satire
8 Dec 2011
The Party's Not Over For Labor
What does it even mean to engage in robust debate? Ben Pobjie has some advice for the Labor Party about how to get out of the quagmire and into the light
What does the ALP stand for? The Australian Labor Party? Well yes, but that doesn’t really get us very far, does it? What we really want to know is what does Labor mean in today’s modern, fast-paced, social-media-savvy, microwave-safe, hustle-bustle, hurly-burly, hugger-mugger, Australia’s Got Talent world? Why does the Labor Party seem to not appeal to ordinary folks anymore? And how can we fix it?
On the weekend we had the Labor National Party Conference, a major event where Labor people from all around the country gather to drink heavily and try to avoid Bob Ellis. At this conference, the burning issues of the day were thrashed out by delegates, in the spirit of open expression and debate that Julia Gillard so memorably demanded when she told her party, "I want a fair dinkum Labor Party conference", rejecting the lie-fuelled orgies of the Rudd years.
And so the Laborites stood without fear or favour to spew forth their views on all matters of import, and a lively time was had by all. Nobody was restricted from speaking their mind, nobody was muzzled for fear of reprisals, nobody missed an opportunity to use the word "robust". And after this wonderful cross-pollination of ideas from the foremost political bees of our age, the party came to some very definite conclusions:
1. The Labor Party shall henceforth be in favour of same-sex marriage, but will balance this position by making sure it never actually happens, thus pleasing everyone.
2. The Labor Party shall henceforth be in favour of selling uranium to India, as long as there are appropriate "safeguards", meaning they have to promise not to use our uranium to nuke Pakistan; they can only use the spare uranium that our uranium frees up to do that. Strict!
3. The Labor Party shall henceforth mention "party reform" a LOT more often than they did before.
4. Everybody hates Kevin Rudd’s guts.
Those are the main points decided at the conference, and there’s no doubt these decisions will allow Labor to move forward a bit more confidently into "the Asian century" — so called because its ears are slightly smaller than the African century’s — and grapple with the issues confronting a modern democracy.
After all, nothing captures the imagination of the young voter more than uranium sales, and as for gay marriage, the rock-solid commitment to hypothetically approving of it is sure to win over today’s homoerotic man in the street: nothing warms the homosexual heart more than straight people saying they’d love to give you what you want but they’re scared of Christians.
And of course party reform is vital — no modern party can succeed unless its members say the words "party reform" as loudly as possible. And as long as they keep saying it, the voters will keep faith no doubt.
But is it enough? Given the sorry state the Labor Party finds itself in, besieged by a remorseless Opposition and polls showing that over 80 per cent of voters are stockpiling machetes, can these worthy reforms really make up the mighty rudder-tug required to change the ALP’s electoral course and dodge the iceberg of humiliation and irrelevance currently hurtling towards it like a mighty meteor, allowing it to continue to sail through the ocean and/or space?
Might not the ALP need something a bit more dramatic to overcome the structural problems and complex similes that beset it? Might we not need a bit more if we are to live up to the words of Ben Chifley, who so famously sang, "I’m over the edge and down the mountain side/I know they’ll tell about the night I died/in the rain when the lights on the hill were blinding me"?
Where are the Chifleys of today, who are willing to drive their trucks off cliffs for the cause? I’ll tell you, Bill Shorten couldn’t commit vehicular suicide if his life depended on it. There’s the root of the problem right here.
And so, having no desire to see the Australian Labor Party go the way of the Australian Democrats or innovative 1980s drama "Misfits of Science", I have held my own private conference — not a sexual thing — and come to some conclusions about how the Labor Party can haul itself out of the quagmire of policy stagnation, internal bickering, and union-funded prostitutes that it currently finds itself in.
I share them with you now, in the hope that somebody — hopefully Graham Richardson or Paul Howes — will read it and see sense, and then give me a high-paying consultant’s job.
First of all, we need to re-energise the base. And who is the Labor Party base? Mostly they are stupid people — why else would they still like the Labor Party? What this means is that Labor leaders need to do more to reach out to stupid people, and get them excited about politics. This can be done in myriad ways — handing out balloons, jangling keys, doing guest spots on Packed to the Rafters — but the important thing is to connect. The fact is, since Tony Abbott became Liberal leader, idiots have been going over to the Opposition in droves, and Labor must try to recapture the spirit that once made it the party of choice for morons everywhere.
Secondly, focus on the future. Young voters must be Labor’s lifeblood, and currently they’re just not listening to the Labor message. They prefer the easy answers and hemp-scented idealism of the Greens. Labor needs to redress this. And how do you reach young people? Well, easy. All current research indicates that young people are very into mind-altering intoxicants and promiscuity — the party simply needs to tap into these proclivities. This doesn’t necessarily mean Labor members should be trying to get young people as drunk as possible at voting booths, though that obviously will form a large part of the strategy.
It’s also about marketing — a slick advertising campaign making it clear that Labor is the party for getting smashed, dropping acid, and ferocious, animalistic couplings, the youth will flock to the party like moths to a flame. "Vote Labor — the party that makes poor decisions in social situations" should be the message. Let the kids know that if they want to be politically engaged and still put themselves at high risk of brain damage, street violence and venereal disease, there IS a party that caters for them, and it ain’t those button-down squares at the Greens!
Thirdly, give the people something to believe in. People need to be inspired. They need to feel their leaders are leading them somewhere exciting. We can look for an example to the film The American President, where Marty McFly tells the president his people are eating sand, and he immediately bombs Libya. That’s the kind of inspiration we are looking for, as ordinary boring citizens. The ALP must urgently alter its platform to include a solid commitment to bomb at least one country every three months. It should probably also specify that this country should not be Australia. Remember the old proverb, "A bombing country is a happy country", or the even older proverb, "A man firing missiles at Tongans is a man not huffing paint in a public toilet". The ancients truly possessed deep wisdom. What’s more, a country at war is united; there’s nothing better than the threat of a retaliatory invasion for really binding folk together behind their government.
Lastly, concentrate more on policy. Stop obsessing over focus groups and the media cycle and the prime minister’s rusty, moss-covered womb, and start looking at the things that matter: hard-working middle Australian families who believe in the dignity of work and are not rich just because they have a lot of money. Let’s focus on policies that help these proud Australians achieve their dreams of setting the clock early and going to work until they die. Labor should strive, at all times and in all things, to move the country forward and make people’s lives better. But only in a mainstream way: don’t fiddle around the fringes with gay marriage or human rights or any of that queer stuff that mainstream people don’t worry about when they’re hard at work waking up and getting on trains. We have to stick to what matters, which is basically interest rates and refugees — they should both be lower. Everything else is just details that can be dealt with later.
By following this blueprint, I believe the Labor Party can not only survive, but thrive in this new century, remaining the vibrant and noble force that led so many of us into its warm, welcoming bosom, believing it to be a genuine alternative to the stultifying conformity of the Natural Law Party. I believe Labor CAN be great again. It can turn the polls around, it can reverse the decline in membership, and it can peel off Tony Abbott’s artificial skin to reveal the devious orc-prince beneath.
The ball is in your court, Labor. Try not to break any more windows with it.
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Posted Thursday, 08 December 11 at 2:43PM
David Stephens
I’m afraid I used to think Ben Pobjie was a cynical buffoon but this article has made me revise my position.
Posted Thursday, 08 December 11 at 4:55PM
David
I used to think so too. Now I know Ben Pobjie is not cynical.
Posted Thursday, 08 December 11 at 5:09PM
krisp ‘n krunchy
Ben. I love your work. You are a genius. Why don’t we start the BenfaPres Party. You would win for sure.
Posted Thursday, 08 December 11 at 5:33PM
“Every dollar raised by the carbon price will be dedicated to supporting households with any price impacts, and supporting businesses through the transition to a clean energy economy. Because we are a Labor government, we will support the most vulnerable in our community — the people who need help the most.”
But Combet in Cancun promised 10% of the Australian carbon tax as a tithe to the UN. (And there’s the $599 million as part of the Fast Start Finance program over three years that is in the pipeline.) So which commitment will the Australian government break? Or, let me guess, in the world of spin, the government can give all the tax money back to Australians because the other 10% “of that” comes from … err… other taxes? (That’s how 100+10 = 100.)
Stop telling bloody lies for a stsrt.
Posted Thursday, 08 December 11 at 11:54PM
Ben you are in fine form!!
Posted Friday, 09 December 11 at 12:58PM
We have to really worry when reality outdoes satire.
On 6 December 2011 The Age On-line National Times published an article by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young about the Labor National Conference and entitled “Labor lurches right and loses touch” (see: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/blogs/gengreens/labor-lurches-… ).
However The Age (that regularly censors comments I make under my own name on articles in its On-line version; see “Censorship by The Age”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-th… and http://agecensors.blogspot.com/ ) completely censored out my following comment on the article (for details of the article and the censorship see: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2011/12/05/9230214-greens-senator-sarah… ), one supposes because it contains things The Age does not want ts readers to read, know or think about:
“Excellent article. The pro-war, pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-nuclear, anti-refugee, anti-environment, anti-equity, anti-science, human rights abusing Australian Labor Party (ALP) is Another Liberal Party and an Alternative Liberal Party and has utterly betrayed traditional anti-war, pro-environment, pro-science and pro-human rights Labor voters who will vote 1 Green and put Labor last until it reverts to sensible, humane Labor policies of 40 years ago.
Neocon Labor rejects science (critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) for spin (selective use of asserted facts for a partisan agenda).
Thus the ALP Conference supported gay marriage but in such a way that it cannot pass in Parliament.
The ALP Conference supported uranium sales to India but without realistic safeguards (the uranium oxide will be stored in identical containers in an Indian warehouse with those on the left for “peaceful purposes” and those on the right for “nuclear weapons”).
The ALP Conference supported the Carbon Tax-ETS that in actuality means that Australia’s domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution will be HIGHER in 2020 than at present and that Australia’s domestic plus exported GHG pollution will quadruple by 2050 relative to 2000..
The ALP Conference ignored the Aboriginal Genocide (9,000 avoidable deaths yearly) and Afghan Genocide (340,000 avoidable deaths yearly).”
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Posted Friday, 09 December 11 at 1:02PM
I never realised that “Lights on the Hill” was Australia’s answer to the “Internationale”.
Great to have you back Ben.
Posted Friday, 09 December 11 at 3:09PM
Yilgahn - A Slim Dusty song yes? I wonder what he thought of a pollie using it? My impression is that the truckie died falling asleep at the wheel, but even though my father tortured us with Slim Dusty amd Johnny Cash (only joking they’re pretty good really)as kids, I still might have the words/story wrong? Though politicians falling asleep on the job has been known to happen hasn’t it!! They also seem to go down the mountain side but there never seems a crash for THEM at the bottom, they just seem to enable ordinary Aussies to live/suffer the crash bit!
Also since when to pollies drive themselves anywhere - dont they use our hard earned tax dollar to be chauffeur driven everywhere?
It’s actually made me wonder about joining their ranks, or management such as at Sydney Uni - where else can people work, do a substandard job and never get consequences for their actions, avoiding effects on themselves by passing it on to others?!! Getting hand-outs left right and centre even that Gold Pass airfares “scam” (while unemployed people are bludgers wasting taxpayers’ money…) yep - we should all try it!!
Posted Saturday, 10 December 11 at 5:40PM
The Party’s Not Over For Labor.
Possum Comitatus states:
Never before has there been a nation so completely oblivious to their successes and the sheer enormity of them, than Australia today.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2011/12/08/australian-exceptionalis…
What do you think, will that make a difference?
Posted Saturday, 10 December 11 at 6:11PM
Causa - did you know there are books written about how to determine who is wealthy and who is not - I’ve read one and it made my head spin! The ways they measure wealth/poverty - it is quite an art form and creates its own pages of debates, disagreement and controversy!
whoops a storm has just hit - better get off computer and tie down a few things in yard
Posted Sunday, 11 December 11 at 2:53AM
Causa - if I know why you’re asking the question I could answer it better.
That article uses figures and graphs very nicely and it makes a good impression because of this. However it is misleading and not accurate as a measure for the quality of life for many Australians.
I will refer to Australia’s Welfare Wars Revisited by Philip Mendes (2008) University of NSW Press Ltd, Sydney…
“The OECD (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development) is another highly influential global policy institution. Founded in 1961, it is comprised of 29 leading industrialised countries, and broadly functions as a research centre for finance ministers of the member nations. The OECD aims to promote high economic growth, employment and living standards amongst its member countries. Its 1981 report on alleged welfare state crisis was used by many countries as an argument for reducing social expenditure. A number of subsequent OECD reports have described welfare spending as an obstacle to economic growth…”(p73)
“More recently the IMF specifically praised government welfare reform initiatives designed to promote greater labour market participation and tighten eligibility for income support programs such as Disability Support Pension (IMF 2004:12). They also supported the Coalition government’s assertion that a high minimmum wage contributes to reduced employment (IMF 2005). Similarly, the OECD consistently urged the Coalition government to deregulate the labour market, reduce the minimum wage, and limit access to the Disability Support Pension and Parenting Payments (OECD 2006c)”(p79).
“The first model- strongly recommended by the 1994 OECD Jobs Survey - suggests achieving growth through welfare retrenchment. Lower wages, less job security and lower taxation are introduced as a means of facilitating greater economic growth. Social protection is provided largely through the labour market and only a minimal safety net is provided for those outside the workforce. The result tends to be higher levels of employment, but also greater levels of inequality (McBride and Williams, 2001:287-89)”(p102).
whoops more thunder and lightning better go again…
Posted Sunday, 11 December 11 at 9:08AM
Ok I can finish many ramble now!!
The point is - the OECD is not that interested in the well being of ordinary citizens for their own sakes, only in economic development and how citizens can fit into that framework. This give us then, the ability to approach any research and figures, from them, about the amount of poverty or social injustice in the world or Aust with an appropriate amount of critical thought and interpretation.
I would be interested in measures of “quality of life” as this would bring a greater amount of factors to consider in data collection and more in line with human rights charters and the real life situations of Aussies as opposed to frigid, rigid, clinical data separate from the lives of those who ARE still suffering a great deal of poverty and social exclusion in our country.
“UNICEF has been a persistent critic of the anti-social policies of the IMF and World Bank, and the negative consequences of structural adjustment policies for children. It has consequently had an important influence on the World Bank’s adoption of anti-poverty programs (Deakin et al 1997:84-85; Koivusalo & Ollila 1997:46-61). The work of UNICEF has been reinforced by the activities of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The UNDP was established in 1965 as the central funding and coordinating organisation for United NAtions technical assistance to developing countries. It recently created a new measure of social progress, the ‘human development index’, which combines longevity with education attainment and a modified measure of income and poverty to rank countries on a scale somewhat differently to…narrow classifications based on GDP”(p74-75).
Applying accountancy approaches to the qualification of the lives of human beings has a certain lack of suitability due to humans not being inanimate objects like money…an approach very popular with research techniques of those with neoliberal agendas ie economic rationalism, privatisation, deregulation…so that it looks good on paper even if it is not a true representation of people’s lives. Organisations and professional who work with people in need are better experienced and qualified for providing information about our nation’s citizen’s quality of life, life chances and how effectively our public social institutions function.
This article also provides many graphs on income, growth, averages etc, and then the author sneaks in a comment about the effectiveness of our social institutions…none of possum’s data made refernece to the effectiveness of the social institutions in Australia which is a very poor mistake on the author’s part…obviously slipped in there for alterior motives of making his/her “sell” to all the preaching-to-the-converted neoliberals that are undoubtedly possum’s audience…
Posted Sunday, 11 December 11 at 9:21AM
To make reference to social institutions in an article not consisting of data about social institutions…
Causa I get the feeling that you probably never use the public health system, public legal system, public education system, public support for people with disabilities systems…as every social institution in this country is under crisis and anyone who is forced to depend on publicly funded services and programs will tell you how poorly the “support” actually is in real terms…and how administration reduces everything to money figures (ask our striking protesting nurses about that one!!).
I can tell you my own experiences - I’ve been waiting 3 months with a severely injured knee that has halved my work/salary - to even see the specialist to begin to get a diagnosis the wait for surgery will go on top of this so who knows when my knee will be fixed and I can pck up all my shifts again…I’ve put weight on and need a larger dress size but I don’t have the money to buy clothes…
My oldest son has autism and I cannot get appropriate adequate support for him or myself as his parent - he always says he wants to kill himself, he lashes out in frustration and gets suspended from school - he’ll end up dead or in prison if I can’t do a really good job in supporting him myself why - because there are no programs/services for his needs - they won’t care if he ends up in prison or with severe mental health issues will they…the graphs don’t represent that struggle nor the social, emotional, psychological costs…
Unfortunately my son was sexually assaulted by a babysitter and you should see how under-funded and ran off their feet the police SOCA unit, victims of crime advocates, social workers etc are…the case is over 12 months old and still going, I am not kept in the loop and have to find ou information on my own…a very under-funded unit of the police force (why do our politicians put all the money into highway patrols???? they could do with extra bodies on the job in the SOCA unit). And it took over 3 months for my son to access the counselling services for sexual assault - they also are ran off their feet and can’t keep up with demand…
Anyway - breaky time…
Posted Sunday, 11 December 11 at 9:31AM
whoops I meant to put this in - The Universial Declaration of HUman Rights which I read in - “Human Rights and Social Work Towards Rights-based Practice” by Jim Ife (2008) Cambridge University Press, New York:
“Article 22
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensible for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 25
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood. old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
Possum’s article mentions ONLY income not those many many people outside that parameter which also makes the figures in the graphs somewhat limited in scope in relation to quality of life, social inclusion, and life chances…
Posted Sunday, 11 December 11 at 2:34PM
@fightmumma
Try an overall comparison AUS versus the WORLD!
What I am talking about is using the “eagle perspective” rather than the “frog perspective”. Its difficult but worthwhile.
Posted Sunday, 11 December 11 at 3:15PM
@fightmumma
As an explanation to my earlier remark about “perspectives”:
You refer to our public health system, public legal system, public education system, public support for people with disabilities systems…
You are saying that every social institution in this country is under crisis and anyone who is forced to depend on publicly funded services and programs will tell you how poorly the “support” actually is in real terms.
Let’s say all this is true. The question would be how do we fare in comparison to other countries in the world. Are we indeed better or worse off in “relative terms”? That’s what we should be asking ourselves. Once we understand that we might be able to tackle more effectively the remaining challenges we are faced with.
Again, are we willing and able to, with as much objectivity as possible, appreciate (in relative terms) how we fare as a nation overall?
It is difficult for all of us to temporarily extricate ourselves from our own personal circumstances and try to fathom the wider picture.
Over to you.
Posted Sunday, 11 December 11 at 4:09PM
G’day Causa,
Yes I understand where you are coming from now, in relative terms to the rest of the world which as you said gives the wider picture the forest not the trees…it could be useful for addressing one’s notion of a “catastrophe scale” if you have heard of this - yes?
I have thought about what you said and that article a fair bit. I have learnt from discussions with others on here who are happy to truly discuss and not just hold a view regardless of others’ input that it is MUCH more worthwhile to consider others’ ideas and place them within one’s own opinions, we get a more comprehensive scope and depth this way…
I had a great discussion with someone about the people smuggling article and it felt to me that the main difference between myself and this person was that I took the stance of focusing on the individual rights, conditions and circumstances of those living the reality of the issue (ie fleeing social unrest, persecution, danger, war etc) whilst the other person took the view of what were the collective rights of a wider group/situation (re queue jumping and those who applied legally for visas). These are two opposing yet completely valid, credible interest areas and needs, so what we do is the question and the needs of the many tend to override the needs of the few…this is practical but also leads to oppressive, exclusionary practices which create disadvantage.
So the wrestling is between macro and micro socio-economic conditions. The one will never accurately reflect or represent the other which is a danger for social justice.
Relative terms - yes I wouldn’t disagree with you. What I would be cautious of is the measurement mechanisms utilised to produce the data. If we are going to compare ourselve to a larger picture we need to decide on the parameters with which to do this. If we are to measure how well-off our nation is socially, we need the most representative diagnostic tools for doing so. If you want a good health check at the quake’s - you don’t just get your blood pressure measured and if it’s ok claim thus to be healthy, you get many tests addressing all vital physical performance, then you compare it to average acceptable statistics to decide degree of health (and even this can be inaccurate as for e.g. an elite athlete could be ill if they had the resting heart rate of a typical person because theirs, being so fit, will normally be lower…)
What I am saying is the OECD figures will not permit a comprehensive “health check.” Only an economic one. If we wanted to do the exercise you are suggesting - compare apples to apples, ie social circumstances to social circumstances NOT economic conditions and assume these reflect diverse social conditions.
I would then agree that a broad study would be very interesting and informative. It could guide goals and expectations. It could let us know when we truly are better off than we think we are! It could allow us to identify successes, LIKELY successes and where would be the BEST focus for our efforts at development and advancement.
Mate I’ve gotta go cook tea and do mum stuff but i’m happy to discuss more if you are - I have a few other thoughtson this but no time right now…it is an interesting idea you suggest…
Posted Sunday, 11 December 11 at 4:11PM
sorry about my long posts…
Posted Monday, 12 December 11 at 10:24AM
It might be time to submit an article fightmumma, picking up on threads about quality of life versus GDP. The Herald has their new wellbeing index, there must be some material for you to use there. I would read it fo sho.
Posted Monday, 12 December 11 at 2:43PM
Hi DrD, yes qual of life v GDP would be an interesting study. I have about 7 books borrowed from my uni at the moment to read in the “break” though…figure a bit of extra reading and note-taking in will help me save time and write good essays in 2012. It gets pretty busy being a single mum, working, studying offcampus and trying to have a bit of time to myself too!! Could make a fun little research project though…
Posted Monday, 12 December 11 at 4:44PM
DrD I found this when looking into your suggestion, it’s a list of various ways to measure wellbeing - would take a very big reseach attempt to d othe sort of justice to the issue that I would like to do ie with practical implications, signposts for improvement etc
http://www.smh.com.au/national/how-to-measure-the-national-wellbeing-201…
Posted Tuesday, 13 December 11 at 8:31AM
Thanks fightmumma!