False Labor

Our economy is a house of cards, a fragile shell hollowed out by greedy financiers. It has been propped up through the first phase of the global financial crisis, but a new phase is threatening in Greece, with European authorities apparently learning nothing from past experience, recent or distant.

We have paid a high social price for this smoke-and-mirrors economy. Neoliberalism promotes selfishness and rampant consumerism, and we have become less tolerant, more obese, less healthy and more stressed. We have less time for our families and communities. The Aussie values of decency and a fair go are withering, leaving us prey to haters and fearmongerers.

Labor was founded to stand up for the powerless. Just one hundred years ago it won a landslide victory and formed the first stable Labor government. Though more often out of power than in, and though brought down repeatedly by internal division, Labor reshaped the political landscape in Australia, and many of its proposals became mainstream policy. People forget that the rich didn’t just give away their power. It only happened because ordinary people worked together, and thus gained the power to claim back some of the share that is rightfully theirs.

For all its flaws, Labor had a vision and it had principles. In 1965 Arthur Calwell stood in parliament and proclaimed Labor’s opposition to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war. As anticipated he was ridiculed and vilified, Labor lost the next election and Calwell missed his last chance to be Prime Minister. But he was right and, as Don Watson has observed, he stiffened Labor’s spine and eventually they won because of it.

Whitlam had vision, and he changed Australia. I was overseas during his term, and I returned to a country, more open, more vigorous, more exciting and more adventurous than ever it had been under the great grey blanket of Menzies’ paternalism.

All that has been abandoned and forgotten. We are left with Faux-Labor, a hulk and an obstruction, blocking our initiative and decency, sucking the enthusiasm from our youth, chewing up and spitting out the few good people who still try to give it life and make a difference.

At this critical time, what we most need is leadership. What we get is politics as usual. The art of the possible, they call it, but in their limp hands it is expediency, nothing more. Real leaders don’t accept the usual. We have not had a real leader for a generation.

Faux-Labor lives on preferences. It survives because of compulsory preferential voting, the arbitrary rule that you must number all boxes or your vote won’t be counted. So we mark Faux-Labor as the lesser of two evils and the carcass twitches for a while longer.

Labor is dead! Let it be said, loud and often. Jolt its followers, dislodge those not rusted-on. They are deluded. Stop giving Faux-Labor your preference. If the informal vote count goes up to 10 or 15 per cent as a result, there will be upheaval. A new political era will become possible.