Hard choices for Labor - social justice and inflation

The entire tax system needs to be organised in such a way as to be more equitable in its spread, and so as to finance progressive expansion and development of Australia’s welfare state and social wage.

As previously noted, there is a legitimate position which holds that Labor must be held accountable for its pre-election promises. Even if Labor resolves to stay firm to its platform, though, this ought at least not be without dissent or controversy.

Beyond the calls for “belt-tightening”, there is a desperate need for investment in welfare, infrastructure, education, health, aged care, and foreign aid. Ambitious public housing programs should also be provided for: to increase supply and to burst the “property bubble” which has put home ownership out of the reach of so many Australians.

And Labor’s apology for injustices visited upon Australia’s Indigenous people will ring hollow unless accompanied by the resources necessary to “close the gap” in age expectancy, income, home ownership, health services and educational opportunity.

If Federal Labor fails to provide in any of these areas, then it is up to citizens to mobilise and demand change. Rank and file ALP members need to organise now - hopefully with leadership from dissenting elements within the Party - to win a shift in policy at Labor’s next National Conference.

Progressive activists, including those to the left of the ALP, also need to mobilise and take a stand for the values of compassion, mercy, kindness and justice.

In particular, trade unions, Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), and citizens’ networks including “Now We The People”, “Melbourne Social Forum” and “GetUp!”, could mobilise activists to intervene in Australia’s political parties in support of more progressive agendas. GetUp! alone has well over 200,000 members. 

In light of such figures, those on the broad Left would do well to imagine the impact of a concerted campaign to mobilise these Australians into party-political activism.

Importantly, if leadership were provided in recruiting more Australians from unions, NGOs and citizens’ networks into party-political activism, progressive influence in the ALP, and also minor progressive parties could expand simultaneously.

There is a space, now, to the left of the ALP, which is begging to be filled by a new party embracing the traditional values of the Left.

And if Labor holds firm to policies of inequitable “tax reform” and austerity, the ranks and appeal of any new formation could swell - if only with a determination to “move into the mainstream” and not be lost in a “self-imposed political ghetto”.

Such a party, in alliance with the Greens, could shift the relative centre of Australian politics to the Left, leading public debate in a way the ALP cannot - because of its conflicting constituencies.

Effectively, the broad Australian Left - comprising the ALP, Greens, and a new party of the Left - would launch a “multi-pronged assault”, mobilising activists and voters of different identities and backgrounds from several directions at once. The aim would be to forge, through exchange, co-operation and engagement, a “cultural and electoral bloc”.

Some activists despair that the Rudd Labor Government could be yet another “wasted opportunity”. Should enough citizens “stand up and be heard”, however, perhaps there is yet hope for real and progressive change.