Trevor Cook

Forget Rudd and Gillard; Whitlam is Abbott's real target

Conservatives, by definition, live for the past.

For them, the past was a better place.

And so each incoming LNP federal government promises to windback the clock.

We thought Abbott and his cabinet wanted to windback to the Howard years.

The Budget warns us we were wrong.

These guys want to go back to a world before Whitlam helped create modern Australia.

Their opponents in today's ALP are the beneficiaries of the Whitlam reforms; particularly in education.

When I read the first speeches of new ALP members in 2007, education emerged as a strong theme.

Many of these fresh ALP caucus members, swept in on a pro-environment and anti-workchoices wave, noted that their opportunity to get a higher education was due to Whitlam's vision and policies.

Universal healthcare, however, was Whitlam's great achievement; secured against bitter conservative opposition and only after a double dissolution.

Fraser partially dismantled universal healthcare; and Hawke later reversed this winding back; with the urging and support of the union movement through the Accord process.

By the time of Howard's 1996 electoral triumph, the Coalition had ostensibly given up its decades long fight against the most important social reform in post-war Australia.

So we thought.

But Abbott has re-engaged the battle with renewed vigour.

This Government wants our health system pushed back 40 years.

As it does education.

It is attacking needs-based funding in school education, opening up a wound in the Australian community that Menzies was the first PM to address.

Abbott is moving to make wealth once again more important than merit in higher education.

The conservatives hate the fact that their ALP opposition is just as well-educated, often better educated, than their own MPs.

They want a proper blue-collar labor party, but not one supported by unions.

They hate Whitlam and his reforms for foisting this modern ALP on them.

There are plenty of other examples emerging of just how retrograde Abbott's vision is.

The watering down of the racial discrimination act, the weakenning of the human rights commission and the slashing of funding for indigenous, childcare and disability are part of a desire to re-establish the white male as paramount in our society.

When they attack the so-called age of entitlement, they are really attacking the pillars of modern, Whitlamite Australia where concerns about access were more important than reducing the tax rate for business and rich individuals.

The first Abbott Budget does more to promote inequality in Australia than anything we have seen in recent decades.

Until now, after Whitlam, conservatives have tried to dress up their attacks on equality and fairness.

The Abbott Government, impatient with the failures of Fraser and Howard, has adopted a far more divisive approach.

It made a few token gestures towards fairness but, basically the Budget is a first installement in the Abbott agenda of winding back the equality and fairness that Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard have all strived to insert into Australian national life.

The Budget attacks the poor and middle-class while ignoring the rorts the rich enjoy through the tax and super systems. This was no accident - it is deliberate.

And the biggest stalking horse of all is Abbott's efforts to get rid of Labor's commitment to a national system of government and revert to a pre-federation style competition between increasingly impoverished states.

The intended victims of this charade are the poor and the middle class.

Abbott knows the states will be forced to cut spending - he wants them to do it.

Australia is at a turning point. And Abbott is no moderate, no centrist, not even a genuine conservative. 

Abbott is to the right what Whitlam was to the left. Abbott has a program, an ideological agenda and he is going to crash through or crash.

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Tony Abbott: the most radical prime minister since Whitlam

Shorten must lead Labor across the rubicon

Saturday's WA senate election was a disaster for the ALP.

Spin it anyway you want but 21% of the vote, just five points ahead of the Greens, looks to me like a threshold event.

Everyone knows that the ALP senate tickets are full of union and party hacks.

Most of the time the voters don't get to see the poor quality of the ALP's upper house representation.

The Obeid episode in NSW has changed that.

So has the Joe Bullock fiasco in WA.

It is hard to even imagine why Bullock is a member of the ALP, let alone topping its Senate ticket.

Six decades after the split that kept labor out of office nationally, sectarianism is alive and well in some pockets of the labor movement.

Specifically, the moribund Shop, Distributive and Allied industries union (the SDA).

The SDA has one mission in politics and that is to pursue the Catholic Church's unhealthy obsession with sex.

Everyone with any brains inside or close to the ALP knows that the blue collar ownership of the party has outlived its usefulness.

That ownership, which sees affiliated union officials divvy up federal and state upper house spots among themselves, is a dangerous joke.

It fostered corruption in NSW.

Now, it has contributed to a bad result in WA.

The ALP has had lots of reports (and books and papers) all pointing to the need to make the party more representative of its voter base.

People like John Faulkner have tried and despaired.

People like Sam Dastyari have championed reform, and then plucked an unrepresentative plum for themselves.

Paul Howes has recently recanted his long adherence to the mythology that the ALP is best left in the hands of a few officials from some blue collar unions.

The new selection processes for the federal leadership were a plus for the party.

And the recent community pre-selections in NSW seem to have gone well.

Now Shorten has backed extending these processes to state leadership ballots.

Shorten has also proposed abolishing the requirement that ALP members be members of a union.

That potentially opens up the party to the 80% of the population currently excluded.

But it doesn't really.

Not until those members are given the right to pre-select upper house candidates.

Up until then it is a pointless charade.

Upper house pre-selections are the rubicon.

I suspect if Shorten is to make it to the Lodge he, like many before him, must first take on his own party.

History is moving towards the creation of a new centre left party in Australia.

Either by the re-invention of the ALP as a party supportive of unions but not owned by them.

Or to the replacement of the ALP by a new party, possibly centred around the Greens.

Alea iacta est.

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NSW Fabians session: Renewing the ALP-Union link

Labor's longer-term leadership problem

NSW Fabians session: Renewing the ALP-Union link (revised)

The following is the text of my contribution to the NSW Fabians event next Tuesday.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd, saw unions as just so many interest groups he had to deal with.

Kevin Rudd could imagine a form of social democracy that was not centred on unions.

Even if unions are interest groups, or are becoming interest groups, they are well-resourced and  politically potent.

Despite everything that has happened since the hey day of the Accord in the 1980s, unions are still a big part of Australian society.

And unions are still natural allies of the ALP.

Since the Accord, the relationship between unions and the ALP has also changed.

It is still important to both sides.

There is still a high degree of dependence in the relationship.

One hundred and twenty years later, unions still need a political party that is firmly supportive of collective organisation and collective action.

Financial and other resources from unions still give the ALP an important electoral advantage.

But there is a paradox.

Queensland: the model for apartheid

A facebook post from my friend Janine Gertz (Community Engagement Officer at James Cook University):

Watching Nelson Mandela's Memorial on TV, I couldn't help but think about what the world might have looked like without this man. 

I bet you didn't know this but South Africa's Apartheid system was modeled closely on Queensland's Aboriginal Protection Act (1897).

Queensland's Apartheid system enabled the Government to forcibly remove Aboriginal people to reserves and missions - places like Yarrabah, Palm Island, Cherbourg to name a few. It's hard to imagine but the lives of Aboriginal people were controlled down to every element of decision making that citizens enjoy - who you can marry; what job you were to be employed in; where you could travel on your days off; what you could buy with your wages. 

It was a devastating piece of legislation, the effects of which we a still dealing with today through inter-generational trauma. 

Politicians and public servants spoke about it in those days as being a policy of 'Care and Protection' but hindsight has shown us it was really it was about control and incarceration. 

New Protection Acts, modeled on the original 1897 version, were passed through the Queensland Parliament as late as 1971 with hangover policies enduring within the Public Service programs until the late 1980's. And the ideological struggle continues today in 2013. 

On this day, I reflect on the memory and legacy of not only Nelson Mandela, but of my grandparents, parents, uncles and aunties, and the other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families who lived through this regime, became political activists and paved the way for social change. I owe them much...

More on the Queensland legislation

Wrong foreign investment (and right foreign investment)

What can you say?

Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (21 Nov, 14:25): I do thank the member for Kennedy for his question and I appreciate his concerns, concerns which are quite general in this House, to ensure that the foreign investment Australia gets is the right foreign investment that supports our national interest, not the wrong foreign investment that does not. This government, this parliament, this nation has long supported foreign investment. Foreign investment has been a very important part of building the strong economy that we enjoy in this country.

Our agricultural industry, our mining industry, our manufacturing industry would not be what it is but for foreign investment. So we do very much support foreign investment, but it does have to be the right foreign investment, foreign investment that clearly is in our national interest, not the wrong foreign investment. We have a strong and a good process to determine which is which. We have the Foreign Investment Review Board, which makes recommendations, and we have the Treasurer, who makes decisions on this matter. I am confident that this process is being amply pursued in the case in question and I am confident that it will give our country the best possible result.

Fighting the last federal election, again, in 2016

When I was studying European history as an undergraduate several decades ago, one of the truisms was that the many strategic errors of military generals could often be explained by their tendency to fight the last war again rather than the new one.

Those generals were heavily involved in the previous war, often it was the formative influence in their careers, and they has learnt the lessons of the last war very well. They understood, perhaps hoped, that this war would be a rerun of the last war, a war for which they were - now - well prepared to fight.

I have noticed in the commentary about the ALP's forthcoming decision on carbon pricing - whether to support the new government's repeal legislation - a certain resonance with the attitudes of those generals.

Most commentators seem to accept a trio of fairly dubious propositions:

1. The ALP's defeat at the last election owed a lot to the unpopularity of carbon pricing, perhaps even as Abbott suggests that the 2013 election was a referendum on carbon pricing.

2. The Australian electorate is overwhelmingly opposed to carbon pricing.

3. Thse attitudes are unlikely to change in the future.

Accepting these three propositions allows your average political pundit to project forward three years and pronounce labor dead in the water at the next election if it does not immediately 'repent'.

Even if you accept these propositions, which I don't, there is still a leap of faith required to get to the position that the 2016 election will somehow be a rerun of this year's election.

Victorious political parties, and interest groups, have a vested interest in seeing the next election as a rerun of the last triumph. 

The union movement has tried repeatedly to get a redux of the 'glorious' 2007 anti-workchoices campaign off and running, with little success.

I remember the view amongst many senior labor people in 1993 was that this improbable victory had vanquished the Libs for several elections (I have heard tell that at least a few very senior Libs held the same view). Instead, Howard won in a canter in 1996. Did Keating win the 1993 election by default because Hewson was a 'scary' economic radical, a bridge too far for an electorate already scarred by labor's more circumspect embrace of neo-liberal policies.

The ALP came close to beating Howard in 1998 and hoped that its GST roll back scheme might do the trick in 2001. But the world changed, and the big new issue was Tampa and all that has followed from that.

In 2004, the big new issue was 'who do you trust on interest rates', but also 'we will determine etc.' Perhaps, the ALP contributed to its own defeat with some poor policies on health and education, and a nutjob as leader. Who knows the weight we should put on these and other factors.

The popular histories of election campaigns always look more inevitable and straightforward in hindsight than they really are.

As Tolstoy made clear in 'War and Peace', everything is a lot messier on the battlefield than the generals imagine or pretend.

These campaign accounts are invariably written by story-tellers who want to provide their audience with an appealing, coherent narrative.

Yes folks, they say, it is all simple and it all makes sense - just buy my book.

The truth is that it is very difficult to know what was decisive in the last election, or any previous election, there is always a range of issues, and perceptions about parties and leaders.

The one truism seems to be that the next election is never be just, or primarily, a rerun of the past election.

Political strategists, like military generals, should always bear that in mind.

This time round there is an even greater degree of uncertainty because the media environment is changing so rapidly - three years is a long, long time in the media these days. How many of our newspapers will be extinct by 2016?

These media changes will throw up new campaigning strategies and tactics, which will only make those popular election potboilers even more delusional.

As for all those people boldly predicting the issues the next federal election will be fought on ... its just comforting, complacent, column-filling rubbish.

The Dawkins revolution: 25 years on (book review)

Last week I went to Melbourne for the launch of this book.

There's a good review on the Conversation by someone much more familiar with the policy issues involved than me.

I worked for John Dawkins in his personal office from October 1987 for about 3 years as variously a political adviser (dealing mainly with internal ALP matters and links with the ACTU), an adviser on training policy, media relations and finally as senior private secretary.

The first thing to say about working for Dawkins while he was devising and introducing his revolution is that he was a difficult and demanding boss. He treated a lot of people poorly.

Few people get to be Cabinet ministers, even fewer make any real use of the often brief time they have in those privileged positions.

As a staffer, the long-term value of your experience has a lot to do with whether your boss turns out to be one of the few who achieve something significant or one of the many time servers who flap about the place continuously out of their depth in a policy area of which they have only a superficial grasp.

I'm talking here about something far more substantial than the 'canniness' of a Bob Carr.

One of the key traits of the Hawke Government was that it had a greater than usual share of the type of Cabinet minister who has the desire and capacity to do something truly significant.

These substantial ministers were fortunate to have the backing of an excellent prime minister in Bob Hawke who encouraged substantial reform efforts without feeling the need to micro-manage and who frequently protected his ministers from the sort of party and sectional interest criticisms that will often cause a lesser political leader to wilt.

The achievement of Dawkins should also be seen as an achievement by Hawke as well.

Dawkins tried to do something significant in every portfolio he held. He came to education after establishing the Cairns group, an alliance of nations that lobbied for fairer and freer trade in agriculture. Dawkins' achievements for Australian farmers stacks up well against the often lame efforts of his National party predecessors and successors in the trade or primary industries area.

And let's be clear, the Dawkins revolution was not reform by consensus, it was not watered down to an extent that made it essentially meaningless, but broadly acceptable to all stakeholders.

Dawkins took on his critics and sought to overwhem them and out-manoeuvre them. 

Dawkins was in a fight that he could have easily lost.

The demands of that fight put a lot of pressure on his staff and his departmental officers, as well as himself.

Political reform is not for the faint hearted. It is not a parlour game.

Dawkins chose to play the game hard.

He was determined to win the argument and get the biggest changes he could.

He would never have been content with 'canniness'.

Dawkins always knew, perhaps intuited, that big changes have the best chance of lasting the distance.

Too often reforms like these get captured by the internal stakeholders, those with most at stake in an immediate sense.

The Dawkins revolution was not about universities, it was about delivering economic and social benefits from a bigger higher education sector to the Australian community.

This approach helped Dawkins win the political argument, but it did not endear him to many people in the higher education sector.

But now it is 25 years later, and about 8 ministers from both sides of politics have succeeded Dawkins as higher education minister.

Despite some tinkering, the essential architecture of the Dawkins reforms are intact.

It is a rare politician who gets to look back with pride over the continuing success of his reforms a few decades later.

As a staffer, last week's festivities confirm my long-held view that you're better off working for a difficult boss than for some plodder who prides himself on his ability to get through his paperwork and turn in a polished (but vacuous) media performance.

When I was working for John Dawkins I never thought about a 25 year celebration and reunion.

But it was a great privilege and pleasure to be there last week.

(the photo is me with Dawkins and his wife Maggie at the reunion last week)

Gillard's achievements (video)

 

Junk food wrapper Abbott portrait wins art prize

Portrait of #tonyabbott made from junk food wrappers wins category in Warringah Art Exhibition http://bit.ly/15O9x0o   pic.twitter.com/oatp5DbPhT

Will Rudd follow Miliband on party reform?

In organisational terms, the ALP has always been closer to the British Labour Party (BLP) than just about any other national political party.

Both are 'labour' parties in the formal sense, meaning that they were established by trade unions and unions are privileged internally over other groups and individual branch members (through formal affiliation).

The 'labour' model of party-unions links is very different from that which is found in the US Democrats.

There is much more on this stuff in my thesis.

In recent decades, leaders of the ALP and BLP have seen party reform (usually meaning reducing the influence of unions) as part of their strategy to lead their parties back into government.

The reason is obvious. Social, economic and technological changes have reduced significantly the political relevance of unions. 

No aspiring PM can afford to be seen to be beholden to unions and union bosses.

Rudd's proposal to give branch members a say in electing the parliamentary leader aims at two purposes: it reduces the influence of caucus factional leaders and it reduces the influence of union bosses (because it does not give unions a privileged position in the voting).

In addition, Rudd has made some sensible but not particularly important reforms to clean up the embarrassing NSW branch.

Yet, these changes are well behind the ambitions of Britain's Opposition Leader, Ed Miliband.

Miliband proposes (see here and here) that non-party members should be able to vote in party elections, and that its three million union political levy payers can only be involved in the party if they choose to.

These proposals would take the BLP away from the 'labour' model and move it much closer to the US Democratic party model.

Miliband wants the BLP to be (again?) relevant to the lives of ordinary working people.

Australia has this problem too. Rapid declines in party membership and union densities (proportion of workforce that is unionised) have given union bosses, MPs and factional operatives more power than ever before.

Labour parties have lost the sense of being a movement.

Miliband wants some of that movement energy and enthusiasm back.

Part of this I think is a realisation (partly flowing from Obama's success) that good campaigns actually need people not just focus groups and good advertising,

Some union leaders in both countries will resist the diminution of their own power, smarter ones will recognise that being in government is worth it.

Already, I think we can see that Rudd's reforms so far are a step in a longer process.

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