En Passant

On Wednesday night, the leaders of the two major parties debated how best to manage Australian capitalism. One showed a little compassion, tempered by continued cruelty to asylum, seekers and refugees. The other talked about budget costs, taxes and strong borders. Both leaders promised to continue to be tough on refugees and asylum seekers. Shorten […]

Negative gearing just means an investments ongoing deductible costs are greater than its income. In other words the investment is losing money. Many types of property can be negatively geared. The most obvious example is a rental property. Let me use that as an example. Say I borrow $1 million dollars to purchase a property […]

Labor thinks it is on a winner with its Australia First propaganda. Expect to see much more Aussie jobs rhetoric and dog whistling from the ALP. Of course, like Trump, most of this will be verbiage without action.  Where was Labor for example when the car industry was shutting down?

Labor, rather than dog whistling about foreign workers, could make some real changes to industrial relations law in Australia. The first one would be to enshrine the right to strike at any time in legislation. The second would be to allow unions access to all workers to explain pay and conditions, and for building industry and other dangerous workplaces, to enforce safety standards

Jim Casey may or may not win Grayndler from potential Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese in this election. It is however pretty clear that the Greens will not go away and the reason for that is that the ALP is now so right wing and so pro-market and pro-capital in government that some of its previous supporters are shifting and have shifted to what they perceive as a progressive alternative. No amount of abuse from the likes of Keating is going to change that. To win labour votes the ALP should have labour policies.

A pre-occupation with Triple-A ratings mean Labor’s economic policies are only marginally more considerate of Australia’s rising inequality than those of the Coalition, writes John Passant in Independent Australia. To read the whole article click here. How can there be fairness in an unfair economy?

Shorten’s comments today on penalty rates signal a retreat from the ‘hint of class’ approach the ALP seemed to be developing around themes like the Royal Commission into the finance industry and their ‘crackdown’ on tax avoidance and other minor tax the rich changes. The back down might slow or even reverse Labor’s momentum and support. If they want to win in July we need more class rhetoric and action from them. The capitulation on penalty rates suggests they may have abandoned the softly softly ‘touch of Bernie’ approach and with it, perhaps, the election.

The debate over Senate voting reform and the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) legislation is seriously undermining the united left we need to kick out Turnbull and defeat the Liberals’ anti-union agenda.

The desire for a better world is engraved on the hearts of workers and that longing gives hope to Labor. They will dissipate that desire for a change away from business as usual politics if they don’t make their arguments in class terms. Bill Shorten is no Bernie Sanders, but he is also not Malcolm Turnbull ether.

Turnbull can smile and pontificate all he wants. Ordinary workers want to see government action that improves their lives and that of their kids. The dilemma for Turnbull is that if he does that he has no room for cutting taxes on business. His shine is wearing off as the class nature of his government becomes clearer to us all.

I wrote this in September in response to the enthusiasm for change that Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for and stunning election to the leadership of the British Labour Party inspired. It compares that enthusiasm and upsurge in Labour Party membership to the insipid Labor Party here. I say in part:

‘Many of my readers will be hoping for a Jeremy Corbyn in Australia to move the Labor Party here to the left. There is no Corbyn in the Parliamentary Labor Party. The Labor left, such as it is, is thoroughly imbued with the logic of neoliberalism. In the main it is a tribal allegiance rather than an ideological ferment of ideas to challenge capitalism. You never hear the S word from these very models of a modern major general of capital. None of the possible contenders for Corbyn down under have the same track record as Corbyn in opposing austerity or fighting against social and political injustice. Indeed people like Albanese and Plibersek have been Ministers in Labor governments that have implemented neoliberal policies and attacked public services and workers’ rights and conditions. They are part of the very problem Corbyn is fighting against.’

To read the whole article click here.

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.