Good news from Australia
JVL Introduction
We carry this news report from ABC News, announcing a Labor victory in the Australian general election.
We will carry more critical analysis soon, but for now we can bask in the sunshine of a progressive victory which “has seen the conservative party decimated and shattered”.
It was, says Laura Tingle, “the climate election”.
We should not be over-optimistic in this regard. There are reasons to expect ferocious resistance from those who have benefited from the outgoing Coalition government’s disastrous policies in this area.
While we are hopeful we are also aware of the history of Labour Governments in the UK, in Australia and elsewhere to fail to live up to their promises of radical change. In this respect we are, unusually, a little regretful that the ALP secured an overall majority rather than being dependent on Green and Teal MPs who are firmly committed to reversing the destructive climate policies of the right-wing ex-government.
These policies have not only produced catastrophes in Australia but threaten the whole planet.
But for the moment we can smile – a little! Morrison is (bad) history – enjoy his defeat.
This article was originally published by ABC News on Sat 21 May 2022. Read the original here.
This win for Anthony Albanese is the most transformative election you can imagine
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Rupert Murdoch is behind so much of Australia’s problems. Whatever happened to Kevin Rudd’s proposed Royal Inquiry into the Murdoch Empire and media diversity? Rudd’s tweet two days before the election shows that he still wants to hold it to account: “Today, all of Murdoch’s major papers formally backed Morrison. That’s 23 of the last 23 federal & state elections that Murdoch has supported the Liberals. Our Bias Tracker detailed this throughout the campaign. Time to show Murdoch he doesn’t own Australia: vote Morrison out”. https://twitter.com/MrKRudd/status/1527399998937497600. The election result bodes well.
Sounds encouraging but will this be a “real” Labour government or one that is Labour in name only, such as the one with which we are familiar? Could we dare to hope that a new Australian regime might loosen the chains by which Australia is so slavishly bound to NATO?
The demise of the Morrison government is surely good news, and as someone who lives in Australia, and works in the university sector where tens of thousands of jobs were destroyed during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the vindictive attitude of this government, I have good reason to agree. However, celebrations over the election of a new Labour government in Australia under Anthony Albanese should be tempered with a strong dose of reality.
It is worth noting that Labour did not as such ‘win’, but rather benefited from the collapse of the Liberal National Coalition which had become deeply unpopular in certain sections. Labour’s share of the primary vote at about 32.8% actually went down from about 33.3% in 2019 (a swing of -0.5% against) and Labor suffered key losses, not least their home affairs spokesperson. If this were a first-past-the-post system the Liberal National Coalition on about 35.6% (-5.8%) would still be in power. The biggest gainers from the 2022 election were in fact the Greens at about 12% (+1.5%) of the primary vote and independents at about 5% total (+2.1%). Labour was only able to obtain the largest number of seats in the lower house, and thus to form a government, due to 2nd preference votes. Sure, on some issue, e.g. climate change and indigenous affairs, Labour had a mildly progressive position, but on a raft of others, including economic and foreign affairs, the two major parties were virtually indistinguishable. The whole election process was dull and uninspiring, and hardly surprising that there was no big positive mandate for the new government.
Take Labour’s housing policy, for example. There is a massive housing crisis in Australia, like many other countries in the developed world, with prices continuing to spiral upwards. Yet rather than propose the massive building programme that it required to deal with the severe lack of supply, Aus Labour is promoting a ‘Help to Buy’ policy which is little different from that of George Osborne and David Cameron. Such schemes have been proven to be self-defeating in only exacerbating the crisis by driving prices ever higher.
Aus Labor’s outlook in matters of foreign affairs is quite reactionary, e.g. in the case of Israel. Late last year Senator Penny Wong, now Labour’s new Foreign Minister, said in an address to the Zionist Federation of Australia, “Labor fully supports the IHRA definition of antisemitism – a position reaffirmed in 2016, 2019, and I again reaffirm today. It is precisely because we value our friendship with Israel, and our ability to engage on complex matters, that the IHRA’s definition is so important, …”. We are steeling ourselves in Australian universities for an upcoming battle as the new Albanese government continues the outgoing Morrison government’s policy of forcing the bogus IHRA ‘definition’ on public institutions.
Saldly Albanese is no Corbyn, and closer to Starmer in policy, though he does have a personality. Much as we are relieved to see the back of Morrison, this will be no radical socialist government or even a mildly socialist one, but in reality a Tory lite government with some progressive window dressing.
Sydney, NSW, Australia
One pressing question is, does Anthony Albanese have anything to say, to Priti Patel, that would stop the extradition of Australian citizen, Julian Assange, to the US?
Philip F. Nelson has written an article about the mysterious death of a previous Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt.
Let us hope that history does not repeat itself.
https://lbjthemasterofdeceit.com/2021/04/18/the-mysterious-death-of-australia-prime-minister-harold-holt/
Set Julian free and let him go home.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/20/extradite-julian-assange-investigative-journalism-wikileaks
To George Peel and others who quite rightly turned their minds to whether a new Labor government would help Assange. The short and brutal answer is “NO”, so yes, getting rid of Morrison was good, but not too much else to celebrate about.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/04/23/lcpd-a23.html