Just over a month after Labor Party MPs stood in the parliament to applaud George W. Bush, the federal Labor caucus elected right-wing economic rationalist Mark Latham as their parliamentary leader.
Just over a month after Labor Party MPs stood in the parliament to applaud George W. Bush, the federal Labor caucus elected right-wing economic rationalist Mark Latham as their parliamentary leader.
Not that Kim Beazley would have been a better outcome: as Socialist Alliance’s media release on the fateful day put it, it was a choice of either "a right-wing economic rationalist who supports the ‘war on terror’ or a right-wing economic rationalist who supports the ‘war on terror’."
Many people hope that Latham will defeat Howard. He and the ALP have gained a short-term bounce out of the leadership ballot, a phenomenon that says less about Latham than about the widespread desperation to be rid of Howard.
In reality, Latham’s victory is yet another nail in Labor as a political alternative. As his policy positions become clearer to supporters who do not yet know them, it will deepen the crisis Labor has been experiencing for years - a crisis brought about by the contradiction between a leadership machine that believes in nothing but self-promotion and outdoing the Liberals on behalf of the bosses, and the interests and wishes of the rank and file members and supporters who are increasingly disillusioned, disenfranchised and disgusted.
The victory of Mark (tax-cuts-for-the-rich) Latham, soon after the election of Carmen Lawrence, Labor’s most left-wing potential contender, to the position of party president, underscores the gap between what many working-class Labor voters want and what they will get. For many, Latham will eventually prove a final straw. Already bitterly disappointed with the ALP over many issues, they know - or will discover - that Labor under Latham will mean a continuation of the privatisations, attacks on workers’ rights and trade unions, and user-pays health, welfare and education begun by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, and pursued so vigorously by John Howard.
Latham’s comments, within days of his appointment, that he wants to help more people "climb the social ladder" and that he really does embrace the United States’ agenda for the world make it clear right from the outset that there will be precious little difference in foreign or domestic policy between the Liberals and Labor.
The deep-going crisis in the ALP, which no leadership shuffle can resolve, provides widening opportunities for Socialist Alliance. Resignations from the ALP will continue and the vote for Greens/socialist/independent candidates will increase.
In few short years of its existence, the demonstrated left unity in the Alliance and our consistent grassroots campaigning in a wide range of movements has begun to pose a serious challenge and question to disillusioned Labor supporters: Why not stick with your principles, dump Labor and support Socialist Alliance instead? If you oppose the war on Iraq; support high-quality public health and education which is accessible to all; believe that all the refugee prisons should be shut down; want stronger, democratic unions that seriously defend workers’ rights; and dream of an end to the corrupt, no-choice, two-party system, then Socialist Alliance is the place for you.
As the contents of this issue of Socialist Campaigner reveal, Socialist Alliance is very well-placed going into 2004 to make the most of the opportunities created for the left by Labor’s deepening crisis. From the plans for our federal election campaign, to the work we are doing to rebuild militant networks in many trade unions, to our indispensable role in the anti-war and anti-racism movements, Socialist Alliance will be impossible to ignore or dismiss, and will be an increasingly attractive and credible alternative to the tweedledee and tweedledum of politics-as-usual in Australia.