Date: Mon, 04 Mar 1996 14:15:27 +1000 (EST)
From: g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au (g.maclennan)
Subject: Australian election results.


The Oz results will by now  be fairly common knowledge.  Briefly the
conservatives have been swept into office.  13 years of right wing Labor has
come to an end and they face  a huge parliamentary majority against them.

Labor ruled in the interest of capital and ressentiment grew and grew until
it finally burst out in all its ugliness and brought in the Tory filth.

Jefferson appears to have swallowed up a post of mine in which I forecast a
Labor victory!  But the owl of Minerva is now in full flight and once more I
can see!

The points of interest for me are the decline of support for labor among
working class voters and the stunning successes of four our  of the five
*explicitly* racist candidates.  We now have a member of parliament, a Ms
Hanson, a fish shop ownere, elected by workers who is openly anti-Aboriginal.

However Australia is  unique in the sense that its ruling class dare not
play the racist card openly.  We need to belong to the Asian trading bloc
and so racists have to be constrainined.  But such is the mood of sick anger
in the community that it is hard to contain this.

The Tories got elected by promising not to attack the social reforms of
Labor especially Medicare.  However they are already making threatening
noises about industrial relations.  So sparks will fly or  will they,

The union movement is in decline and has spent 13 years of absolute
cooperation with the capitalist class.  Can it suddenly nbow turn round and
fight?  Difficult to say.  What is clear though is that the present
leadership can have no part in such a struggle.

Regards

Gary
g.maclennan
school of media & journalism
qut




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