Labor and the Australian oligarchy

A tiny group dominates Australian politics and Labor leader Kevin Rudd recently met them. He knows very well that the key to Labor’s electoral success, later this year, is an accommodation with the Australian oligarchy.

This was what Labor under Bob Hawke achieved, in the early 1980s: a clear policy understanding with a significant section of the dominant corporations. These days this means media, banks and mining. Without this, Labor will be pilloried in the corporate media, blamed for failures in investment and jobs, and rounded on by well funded propaganda campaigns. That is why Kevin Rudd’s new friend, Rod Eddington, introduced him to some mates at the Business Council of Australia.

Public opinion runs a poor second to the corporate imperative. Why else has government after government run the deeply unpopular policies of privatisation, cuts to social security, attacks on job security, regressive taxes and foreign invasions?

What is the Australian oligarchy? Who are these people? The list has recently grown shorter, as media concentration and cross-directorship links have grown.

Agenda setters in the corporate media have stifled sensible public debate. News Limited has relentlessly backed bloody war in the Middle East, PBL has pushed its privatisation agendas as news stories while Fairfax is dominated by Liberal Party hacks. The public broadcasters have been intimidated and had their boards stacked. Some choice.

Australian banks and mining companies have become tightly cross-linked. This nexus is a peculiarly Australian feature. Mining dominates Australian exports and banking is now a formal monopoly. The same three companies - JP Morgan nominees, National Nominees and Westpac Custodian Nominees - are now the top three shareholders of each of the ANZ, the NAB and the Westpac Bank. Rudd’s new business adviser, Rod Eddington, is a board member of both News Ltd and JP Morgan.

A few individuals are now in crucial positions. Michael Chaney, Chair of the National Australia Bank Board, is also a Director of Woodside and BHP-Billiton. Charles Goode is Chair of both Woodside and the ANZ Bank. Leon Davis, Chair of the Westpac Board, is also Deputy Chair of Rio Tinto. Don Argus, Chair of BHP-Billiton, was former CEO of the National Australia Bank.

A number of other directors sit on both mining and banking boards. Several former corporate media directors sit on the ANZ Board. The Howard Government has stacked its cronies on the boards of the ABC, SBS and other public authorities.

Though virtually unknown to the public and politically unaccountable, these characters are hardly politically inactive. Charles Goode has organised large donations for the Liberal Party, through a foundation. Michael Chaney chairs the deceptively named Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), which, along with other corporate think tanks, is handed a substantial voice by its corporate media comrades.

These are the people (through bodies such as the BCA and the CIS) who campaigned for the GST, for WorkChoices, for privatisation and for privatised Aboriginal land rights. These are the people Kevin Rudd must please. Their commitment is not so much to the Liberal Party as to policies that benefit the private investment groups they lead.

Labor was pilloried in the 1960s (by the corporate media) for being run by a group of “faceless men” in the union movement. The present reality is that corporate faceless men dominate both major parties.

Rupert Murdoch’s FOX News, with its ferocious, neo-fascist propaganda, has become an icon of modern misinformation. It has been a bastion of support for the Bush administration. However Murdoch’s recent support for Hilary Clinton demonstrates that, when it comes to business, there is no essential party loyalty.

A similar process might be seen in the Rudd-Eddington connection. However, this oligarchy backed the principles of Howard’s WorkChoices law, and are not happy with Labor stated intention to “rip it up”. This is a problem for Kevin.

What then are the constraints on Labor? What could they do in government if they regain the confidence of the oligarchy?

They might revise some social programs, adjust some environmental laws, create new corporate subsidies and reshuffle the cronies. They will not be allowed to engage in public investment which competes with private investor opportunities, scare the stock markets, interrupt the private plunder of natural resources or regulate the corporate media.

These limitations indicate a failure of political alternatives and participatory democracy. They are linked to a tightly controlled and undemocratic media, weak public debate and a moribund two-party system.

Minor parties need not face the same pressure, except to the extent that they want respectability in the corporate media. But Labor’s task is clear or, if it were not, Kevin’s new friend from News Ltd and JP Morgan will have made it so.