Assets for the next generation

Conclusion

Labor is more than just a political party. We’re a movement - a movement that always needs to energise its base and create new causes and new constituencies.

Paul Keating said it was like pedalling a bicycle. Let me extend the analogy - when a bike starts moving it tends to wobble from side to side. The rider then has a choice; to stop the bike or to pedal faster. I’m a great believer in pedalling faster.

In many parts of the world, left-of-centre parties have got the wobbles. With the fall of the Berlin Wall we’ve had trouble redefining ourselves, nourishing our supporters with a sense of energy and movement.

It’s not just a challenge for the ALP. It’s an international dilemma. I believe that the new Labor cause hinges on the dispersal of power, the extension of economic, social and political democracy.

The downside to globalisation is the concentration of power, the entrenchment of an arrogant and self-serving group of insiders. Our job is to break down the power elite and to re-enfranchise the outsiders.

That’s what modern politics is all about: the distribution of power in our economic and cultural institutions. It’s why economic ownership is such an important issue. We want to give all Australians a stake in the new economy - not just the 60 per cent who currently own assets.

Labor believes in universality, a stakeholder society in which assets and ownership are available to all. I grew up in a suburb (a public housing estate) where, by definition, nobody inherited anything.

Today I represent neighbourhoods with unemployment rates of 40 per cent and welfare dependency rates of 80 per cent - places where, almost certainly, nobody will inherit anything. So don’t tell me society is fair. And don’t tell me that Labor has nothing to fight for.

Sixty years ago, the Curtin and Chifley Governments set a great national goal for the attainment of full employment - jobs for all Australians. Thirty years ago, the Whitlam Government committed itself to education for all, the massive expansion of skills and qualifications.

A Crean Labor Government should be no less ambitious. We can create a stakeholder society in which all Australians have a decent chance in life, a chance to be self-reliant and secure through the accumulation of assets. We can achieve ownership for all.