IT’S A BLOODY heartbreaker, the Labor Party. True believers have wept bitter tears over election losses, failures of judgement and policy, and the sheer awfulness of some people who have gained prominence and power in the party.
Yes, there have been moments of joy: in 1972 when, under Gough Whitlam, it was time; in 1983 when the charismatic Bob Hawke ousted the great stone-faced Malcolm Fraser; in 1993 when Paul Keating won the sweetest victory of all.
But triumphs have been rare. Something closer to despair has been a more common condition among true believers since the party split in the 1950s and spent a generation in the wilderness, since the sacking of Whitlam in 1975, and since the long Howard era from 1996 until 2007, when Kevin Rudd’s victory restored heart to the true believers.
There has been despair again since the federal election last month. Just weeks after the execution of Kevin Rudd – an out-of-control leader destroyed with Taliban-like savagery by a caucus infatuated by Julia Gillard – Labor looks to have thrown away the prospect of a long and glorious era in national office. It has wasted a possible opportunity to become the natural party of government.
Labor has squeaked back into office with the support of some independents and formed a minority government for the moment. But its hold on parliament is rice-paper thin and its near-defeat has revived the spirit and the strength of the forces of darkness, who now boast that they stand poised to wreck the Gillard government and to return to power as soon as an opportunity arises.
It is a state of affairs to drive true believers to Prozac or hemlock. Yet they stay true and continue to believe. They attend mind-numbing branch meetings, often controlled by spivs and stackers. They raise funds and stuff envelopes with party literature. They stand outside polling booths distributing how-to-vote cards. Why?
Essentially because the Labor Party alone holds out the hope of an at least somewhat fair and more equal society in which poverty and other disadvantages are not simply accepted as part of the normal order of things. It is the party committed to putting state resources at the service of ordinary people and to trying to redistribute power and privilege more equitably across the society. That is the promise, the allure, of Labor theology to people of goodwill in an age of great and growing inequality.
Surprisingly, despite compromises dictated by national and global economic imperatives, despite timidities imposed by nervous party hacks and ideologues, despite links between venal party officials and well-heeled lobbyists, Labor governments have achieved plenty in their usually brief periods in office.
Think of the ambitious Whitlam program, and the genesis of national medical insurance, the growth of tertiary education, and the end of conscription; think of the reduction of tariffs, the floating of the dollar and the deregulation of national financial systems by Hawke and Keating; think of Labor initiatives to acknowledge Indigenous disadvantage that culminated in Rudd’s historic apology; think about successive Labor government initiatives to improve schools and hospitals. Think too of Rudd’s management of the national economy through the global financial crisis and the efforts of successive Labor governments to demonstrate their commitment to national security.
Of course there have also been appalling cock-ups, waste, mismanagement and cowardice. There have been failures and false alarms like former leader Mark Latham, and tragic, decent losers like Kim Beazley and Simon Crean. But the Labor balance sheet over the years remains far enough in the black to keep the true believers true, to keep them loyal and hopeful. How will true believers respond to the current bleak state of political affairs, though? Heartbreak would not be entirely irrational.
Quite apart from Gillard’s fragile grip on federal power, the NSW and Queensland state Labor governments of Kristina Keneally and Anna Bligh are both deeply unpopular and face uncertain futures. It is easy to see these three strong women carrying Labor’s cross to its next Calvary and wearing the odium for doing so, although they are not primarily to blame for the plight of the governments they lead.
Gillard’s problems are compounded by the political deals she had to strike to secure power. Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott, Andrew Wilkie and Adam Bandt might be allies for the moment, but no Labor leader would feel entirely confident in them.
Then there are the internal Labor deals she could not avoid. Giving the foreign affairs portfolio to Kevin Rudd was doubtless necessary, but it remains to be seen how he will relate to the leader who deposed him and to colleagues who set about his destruction as prime minister. And the stability of Gillard’s position will not be improved by her decision to reward some of the men who helped to bring down Rudd. Mark Arbib, Bill Shorten and David Feeney are all men whose egos and ambitions may well conflict with Labor’s wider political interests, although it would be unfair to judge them yet.
Gillard’s late amendments to her initial ministerial appointments also suggest uncertainty and insecurity. And the wheeling and dealing over the future of Harry Jenkins, an excellent Speaker, will further distress the true believers. It is not a bad ministry, but the talent does not run deep and strong without Lindsay Tanner and John Faulkner in its ranks.
Whether, or on what conditions, Gillard will be able to govern will of course depend on the independents and the Coalition. The independents are at best conditional allies; the Coalition is barely willing to concede that the Gillard government possesses a legitimate and rightful title to rule. How far it will be prepared to press that argument remains to be seen, but Labor cannot expect the Coalition to respect constitutional conventions if it sees a way to power by trampling over them.
So it is hardly surprising that the true believers are apprehensive, and prone to misery and despair. There is plenty of blame to go around within Labor ranks – Rudd, for placing the government in jeopardy, his assassins, for acting with such swift brutality, Gillard, for thinking she could win office fairly easily, Labor campaign managers for misjudging so much of the campaign so badly.
Ironically, for all the contention, the Rudd government was not a bad government: it was a successful manager of the economy, presiding over prosperity when comparable nations were suffering, and doing much to improve schools and hospitals.
Will it continue under Gillard? That is what concerns the true believers. •
