Changing the ALP
* By Alexander WhiteAs a member of the Labor Party considered to be ‘young’, I ask the questions: How did Howard win the election; and, what is to be done to combat his dominance?
Answering the first question, how did Howard win the election, has been discussed in countless other publications, from New Matilda to the Fabian Review and Australian Options and at the National Press Club, not to mention scores of newspaper articles. The second question is less asked or answered, but it appears that the answer from the ‘Powers That Be’ within the ALP is to drag the Labor Party further and further to the Right.
The result of this, evident during the election itself, is that any difference between Labor and Liberal is obfuscated to the point that the average punter cannot be bothered trying to tell the two apart. Ultimately, in my view, the Liberal Party succeeded at coherently presenting a vision of Australia, and the ALP failed to present a vision significantly different from theirs.
In an advanced First World nation like Australia there is at present a culture of ‘coercion and consent’ managed by the Liberal Party on behalf of big business. Just as the Australian union and labour movement established the Labor Party to represent their interests at a parliamentary level, so too was the Liberal Party born from the coming-together of ruling-class interests in Australia, the landed-gentry, free-marketers and wealthy capitalists.
Howard’s regime has made particular use of the ‘Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt’ tactics—political weapons so old they have an infamous legacy that goes back to emperors in Rome and Persia—but his real success is (obviously) not through naked repression or state-force. Far more insidious and successful is Howard’s particular brand of ‘authoritarian populism’, a potent mix of social-conservatism, individualistic sentiment and anti-bureaucratic nationalism.
Control in Australia (and other First World nations) is maintained through a mixture of a developed awareness in the ‘civil-society’ of the ruling class (that is, ruling-class consciousness), a lack of any developed class-consciousness among workers and the fact that, in countless different ways, the Howard government has propagated and secured its own ideological, authoritarian populist, world-view to be projected as the world-view of the whole Australian populace.
There is in Australia simply no viable opposing world-view to Howard’s, and has not been since the Keating government. In the past, certainly in its early years, the ALP provided a consistent, coherent and developed world-view that ‘normal’ Australians could adopt in opposition to conservative forces. Rather than continuing to develop its own world-view, the ALP has, under Beasley and then Mark Latham, swallowed the line of Howard, and adopted a conservative agenda.
There is in Australia simply no viable opposing world-view to Howard’s
Since 1996, Howard has appropriated the moral and societal norms of Australia. Australia, despite protestations to the contrary, has a changing and evolving culture; the Liberal Party has carefully directed that culture to be one in their own image. Howard has established himself by convincing Australians who share nothing in common with him that their interests and his coincide, that in fact, there is no separation between his interests and theirs: he is ‘relaxed and comfortable’ and so are they. Howard’s rhetoric is subtle: his voice and his ideals speak for Australian ideals. Furthermore, this Howard-Australian ideal is the natural social order. Anything else is unthinkable and ‘un-Australian’.
Importantly, Howard does not force this view. It is arrived at by ‘spontaneous consensus’, a process by which a mass of the population accedes to the mode of life presented by Howard, who enjoys a position of prestige and trust, but who must also alter his rhetoric to accord with the ‘common sense’. Australians consent to Howard’s world-view, but he in turn is required to make concessions. His emphasis on humanitarian aid during the tsunami crisis, his acceding (largely) to the anti-gun lobby after the Port Arthur massacre, and also adaptation of the extreme social-conservative agenda following Pauline Hanson’s rise to prominence; these are instances where Howard has had to compromise one way or the other. It is only during times of crisis that differences between conservative views and the ‘common sense’ manifest, such as during World War II or Vietnam.
Although he rules mainly with consent, Howard does rely on coercion. The recent passing, or threatening to pass, dangerous draconian industrial laws, and in particular the Cole Royal Commission into the building and construction industry is an example of direct state-delegitimisation and attack against unionism. With the collaboration of a Right-wing dominated ALP, Howard has introduced terrifying national security laws that seriously undermine civil liberties. The deregulation of Australia’s media ownership laws is also coercive, as it allows monopoly ownership of news and current affairs by a few individuals, and therefore significantly restricts the form of information available to the Australian public.
There is presently within the ALP an obsession with economics, determinism and fatalism. This is particularly evident with the recent and on-going leadership crises. What is more important in my view is consciousness. The ALP was at its most successful and dynamic when it encapsulated an ideal or a vision—‘the Light on the Hill’ is just one example—that Australians could adopt as their own, and which was counter-posed to the agenda of the conservative ruling classes.
History indicates that simple economic transformations do not change society. They create the circumstances in which humanity changes itself. The ALP therefore cannot wait for an economic crisis to win the next election. Nor can it wait to find a new or recycled leader who merely rephrases the same messages that have failed the Labor Party on four successive elections since 1996.
It must clearly articulate a vision that is in stark opposition to the conservative world-view promoted by the Liberal Party, while still according to the accepted social ‘norms’. There is no reason that the ALP should give up the economic-responsibility battle-ground, or the moral battle-ground, or security battle-ground. But rather than following along the Liberals with ‘me-too-ism’, it should develop its own vision.
The ‘common sense’ that I mentioned above is vital to an alternative ALP world-view. ‘Common sense’ is the inarticulate world-view held in common by most Australians: a morass of moral, social and political views upon which political discourse in Australia takes place. It is inarticulate since most Australians have no way, at the moment, in which to explain their ‘common sense’ other than with the language provided by the Liberals.
Conservative forces have a tremendous advantage in Australia. Media outlets, newspapers and radio shock-jocks are the ‘intellectuals’ of the ruling class. They are the group that articulates the moral and political values of Howard and the ruling class. There exists no main-stream media source that does the same for a Labor or Left world-view.
To develop and disseminate a uniquely and distinctly Labor consciousness, a ‘counter-hegemony’, formed of ‘media-intellectuals’ must be formed. The ALP has articulated and represented the Australian ‘common sense’ in the past. As a political party, it is beholden on the ALP to act as a moral force in and of itself. Rather than stating what to do and how to do it, the ALP should concentrate on what ‘ought to be done’, imparting its own values and ethics without reference to strictly conservative ‘morals’.
This development of a new kind of intellectual must be organic. It cannot be imposed, and the last thing that the ALP should do is inflict yet another generation of ALP ‘advisers’ on the Australian public (or for that matter, the rank-and-file members). The intellectuals of the ALP should be drawn from the groups that it seeks to gain the support of: trade unionists, workers, young people, and others.
In the next three years, the ALP cannot wait for Australians to decide that they want a change and then give it to them. Rather, we must make the case for change and then help them effect it.
*Alexander White is an Honours student in Classical Studies and Medieval History at the University of Melbourne. He joined the ALP in 2003..