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December 4, 2011
I didn't really pay that much attention to the ALP conference, or bother to dig around the media to see if the ALP was interested in reforming itself to become a more democratic political party. I was taking photographs instead.
I've just assumed that the ALP's factional system means that it has no real interest in becoming a broad -based political party. I've also assumed that its progressive social democratic credentials have gone, due to its embrace of same-sex marriage, uranium sales to India, Tasmanian forests, and offshore processing of asylum seekers along factional lines. The Australian ought to be happy with the conference outcomes.
The ALP knows that its members are leaving in droves because they have no say in its decision making or its major turn to the right, but the organization is not prepared to change its structure or culture. It's business-as-usual. What I got from the headlines in the media is that the leader must be supported. Nothing new there.
So it is still the much hated carbon price legislation that stands out as an example of Labor's reform credentials. What looms on the policy horizon is still the effects of the slow down in the growth of the global economy sliding into recession, and the economic crisis in Europe on Australia. More than three years after the Lehman bankruptcy – the only thing that had changed is that the centre of the problem is no longer the US but Europe.The banks are kept alive by gigantic quantities of electronically generated cash but do not lend; last week's co-ordinated action by six of the world's leading central banks was prompted by evidence that Wall Street was no longer prepared to lend money to European banks.
That crisis means reduced revenue and increased cuts to public sector spending and more belt tightening by the Gillard Government---but not cutting fossil fuel subsidies or reducing the private health insurance rebate. The budget surplus has to be protected through fiscal conservatism.
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"That means increased cuts to public sector spending and more belt tightening"
so public services are likely to contract and health reform will be on the cheap.