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September 12, 2011
Politics in Australia is now largely about opinion polls and focus groups not policy issues. Screeds of commentary is written and spoken about the significance of the minor up and down movement of the polls (the statistical sampling errors are conveniently ignored). Polls are a form of politics as entertainment in a 24/7 tabloid media world that is full of flea-circus ringmasters such as Alan Jones, and a political world thoroughly infused with the ethos of Hollywood.
Only a few journalists now write about policy, the options, and the arguments.So it is good to see policy being foreground by Dennis Glover in The Australian. He argues that the ALP's decline as a political party started with the Tampa affair in 2001, and that the decline can be primarily marked by its position on a single policy issue.
His argument is this:
One issue above all others did this: the refugee issue. The dramatic events of late 2001 between the arrival of the Tampa in August, the terrorist attacks in September and the election defeat of November drove a wedge between Labor and the idealists and reformers who have historically given the party its drive. That wedge has not gone away, and it should surprise nobody that it has returned in the form of last week's dramatic High Court decision. A generation ago, the lawyers who brought on the case would probably have been activist Labor members.
He says that Labor's supporters have all but given up on it, reasoning that when push came to shove the party of progress would morally fold once again.
Glover adds that ten years on it's time for Labor to face up to the hard reality. If it is to have a future it has to show the broad "Labor" community what it really stands for on the asylum-seeker issue.
My judgement is that Glover is right about the decline and decay of the ALP--- in the sense that the policies do matter, the ALP has really bungled its asylum-seeker policy, and its political deals on this have been hollowed out. The decline is not just one of a narrow electoral support, but the sense that the ALP has little in the way of an idea of where it wants to take the country and how to use policy issues to make Australia a better place.
Where I differ from Glover is that I'm not so sure that the ALP is actually capable of rebuilding itself on firmer moral foundations, as Glover thinks, or hopes. My sense is that it's too late--the decline has gone on for too long, and it now has its own momentum. Even if it did start the rebuilding process, as opposed to its short term political survival, how many citizens would listen? Many of those who supported the ALP a decade ago have moved on.
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Alan Jones' recent anti-carbon tax rally in Canberra was entertainment, even if the rally featured actual politicians. Jones is an entertainer---a flea-circus ringmaster of the right.