From: "Marcus Strom" <MSTROM-AT-nswtf.org.au>
Date:          Mon, 4 Mar 1996 13:22:18 GMT+10
Subject:       Conservatives win Australian election


The conservative Liberal and National Party coalition has won 
Saturday's (March 2 '96) federal election in Australia. The conservative victory 
sees the end of 13 years of government by the social-deomcratic Australian 
Labor Party (ALP).

The victory to the conservatives was a landslide, with the ALP's 12 
seat majority being transformed into a 44 to 46 seat coalition 
majority in a 148 seat parliament. The balance of power in the Senate 
will be held by the middle of the road Democrats and possibly one 
Green.

Gone now is the class collaborationist Accord agreement between the 
unions and the ALP in government. The conservatives have promised to 
continue with industrial relations 'reform' started by the ALP and 
pursue 'micro-economic reform'. These are codewords for moving people 
from collective agreements and industrial awards to individual 
contracts and smashing the Maritime Union which is very strong (100% 
membership) on Australia's waterfront.

In the lead up to the election, the secretary of the Australian 
Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) posed militant, threatening a wages 
breakout if the coalition won. We will wait and see what happens..

This will give the ALP the opportunity to fake left while in 
opposition and will force some of their bureaucrats, in the party and 
in the unions, to do some grass roots work to win Labor's 'heartland' 
back to the fold.

When in government, opposition to the ALP from the left - whether in 
the union movement or from other sections, is quashed in the name of 
keeping the ALP in office 'because the opposition is so muc hworse'. 
While in opposition, the ALP often poses 'left' and opposition to 
them from the left is attacked 'because it will ruin the ALP's 
reelection chances'.

There is no independent working class alternative in Australia. The 
various left organisations believe that they have the monopoly on the 
truth and see themselves as the core of the future revolutionary 
party. They all pose as 'all there is' - organisations of 100, 200 
claiming this burden is more to do with shoring up their own 
membership than building a class oriented party.

The ALP in its 13 years opened the economy to the world while keeping 
the unions complacent in a way that the conservatives could not. Now 
that this has been achieved, the ruling class no longer needs the 
Accord wages policy to maintain control over the working class. The 
major barriers in the current program of most of the dominant 
sections of the ruling class are moving to individual contracts, 
defeating the Maritime Union, opening more uranium mines and 
undermining the tiny claims that some indiginous people have gained 
on some land.

The election of the Liberal's is not a dramatic turn to the right, 
but more of a continuing drift along a continuum. The only really 
disturbing elements is the election of open racists. In two 
instances, open racists - one from the Labor Party, one from the 
Liberals - were disendorsed and then won as independents.

There has been an increase in the vote for the ultra conservative 
National Party. Two of their Queensland MPs made openly racist 
comments in the election camapaign - one calling citizenship 
ceremonies as 'de-wogging ceremonies' and the other using the term 
'slanty eyed ideologues' and claiming that the only way to get access 
to education in rural Australia is to be rich or Aboriginal.

Revolutionaries will have a more difficult task in struggling for 
open independent working class politics in Australia in this period. 
The question of the republic will be pushed off the agenda.

All this makes the task of reforging a communist party in this 
country more pressing. Without concrete communist organisation which 
is disciplined and united in action, and incorporates all genuine marxist 
tendencies, independent working class activity will be almost 
impossible to build and impossible to maintain.

The election of a conservative government will be a signal to the 
ruling class that they can continue and intensify their attacks on 
our class. It will also allow the ALP and those ginger groups around 
it who continue to call for a vote for them to pose left and continue 
socialist illusions in social democracy.


     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------