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An open letter to those Left

By Gwynn MacCarrick - posted Wednesday, 25 September 2002


But the Left view of social justice is fast becoming a casualty, in a society were the rich man seems to have an unrestrained right to excessively indulge, whilst others languish behind razor wire or exist on meagre pickings.

Thatcherism removed welfare cornerstones - on a mantle of every man for himself. Her legacy is a more brutal, uncertain form of society where the welfare and dignity of Australians (and those that would seek safe harbour on our shores), far from being assured, are actively denied to some sections of the community.

We are more vulnerable now, than ever before to the excesses of capitalism: governments legislate away gains fought for in the past and dismiss fairness principles as anticompetitive socialist baggage. Disturbingly, disenfranchisement is matched with a feeling of helplessness, marked by a lack of confidence in social change.

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We have perhaps entered what Adam Jamrozik calls the ‘post welfare state’. Multiculturalism has been eclipsed, market dogma and the pursuit of wealth dominate, treasury discredits poverty statistics, and advocates for the poor squabble over a shrinking pie.

Conservatives appeal to our base nature, to the aspiring and upwardly mobile class of Australia who have proven only too ready to enlist in popular prejudice, real or presumed. It is their preference for racial blindness and meanness directed at immigrants, processed or otherwise, that won Howard his 2001 election victory.

Meanwhile in the halls of Opposition there are stirrings. Icons of the ALP, like Barry Jones, have made submissions to the Hawke/ Wran Review. They are critical of the contemporary party and argue the need for a return to ideological honesty, in order to reverse the trends of the last six years - where Labor in Opposition has failed to lay a glove on the Howard Government.

But whatever your brand of soap powder, the reality is unchanged. With the collapse of HIH, One-Tel and Ansett, we can attest to the fact that the implicit contract between bosses and their staff is a sham. We are all universally vulnerable to the crash of capital.

We are in challenging times. Yet our national political landscape is dreary and self-serving. Speeches are lifeless, orthodox, and risk averse. Euphemisms cover up any unpleasantries. Employers no longer sack workers they ‘downsize’ them. People are referred to as 'cargo' or 'illegals'. We no longer speak of war dead, but rather 'collateral damage'. Regurgitated news takes the form of obfuscation and Orwellian manipulation, as it passes through the hands of so many spin-doctors, completely spars us the energy and effort of thinking. But as Harold Hark says, there is a universal antidote. People need to install leaders who will stop following them.

Its time the Left reclaimed the territory of the ordinary battler from the potbellied thieves and found a way to win back its core and new constituencies, without being damned for it.

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To find a space where decency and generosity of spirit are espoused without apology.

To denounce Australia’s status of sycophantic deputy of US foreign policy.

To recapture our Antipodean irreverence for things haughty, healing the grief we all feel for our lamented loss of mateship values.

Some say that the era of the spin is over. Worn thin. The brainpower that keeps this society engine running, the professional classes that make up 20 per cent of the population, the amorphous middle Australia, the marginalised underclass and the authentic working class, the sum of us, are tired of highly staged and choreographed spin causing us to abandon each other like unwelcome guests.

Leadership is the art of finding a way forward without leaving anyone behind. We deserve better.

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About the Author

Gwynn MacCarrick is an international criminal law and environmental law expert. She is a Research Fellow with the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith University and adjunct researcher with James Cook University. She has a BA (Hons) LLB Grad Cert Leg Prac. IDHA., Grad Cert Higher Ed., PhD.

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