Date: Wed, 06 Mar 1996 14:09:14 +1000 (EST)
From: g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au (g.maclennan)
Subject: Re: Conservatives win Australian election


>
>    Different people in this thread got me confused.  When they
>    talk about voting Labour as an act of class conscioussness
>    sounds to me they are two different interpretations: whether
>    who speaks about this is British or Australian.
>
>    I understand that there are structural differences between
>    the british LP and the Australian LP.  Is this true? and if it
>    is true, what are the differences?
>
>    Comradely,
>    cARLOS

Carlos this is a tricky one and there will be no consensus about the answer. 

1. Prospects to the Left of Labor

In my time here in Oz the two big issues that divided the Left were the
Soviet Union and what to do about Labor/social Democrats.  Apart from the
Maoist tinge the first problem has gone. But we are still very much divided
on our attitudes towards the Labor Party.  The Melbourne variety of the CPA
entered the Labor party wholus bolus. The deepest of entrists they have now
seemingly vanished.

As I  said the Sydney siders (Aarons clan) still dream of an alternative
outisde the Labor Party.  But Marcus is totally correct in his
characterisation of this tendency.  it is absolutely petit bourgeois to the
heart.  It hangs around the Greens and the Left liberals and tries to get
them to come up and see them sometime.  Beyond pathetic.  But they still
have their share of the gold as Marcus points out.

So to repeat my earlier prognosis there is no chance of a party to the left
of Labor for the immediate and short term.  But of course I share Marcus'
longing for a new Communist party.  I am Irish and Catholic and sick of
closets so I too would call it communist.  But Steve has a point we should
not go to the  wall over a name.

2. ALP AND BLP COMPARED

Now as to the differences between Bristish labour and Oz labor I think there
are no structural differences that are significant.  However ideologically
Oz labor under the promptings of key communists undertook to transform
itself into a Swedish type Social Democratic outfit.

Of course what they produced  was a caricature  of the Swedish model.  But
they were serious about partnership with Govt and capital.  As a consequence
thruout the period of Labor's office (13) years there was restraint.  What
was absence was control of investment.  So the wage increases the workers
did not take have been squandered in conspicuous conmusmption or invested
off shore.  no wonder the workers were angry and disillusioned with Labor.

Now Blair labor is in my opinion too right wing to perform the "national"
role that the OZ Labor Party undertook.  Recently in NLR there was an
interesting article on Will Hutton's critique of the management of the
British economy.
Hutton wants a revival of the British state but his program which is by no
means socialist is seemingly to the Left of Blair.


3. Why vote for labor?

Well Oz Labor still has links to the working class through the trade union
bureaucracy i.e. the actual leaders of the working class.  I use the word
"actual" in distinction from the "real" leaders who are of course an absence
at present.  So I always call for a vote for labor.  Other groups on the
Left (ISO) DSP (SWP) tend to call for a vote against the Tories but this is
merely a semantic gesture.  The middle class left e.g. the Greens has tended
to go with the stupid slogan that "there is no difference between Labor and
the Tories" and so in certain instances such as in Qld they have actually
put in a Tory govt.

But these remarks of mine have to be interpreted with the knowledge that I
am notoriously "soft" on the organisational quewstion.  My experiences in
ISO and with the DSP (SWP) have scarred me for life.  If I meet a democratic
centralist I run away, run awaaay.  Also I generally plump for the lesser
evil. I am bitter about it but I am mindful of those who voted in Thatcher
believing she could not be worse than Callaghan.

regards

Gary

g.maclennan
school of media & journalism
qut




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