En Passant

The neoliberal snake oil salesman that is Turnbull is performing the role Labor wanted to play. He has stolen their ground and unless they come up with a real alternative, a radical alternative a la Corbyn that challenges austerity, then in the short to medium term, until the reality of Turnbull’s snake oil salesmanship is revealed in practice, they will continue to rot in opposition.

Just as changing Liberal leaders won’t change the fundamentals, neither will dumping Shorten for a fake leftie like Albanese or Plibersek, or promoting a smooth right-winger like Tony Burke.

There is a message for activists and socialists in the fall of Abbott. It wasn’t Labor who defeated him. It certainly wasn’t Shorten. It was those Aboriginal, education, refugee, Medicare, feminist and other activists, the gay community and their supporters, the teachers, nurses, public servants, wharfies, building workers etc etc etc actually fighting against Abbott and his rotten policies and sending a message to the wider community about Abbott’s rotten policies and the fact you could reject them and resist them.

It is the same message we need to develop in fighting Turnbull’s neoliberalism and that of whoever is leading Labor at the next election. On to the streets to fight for equal love, against the closure of remote communities, against climate change, to free the refugees, for women’s liberation and so on. Close down our workplaces to defend jobs and wages.

Here is photographic ‘evidence’ of my view that the problem isn’t who is selling us the shit sandwich. The problem is the shit sandwich.

James Supple writes in the socialist magazine Solidarity about the ongoing and deep-seated problems in bourgeois politics in Australia. He says that underpinning the turmoil in parliamentary politics is the low level of class struggle. The greatest strength the working class majority has is in its industrial strength and in mass movements to fight for change outside of parliament. This is where real reforms, for land rights, equal pay, penalty rates and long service leave, have been won. That is why socialists put such emphasis on fanning the flames of struggle—this is where the hope for change lies.

Leaders matter. What the ruling class wants and needs is not only a political leader with a program to continue and intensify the wealth shift from labour to capital but also to be able to implement it, and do so in a way that plucks the working class goose with the least hissing. Abbott is not that plucker.

The choice is clear. One of the likes of Abbott, Turnbull, Bishop, Shorten, Albanese or Plibersek leading the neoliberal attack on our jobs, wages, freedoms and social spending? Or us as workers defending jobs, wages and conditions and fighting for and winning better social services, better public health, public education and public transport, justice for aborigines and asylum seekers and a managed decade long transition to renewable energy?

Maybe it is the Liberal Party and the Labor Party which in light of the revelations of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales should be declared criminal organisations rather than bikie clubs.

Evidently Phillip Adams is tweeting about Turnbull biding his time. This is a piece from something I wrote 15 months ago. Glad to see Adams and others catching up. Here is a snippet and then the link. The 18 months waiting might be an overestimate.

‘Malcolm Turnbull might only have to wait 18 or so months into an Abbott government to meet his fate, especially if the visionlessness of Abbott is combined with an economic decline in Australia, made worse of course by the Abbott barbarians cutting down the government forest to let the free market weeds grow.’

Let’s prepare right now for the conflagration the Liberals want to unleash on us in the May Budget and the spot fires the government arsonists have already been starting. Be Abbott aware now.

A more humane and just society where all bushfire victims are treated fairly can be won, but that means joining with all those under attack from the Liberals. Most importantly it means workers taking action to defend their own interests against the attacks of the one percent and their Liberal government. We can beat them back with strikes.