Shane Malone - Eureka Street

THE NATION: 3
M OIRA R AYNER
Accentuate the positive
W ,N I mT M' CAST-and it pwbably will begovernment
office, I registered a new business name
for my infant consultancy: High Moral Ground. The
joke has worn as thin over the last couple of years as
has the ALP's claim to that territory over the last 20.
The Federal ALP government left office last
month from a somewhat lower altitude than that
vacated by Gough Whitlam after the as devastating,
but less complete, deluge of 1975. As Alan Ramsey
pointed out in the Sydney Moming Herald, [March 9j
Labor has not been as comprehensively turned out of
the temple since 1931, with a paltry 39.1 per cent of
the national primary vote, and its lowest ever in NSW
(heartland of Labor loyalty) since 1906.
Ramsey's critique of the Hawke/Keating years
was devastating: 'They disillusioned the faithful,
alienated the loyal and disenfranchised the activists,'
he said. After 13 years of wave after relentless wave
of upheaval-labour market reforms, deregulation of
capital markets, and lower tariffs-and few of the
promised benefits such as higher real wages for average
workers, voters took their revenge on March 2.
The ALP now has a majority of seats only in Canberra
('where it rains money every fortnight'), which
returned all three Labor candidates, and Tasmania
(three out of five). One million voters said no.
Labor lost its natural constituency: ordinary
working women and men and those who once saw
the ALP as the party of reform. I believe I know how
they felt. Not long ago I went to my Sydney office (I
work as a consultant to a national law firm) and found
myself alone: my desk, chairs and a useless phone and
computer were still there but my colleagues had flown
to other accommodation, and since I was but
nominally of the organisation, and not central to its
purpose, had overlooked telling me. So might those
who joined the ALP to win rights for women, save
the environment, stop war and achieve land rights
and equal opportunity for Aboriginals, gays and
ethnics have felt, when they called on the old lady for
a cuppa: moved on, leaving no forwarding address.
As the Federal ALP machine ponders who to
blame for what happened they should think upon the
lesson of a sour little piece written by ex-Minister,
ex-ALP MP, ex-Victorian-turned-Queenslander, Mr
Gary Johns, in the Age on March 4.
In Johns' view, the ALP lost because it became
politically correct, favouring minority rights,
femini m, gay and Mabo; it insisted on tribal loyalty
to witch-hunt victim Carmen Lawrence, and showed
embarrassing compassion for Aboriginal women's
business at Hindmarsh, and favoured the 'rights'
culture over the concerns of the ordinary m en and
women of the towns.
Abandon the Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission, he urged, and abolish the
Law Reform Commission, for 'whoever heard of a
standing law reform body, anyway' (we've had them
since 1978). To Johns, tertiary-educated, a Party
employee since the late 1970s, 'ordinary' Australians
resent rights and minorities, and wrought their
revenge, justifiably. If he speaks from the heartland
of the ALP of the 1990s, no wonder it's deserted.
I do not think he does. There is nothing more
cynical than a disappointed idealist. Voting patterns
don't, in my view, bear him out. Women voted for
women candidates, who happened to be Democrat and
conservative women because the ALP factions deemed
the quota inoperative until next century.
The mortgage belt and the working class voted
for politicians with a recently-acquired common
touch: fumblers like Fischer, or re-worked 'working
class' Liberals like Howard, or simply, the 'anti-establishment'-
Two of Western Australia's prize Liberal
scats went to conservative 'independents,' disendorsed
Liberal candidates replaced by Crichton-Browne
favourites. Ratbag independents in Oxley and
Kalgoorlic and even Bob Katter won huge popular
swings. Yet, apparently to ensure against Kennettstyle
ram-raid government, the same voters seem to
have handed Senate control to Cheryl 'keep-the-bastards-honest'
Kernot. The vote, I believe, was a vote
of no confidence in government.
It seems that the ALP lost the faith of the people
when it had lost faith in them. At the National Press
Club, just before the election, Keating laid unequivocal
personal claim to achieving vast social change,
painting his leader's big picture. But in a democracy
the people make the change, and not just at elections.
Aneurin Bevan said that 'who would lead must
articulate the wants, the frustrations and the
aspirations of the majority.'
Leadership requires putting into words what the
people have already go t around to believing. The ALP
government-dominated by the NSW right-powerbrokered,
instead. How many Graham Richardsons
can one government take
Keating's 'big picture' did not lack integrity, nor
was it wrong. It simply did not draw in the people. It
would be as unacceptable to change Labor's policies
to fit Gary Johns' astigmatic vision as it would be to
take the so-called racist vote-for Katter and Burgess,
Hanson and Campbell-as a mandate to disband or
defund law reform and human rights. We cannot go
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EUREKA STREET • APRIL 1996