abbott there is the practical imperative to reconcile competing currents in the parties of the Australian Right to present the kind of “united front” needed to win the confidence of voters. And there is also the need for Abbott to pitch his message broadly, to maximise his support base.

For his own part, Abbott does not show respect or recognition for many of the marginalised and the oppressed. He speaks of his experience in student politics: mocking his then-rivals on the Left as being typified by an outlook of “Land Rights for Gay Whales” (p.12).

There remains within Abbott a sense of injustice - perhaps even outrage - at the marginalisation of Conservative forces within the broader student political sphere at that time. As he writes: “the student paper wouldn’t print conservative arguments” (p.13).

Fast forwards to today and the Conservative parties in government passed legislation (so-called “Voluntary Student Unionism”) which hindered student self-organisation, and especially the position of the Left. This also had the added impact of draining the lifeblood of student culture from campuses all over the country.

Here, it must also be emphasised that the position of the Left has itself been broader than the “identity politics” held up to ridicule by Abbott. Student poverty and the imposition of increasingly onerous fees have for decades been flashpoints of concern for the student movement.

Perhaps student culture and organisations should have been more inclusive. But the extreme outcome of voluntary student unionism which, in effect, shut down student organisations was never a legitimate answer.

Abbott attacks unions often in Battlelines raising that same “bogey” which has figured in conservative fear-mongering in Australia since time immemorial.

But workers need self-organisation to have the industrial strength to bargain effectively and maintain wages, conditions and rights. Weakened unions, combined with deregulated labour markets means exploitation and a poor deal for workers.

WorkChoices took away unfair dismissal provisions; took away the “no disadvantage test” in enterprise bargaining; removed the right of workers to withdraw their labour except under the strictest of circumstances; and outlawed “pattern bargaining”. Removal of the right to pattern bargaining in itself promised a race to the bottom in wages and conditions for Australian workers.

It says something of the real underlying sources of economic and political power in Australia that much of the WorkChoices agenda has been maintained by Rudd Labor- despite broad opposition among the public. The legitimate electoral power of ordinary Australians has not been able to stand against the economic power of an aggressive employer lobby.

The only hope ordinary Australians have of reversing the long-term trend is to organise independently. But the critical point, especially with a Federal election looming later this year, is that Abbott cannot be trusted on industrial relations.

Labor is torn between its union base, and the pressure applied by employers, but the Conservatives and neo-liberals still want to crush the union movement, and will not be nearly as inhibited. Should the Conservatives get their way, ultimately there would be no labour movement to resist their agenda into the future.