My Swing to the Right

Mark Latham, the leader of the supposedly left-wing Labor Party, has given his synopsis of their unsucessful election campaign. According to Latham, the problem was that they weren’t the Liberal Party. And Latho is going to change that fact.

At first, he acknowledged that Labor’s Tasmanian forests policy would have been good for jobs but that the Labor Party had failed to sell this aspect. Now Latho has decided to completely abandon the policy and abandon the forests.

Latho’s also decided to abandon Labor’s key public health policy, Medicare Gold. But they are retaining the name — which has a great ring to it. Latho’s mentor and founder of Medicare, Sir Gough Whitlam must be wondering what ever happened to the idea of a fully-fledged public health system*.

It has reached the point where Labor can no longer take left wingers’ preferences for granted. I’m not one to stick to a Party because of its name. I have voted Labor, Liberal, Democrats and Greens. At the next federal election there is a strong possibility I will place the Liberals ahead of Labor. If Latham cannot provide enough of a difference, then I will prefer the low unemployment rate of Costello.

Latham has been so critical of Unions that I don’t believe he will do much to restore their power. He has indicated that he will make only a token commitment to renewable energy and forests. Neither refugees nor Aborigines seem to be very high on his priority list. He has been critical of multiculturalism, a key Whitlam policy. Latham agreed to the legislation to ban gay marriage. He has been such a bumbler in his comments on Defence that he has had to be publicly corrected by Beazley. Throughout the campaign I despaired at the lack of vision in most of his policies.

Earlier in the year we saw Latham call for the abolition of Whitlam’s ATSIC, and the Liberals swooped on their chance to stop wasting money on the natives. Latham seems to be among those who, like Treasurer Peter Costello, think reconciliation means saying ‘sorry’ and being done with it.

His diplomacy has so far been as problematic as Howard’s. Latham, like Howard, has no plans to move towards helping Sudan and Zimbabwe get rid of their Governments. And although he has bitten his tongue for the past year, his criticisms of Bush were as tactlessly populist as Howard’s comments about Asia. I agree with Latham’s assessment of Bush, but politicians and diplomats need to exercise more restraint than that.

Latham’s third-way economic policies have been described by many (on both sides) as basically old-fashioned, hard-edged conservatism dressed up in sheep’s clothing. Remember that Latham agreed to the FTA with the USA.

But it was an article by Adele Horin that turned me the most heavily against Latham. In it, Horin reveals why the head of AngliCare Victoria, Ray Cleary, believes that Latham’s policies are bad for the poor. Latham’s ladder of opportunity is all very well for those ready to grasp that first rung immediately, but for those too weak to reach it, Latham doesn’t have a lot of time. Latham made a Fraser-esque comment that “the best form of welfare is a job”. In reality, things aren’t that simple. People who have health problems, disabled children, sick partners, mental health problems, or lack skills; live too far from jobs, or are sole parents with young children, or with too many children do need help with part time work and other more socially responsible ideas. According to Cleary, his meeting with Latham left him with the impression that Latham thinks that seeing as he went from working class to upper class, that anyone can do it. If it’s all so easy, I wonder why Latham even feels the need to change the Government.

Of course I can never forget that it was Labor who introduced detention centres for refugee applicants, that Labor introduced HECS, or that Labor sold off the Commonwealth Bank.

So what does federal Labor have left to entice me with? Their front bench can no longer boast Beazley’s experienced voice of reason. Hawke’s golden boy, Crean has lost his oomph. Macklin has shrunk like a violet shirt in hot water. I have little respect for Garrett’s sell-out environmentalism that will undoubtedly be smothered by the party. And God only knows what would happen to Medicare under Gillard, the Fran Drescher of politics.

Meanwhile, many predict Peter Costello will become Liberal Party leader in a few years time. Unlike the Burkian conservative John Howard, Costello seems to be a small ‘l’ liberal. He is the brother of the head of World Vision. He marched on Sorry Day. He’s a Republican. He seems to be among the Liberals who disagree with the hardline refugee policy.

I agree with Tim Costello that his brother Peter should be putting more into foreign aid and I don’t think we should sell off Telstra either. But is Latham going to provide an alternative, or is he simply going to drag the Labor Party further and further Right, just as Keating did? As against Costello, who will probably drag the Liberals back and to the Left, back and to the Left.

Latham looks to be another Tony Blair. Under Blair, the British Labor Party has moved so far to the Right that in order to provide an alternative, the Tories have been forced to take on a non-violent form of Nazism, opposing immigration and calling for Britain to abandon their UN obligations to refugees. Hopefully the Poms will see sense and vote for their third large Party, the Liberal Democrats. But there is a strong possibility that they will feel stuck with Blair, who is likely to keep on moving to the Right. Just like Latham.

People like Natasha Stott-Despoja, Aden Ridgway and Bob Brown are among an increasingly small group of politicians with any vision for this country and it seems that will remain the case until Kevin Rudd can restore reason to the Labor Party.

*Whitlam has not been knighted by the Queen of Australia, but I usually refer to him as Sir Gough because he is the knight in shining armour of the Labor Party.

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I have to say I'm beginning to hate Latham as well. He hasn't shown the corage of his convictions.
There is no way that I'm voting Liberal however. I'm going to vote Green if worst comes to worst. Costello may be a small 'l' liberal but I'm not sure one among so few in the Liberal Party will be able to swing the party his way. Costello isn't the bulldog that Howard is and I see him caving to his party's conservative slant at the first opportunity.
So I'll support the Greens unless labor chooses a new leader.

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