Critical Times

MAXINE Miss-KEW: Time now for John Clarke and Bryan Dawe with their view of the week in politics. (John ‘Caricature’ Clarke plays Prime Minister John Howard. Bryan ‘Dour’ Dawe plays the interviewer)

INTERVIEWER: Prime Minister, thanks for your time.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: It’s very good to be with you, Bryan, and thank you.

INTERVIEWER: You must be very pleased with yourself about the amount of legislation – Sale of Telstra, IR/Work Choice, Anti-Terrorist and Voluntary Student Unionism – you got passed through parliament this year.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Yes we were delighted! The result of the last election, which gave us control of both houses, gave us the wonderful opportunity to get this legislation through in a cautious and considered manner and bring Australia into the 21st Century policy wise.

INTERVIEWER: Well the critics and the opposition complain that you railroaded this legislation through both houses!

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Of course they would say that! However, the Australian people have supported us every step of the way by continually electing us since 1996.

INTERVIEWER: Prime Minister don’t you think your exaggerating your point here, you really didn’t have a mandate for the Sale of Telstra, IR/Work Choice, Anti-Terrorist and Voluntary Student Unionism, they were not part of your platform during the last election campaign.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: We offer people choice. Democracy is all about choice. Democracy means choice. Remember Bryan the Australian voters chose the Coalition to govern the country.

INTERVIEWER: Choice Ah?

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Yes, you choose who you’re going to vote for, Bryan.

INTERVIEWER: Weather permitting?

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Weather permitting. You know, if you want to vote, tick us on the ballot paper once every 3 years and we’ll do the rest.

INTERVIEWER: In other words there is no need to campaign around policies during election time that you want to enact into legislation?

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: That’s an unfair suggestion Bryan. Policy Promotion is going on all the time. Persuasion is the best policy so the customers, err I mean the voters, don’t get scared.

INTERVIEWER: Well, how do you persuade the public?

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Well, normally someone goes out and flies a kite and talks a policy up for a month or so and I say that I’m not sure that is the correct policy.

INTERVIEWER: Then you go ahead and do it, and then you say that it was your idea in the first place.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: No, no, no. Not in every case, Bryan. That’s not always the case…

INTERVIEWER: It was with the GST.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Yes, but it’s not what we did in the case of Telstra, for example. We said, “Look, we’re looking at all the options.”

INTERVIEWER: And then you did it anyway.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Well, no, not initially, we didn’t do it at all.

INTERVIEWER: You did it a bit at a time.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Then we did it in bits, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, just in case it worked.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Well, we had to box a bit clever. It was a well-known fact the vast majority of Australians were deeply opposed to our doing it at all.

INTERVIEWER: You fixed them up well and good.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Well, we had to, Bryan.

INTERVIEWER: And you call this democracy!

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: Absolutely! You’re getting the idea now Bryan. You’re not being sarcastic, are you?

The above ‘ABC, 7.30 Report’ style satire is a telling commentary on contemporary Parliamentary Politics in Australia, indeed through out the Western World. Parliamentary ‘Democracy’ is held up as the most advanced and complete form of democracy available and something that all nations should aspire to. However the chicanery that we witness on the media every night has understandably created the cynical attitude among the great majority of the Australian People to view politicians in the same light as used car salesman – people you can’t fully trust. The drivel that comes out from the Canberra gas works is a smokescreen for the nature of power in our society. There are no prizes for guessing who are the winners and losers, even though we are continually sold the pup that we hear from that oft repeated mantra – choice. Choice amounts to little when everybody really knows that the likes of Packer and Murdoch have more pulling power and influence over John Howard and virtually all Coalition and Labor politicians alike, rather than you and me. Parliament presently masks the fact, something that politicians prefer not to talk about, of the class nature of our society and how capitalism creates inequalities and exploitation.

‘Free Enterprise’ which is the foundation of our ‘democracy’ has a poor track record for creating a level playing field, where everybody gets a fair bite of the cherry. This is the real starting point in understanding the nature of our social system. Capitalism/ ‘Free Enterprise’ determine what goes on in Parliament not the ordinary you and me. Essentially all we are allowed to do is vote which representatives of the rich, the Multinational Corporations, are going to govern on their behalf. Parliamentary democracy enshrines the sacred freedoms of the capitalist class – freedom to own the means of production, land and resources, to trade freely, to exploit and sack workers, and enforce their class rule by a legal system, which is reinforced by the Law Courts, the Media and ultimately the Armed Forces. Freedom is the monopoly of the un-elected people; the monopoly owners and big shareholders of key industries, the banking and financial executives and high officials of the public service, police, armed forces etc. These folk ensure the continuity and stability of the system, regardless of the election results.

The multi-party system that is a product of our parliamentary democracy is another ‘sacred cow’ that is held up to demonstrate the superiority of our social system. Unfortunately the parliamentary opposition in the main is illusionary. The Labor Party has historically taken on the role of official opposition, supposedly offering alternative political and social policies that voters can have a choice about at election times. Unfortunately the Labor Party, Australian Democrats and most Independents have a practice of paying lip-service to the aspirations of ordinary people while at the same time passing legislation which meets the demands of corporate monopoly capital. They know which side of their bread the butter is on. Remember the GST, Tax cuts (which mainly benefit the rich and the Corporations) privatization of Telstra, Anti-Terrorism laws, IR/Work Choice and many others. In South Australia we have witnessed a similar story with the privatization of ETSA the expansion of uranium mining, increased shopping hours and corporate welfare such as the millions of dollars granted to Mitsubishi to keep them in Adelaide a little while longer. These are a gain to the rich and powerful and come at a cost to the average person. Even Blind Freddy and his dog know that inequality and poverty are on the increase, both in Australia and world wide; the struggle for resources, especially energy, threatens the outbreak of war; the ever expanding consumption of the world’s resources is causing environmental catastrophe and increasing extinction of living species, with the possibility of humans included; and the world presently has become a very unstable place politically even though a ‘New World Order’ accompanied by an unstoppable ‘Globalization’ was promised after the Cold War had ended. Truly, “all that is solid melts into air” is an old adage that once again fits our times.

What is parliament doing about these pressing issues? Can it save us from impeding disasters? Many are not confident that parliament can come up with solutions. Instead of parliament and the politician being our servant it is in fact our master. In the end all that the right to vote in an election amounts to is parliament providing a means for competing sections of big corporations to resolve their differences so there is no disruption to the orderly flow of business. And this is all that representative democracy offers us under a capitalist, or to use their buzz word a globalize economy. Business holds sway over social policy, profits come before living standards, and competitive individualism is emphasized over collective cooperation.

This rather gloomy picture begs the question is there another way of running society. How do we dispense with a destructive ruling economic class? The answer is within the question. Not only do we need to change our representatives in parliament, we also need to change the economic operation of our society. If the people are suppose to be sovereign, then kings of all kinds, whether they from the monarchy or capital, need to move over and a participatory democracy needs to come into being. A democracy whose orientation is towards improving the social well being of all not just the competitive advantage of a few. This means involving people in participating in decisions that affect them, whether it is at the national, local and work place level. This is a quantum leap to voting once every three years that our so called democracy avails us. No doubt it would not be to the liking of the powers that be.

With the coming state elections in March 2006 it is hardly likely that Rann or Kerin will propose such monumental changes to our social system as part of their election platform. Maybe Mike and Rob should seriously consider it. We live in nervous times: where economic instability is continuously at our door step; terrorist threats are monotonously advertised by the media; civil liberties are under attack by our own parliaments; and the weather permitting the climate patterns are looking ruinous due to human induced changes to the environment. Come on guys we need some innovative campaigning, where thinking outside the square of capitalism is needed for our very survival! Unfortunately our leading parliamentary stars have chosen to stay with the death wish of keeping our state economically competitive so as to attract international capital, whilst allowing the health system to fall apart so that average you and me can look forward to an unnecessary and painful death. Well to put a positive spin on it once you’re gone from this world you don’t have to worry about the foreign debt that we all inevitably pay back from this investment. Dear Mike and Rob, and John and Kim for that matter, the responsibility rests in your hands for the calamity that all awaits us. Keep going the way you are and you’re creating a Guy Fawkes right under your very own parliaments. For the average you and me the choice is to take hold of the sovereignty that rightfully belongs to you and not just the privilege few! And now for something completely different!

By Max Oz