Nurturing Justice 19 (2007)
On our list of 12 issues we are now up to Number 7, "Commerce, Industry and Trade Unionism." In many respects these issues have been dealt with in previous Nurturing Justice editions in 2007: No. 3 IR and a more important election issue and Nos. 4 Religion and Labour I and 5 Religion and Labour II. In this edition I will refer to these in terms of a weakness in Labor's election campaign strategy. It has failed to grasp the opportunity that has been by the country's obvious concern about the Howard Government IR legislation.
Since 1996, Labor in Opposition has had repeated opportunities to redraw Australia's political map. It has failed to take the opportunity. It has neglected consideration of forming a non-Liberal alliance with the Greens and Democrats for the purposes of electoral reform so that a greater level of accountability be restored to our system of parliamentary government. By now we should be working with a reformed electoral system (perhaps similar to New Zealand), one that is more consistent with Proportional Representation principles. By now we should have had a Parliament in which most Australians find themselves truly represented by parties that accord with their own views and philosophies. But as the party that continues to command the largest electoral support, Labor continues to avoid the issue that stares it and the country in the face. Our electoral system lacks appropriate accountability. We have lost the Westminster sense of ministerial responsibility. The Howard Government has confirmed that departure again and again. It is now simply too easy for parliamentary representatives to become unhinged from the electors they represent and to whom they should be accountable.
If a Government is returned to office and discovers to its surprise that it commands a Senate majority, as the Liberal-National Coalition did last time, then it simply assumes that it has a "mandate" to introduce legislation that it kept under wraps during the election campaign for fear of an electoral backlash. We all know that that is what happened last time. And we all know why the Howard Government failed to unveil its proposed IR laws during that election campaign. We've allowed ourselves to be conned by a cynical view of politics that the purpose of elections is to win and winners can then do what they like, even if it means introducing something they have not emphasized during the campaign. That is the story of the Howard Government IR legislation. It's a national disgrace. We might even say it is yet another Howard Government scandal. And THAT is the kind of politics that Rudd Labor should be banging on about and making the major issue of this election campaign. Rudd Labor should be biting bullet and leading the way in advocating a restoration of Westminster parliamentary principles - the "core values" of our inherited political system - within the fabric of contemporary Australian politics.
But for some reason Labor declines to make this pitch. Is it because criticism of the Howard Government's departure from these principles would require a level of parliamentary and political discipline it is not willing to uphold? Does Labor want to reserve the right to do the same thing should it, at some stage, command a Senate majority? Let publicly distance itself from such an unprincipled approach to parliamentary politics and I suspect that the election would be decided then and there.
There is another other matter closely related to this one. The Coalition in its IR legislation, and in its scurrilous election propaganda, has not yet articulated a positive view of industrial unions. It may be there somewhere in its party manifesto, but the upfront view it continues to promotes is the totally negative and unrealistic nostrum that a national economy has to be better off without industrial unions. If the form of unionism that is current in Australia is not acceptable to the Coalition, then it should ask itself why, with all its years in government (say since the end of the second world war) it still hasn't been able to affirm the importance of workers joining together to make their contribution to justice and good stewardship in the work-place! To listen to Coalition ministers on industrial relations is to listen to ideologues who demand a continual reduction in the public contribution of industrial unions. The political careers of John Howard and Peter Costello are marked by a persistent inability to develop an alternative positive view of the industrial union's proper contribution. And that lack of positive appreciation for the formal organisation of workers in workplaces from its political opponents is something that the Labor Party should continue to hammer home. It is such a fundamental weakness in Liberal-National ideology. If Labor can't avoid a business policy why is it that Labor won't call the Liberal-National Coalition to task on its gross inability to recognise the important contribution of industrial unions to a healthy economy?
These two issues suggest to me that Rudd Labor has not yet risen to the important task of lifting the political horizons of the Australian people as it might have done. It now commands significant and growing respect in the electorate. Yes, even with growing support, an election campaign is difficult; there's no denying that. It is also too easy to criticize. But with such nation-wide support for the last 12 months, I would have hoped that Labor's election campaign would have really taken a lead in highlighting the declension from the "core political principles" that we say are basic to our system of government. It would have done more to expose the serious vacuum at the heart of the Coalition's IR policies, while highlighting the scurrilous way in which the IR legislation was introduced. If instead John Howard had shown the proper restraint that should be characteristic of a Prime Minister elected with these changed circumstances, we would now have an election that would be a genuine debate about foreshadowed IR legislation. That would have been the right way to go. Instead the Liberal-Coalition in seeking the votes of electors are asking them to endorse their lack of parliamentary restraint, their impatient erosion of parliamentary responsibility.
It has to be asked whether the Labor Party is wanting to engage
in a basic rethink about the way we do politics. It is not clear that Labor is
ready to tackle the problems I have raised in the way I have suggested. That is
a pity. It may be that some want this rethink but because of the party's
unwieldy organisational structure it is incapable of doing so. Those seeking
Labor leadership on these issues will have to think long and hard about this.
Why does Labor avoid electoral reform and initiating the much-needed discussion
about the implementation of a system of proportional representation for lower
house elections throughout the commonwealth? As the country's major political
party it needs to find a new maturity that recognizes its crucial place in
Australian political history. But it also needs to realize that it cannot
represent all non-Liberal and non-conservative citizens. It needs maturity to
welcome, rather than fear, new political parties so that all citizens, whatever
their political philosophies, can find their voice in the parliaments of the
land. The Labor Party has an historic opportunity to help renew respect from
all parliaments in the land to the electors who are represented in it. The
Labor Party in commanding such widespread respect, has a big challenge ahead of
it, to rightly challenge all Australians to actively contribute to public
justice.
Nurturing Justice
November 2007
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