rationalism stays Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Loop: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, August 9th 2000. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** ALP Platform 2000 Some valuable reforms, but economic rationalism stays The ALP national conference held in Tasmania last week set the stage for the Party's Federal election campaign. Most of the battles were fought out before the Conference with the right- wing successfully reaffirming its free trade agenda, financial deregulation, privatisation, competition policy, cooperation with employers, export-led growth, and balanced budgets -- the hallmarks of economic rationalism. The "markets" have little to fear from a Beazley government. by Anna Pha The right wing has, however, been forced to make a number of concessions, some of them very important to workers, to gain the support of trade unions, rural and regional communities, small business and other important electoral constituencies. Privatisation, including competitive tendering and contracting out will continue but there are undertakings not to sell Australia Post or the remainder of Telstra -- key demands of the CEPU. There will be a freeze on textile, clothing and footwear tariffs from the year 2000 to the year 2005, with a review in 2004. Government will retain some core functions, such as the provision of funding for education to both private and public schools. "Labor also recognises the importance of public funding of the non-government schools sector ..." University and TAFE fees will remain, HECS will be reformed, university fees controlled and upfront fees abolished. The Coalition's Enrolment Benchmark Adjustment scheme which transfers money from public to private schools will be abolished and additional resources directed to the disadvantaged -- key demands of the Australian Education Union. Recognition of trade unions Trade union rights are to be recognised and strengthened. Australian Workplace Agreements and the Employment Advocate will be abolished -- an important move, but the possibility of individual contracts is not ruled out, nor are non-union enterprise agreements. The powers of the Industrial Relations Commission will be strengthened and the comprehensive nature of awards restored as part of a dual system which also provides for enterprise agreements which can override awards (with a new no disadvantage test). Primary and secondary boycott provisions will be removed from the Trades Practices Act and included in new industrial legislation. There is no promise to abolish them although they might be amended. The system will "encourage cooperation not confrontation", a theme that runs throughout the Platform, in an attempt to deny the conflicting class interests between workers and their employers. There are also important proposals for the protection of workers' entitlements when employers go bust or do the wrong thing. This is in response to a number of recent examples where workers have lost their entitlements when employers were bankrupted or restructured to avoid their responsibilities. Government's role Although the policy statements call for a "strong role for national government", this is contradicted in the reliance on the private sector and "markets" to deliver through "growth". The government will play a role in the case of "financial market failures" which means in practice that the government will bail- out bankrupt privately owned financial institutions using taxpayers' money. Jobs will be created primarily by "Growing the Australian economy as fast as we can". There are references to "government intervention", but this does not mean government control or planning. There is an underlying assumption that the present course of economic development, as dictated by the transnational corporations, OECD, World Bank and IMF, is inevitable, that there is no other course. The Platform opens with the remarks: "Our world is being remade, and Australia is being remade along with it, at a pace we have never before experienced, and in ways we cannot avoid." A Labor government will by and large leave the course of economy to the private sector, while encouraging investment into some key areas (food processing, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, resource processing, environmental technology, etc) through the use of financial incentives. It will increase spending on training, education and research, provide lifelong learning opportunities, for Australia to become a "knowledge nation". Free trade "Labor remains firmly committed to realising our free trade objectives", says the Platform which then goes on to embrace APEC, endorse the WTO's Uruguay Round agreements, and calls for a new round of WTO negotiations including competition policy, investment and agriculture -- along the lines rejected at Seattle. These policies are exactly the opposite of "strong government" and "government intervention" -- unless by government one means the transnational corporations, the IMF and World Bank. A Labor government will deliver "public goods which the private sector is unable or unwilling to provide, at all or as well". It "has a duty to ensure that none of us is left without the means to a decent life" because of unemployment, family responsibilities, inadequate retirement income, disabilities, etc. But, there is to be no attempt to reverse the take-over of welfare services by private providers. In effect the government will not take prime responsibility for provision, but rather top up where the private providers and self-provision failed. The Job Network will remain (with a review), providing "universal, publicly funded active labour market assistance". But public funding does not mean public provision or control. Trade unions will also play a role. Medicare Support for Medicare is reaffirmed. "... Labor's Medicare is fair, simple and economically sound." Beazley in his address to the Conference pledged to "restore Medicare as a universal health system providing for all Australians", a very positive and important commitment. This support for the universality of Medicare is, once again, contradicted by Labor's support for the private hospital system. The Platform sees the private health system as "complementing the core services funded through Medicare" and, by default, encourages people to leave the public hospital system as a Labor government will retain the Coalition Government's 30 percent rebate (subsidy) on health insurance premiums. In fact, very few of the Coalition Government's actions will be reversed. For example, the GST will not be repealed, only "rolled back" in the areas of health, education and charities and even this commitment seems to be pushed into the background as one of the outcomes of the National conference. The Labor Party hopes to regain office in next year's election and the Hobart Conference was a preparation for that. Its decisions reflect its need to maintain the support of many trade unions and workers who are seriously disillusioned by the experience of the Labor Party in office. However, the ALP has not changed its basic support for economic rationalism and will implement, on all major questions, policies readily acceptable to the big corporations. Kim Beazley will be able to repeat the claim of Bob Hawke that a Labor Party government can manage the system better than the Liberals because it is able to keep the workers and their trade unions quiet with some well directed reforms. Important as these reforms are they do not overcome the real problems of unemployment, the run-down and privatisation of public enterprises, the lengthening of hours of work and the casualisation of many jobs, etc. Social democratic parties in all countries have been shown to always bend to the demands of the big corporations rather than fully side with and fight for the interests of the working people. A Beazley government will be a repeat performance of the Hawke, Keating years. Foreign Policy: A very mixed bag The Conference set out foreign policy issues in a document of over 20 pages. On several issues the policy document bears the unmistakable imprint of Laurie Brereton, the ALP's Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. This is apparent on the question of East Timor, where the ALP has changed its attitude from the Whitlam and Hawke/Keating years during which the Labor Governments' policy was "all the way with the Suharto regime". Now the Labor Party recognises the independence of East Timor and the necessity to renegotiate the Timor Gap Treaty. Brereton's vocal opposition to the US National Missile Defence (NMD) is also inscribed in the document. The NMD is described as "disproportionate, technically questionable and likely to be counter productive. It has the potential to undermine non- proliferation and derail world progress towards nuclear disarmament." On the vital question of the use of Pine Gap by the US it says that "Australia should not support or be involved in NMD research, development or trials". The policy statement is peppered with commitments to "peace and cooperation" among nations founded on "international justice" and our concern for "universal human rights" and "democratic processes". So far so good. However, the statement has nothing to say about such basic foreign policy principles as non-interference in the international affairs of other states, the equality of states, the right of nations to independence and the right of peoples to choose whatever social system they want without interference. The statement reaffirms the Labor Party's commitment to the US alliance. It says that the US is a "vital global partner". The ALP is "firmly committed to maintain and strengthen Australia's close relationship with the US". It claims that this relationship is founded "on common democratic values and a shared commitment to international security and justice." The reality is different. The aim of the US rulers is world domination and this can no longer be disputed. That's what the NMD is all about. Furthermore, the US in the years since WW2 has been involved in more wars and actions to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries than any other country in the world. Being tied to the apron strings of the US will, and is already, resulting in Australia's increasing isolation from Asian countries. Relations with Asia are given top billing but in a rather patronising way, the ALP says that it "strongly supports engaging and integrating China with the emerging Asia Pacific security community" as though China is not already deeply involved (to a much greater extent than is Australia) not only in Asian affairs but in global politics. China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The ALP does not have anything to say about the key issue regarding China which is the recognition of "one China" -- that is, the recognition that both Taiwan and Tibet are an integral part of the Chinese nation. Relations with China are given only one paragraph but Tibet gets no less than five. The ALP statement makes it clear that it is in favour of Tibetan independence and claims that Tibet was an "independent nation prior to the Chinese invasion and occupation in 1949/50". Such a statement arises from an abysmal knowledge of history and is not true. It is refuted by no less a person than Gregory Clark, former officer of Australia's External Affairs Department in his book "In Fear of China" (Lansdowne Press, 1967). The ALP statement has to be judged not only on what it says but also on what it does not say and in this respect there are many holes through which a future ALP Government would be able to wriggle. Basically, the ALP will continue the same foreign policy that has been pursued by successive governments, both Labor and Liberal, which revolves around being the southern anchor of US policy in the Asia-Pacific region. It's a position that will become less and less comfortable as time goes on and actually undermines Australia's interests and security and could place Australia in considerable danger in the future. *************************************************************** -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:ART: ALP Conference: Some valuable reforms, but economic
Communist Party of Australia Tue, 08 Aug 2000 23:42:17 -0700
