Critical Times

Tess Lee Ack
John Howard is unquestionably one of the most hated political leaders in Australia’s history. Clear majorities oppose the defining domestic and foreign policies of his government – the industrial relations laws and the war on Iraq. So how come he’s still there after ten miserable years?

The main reason of course, is the lack of any serious opposition. Far from providing an alternative, the Labor Party has more often than not capitulated to Howard’s agenda, most notably supporting the “war on terror” and its accompanying anti-Muslim racism.

Even on issues where they nominally oppose the Liberals, such as the war in Iraq and industrial relations, Labor has failed to offer a decisive lead, mobilise a movement or inspire confidence that they can deliver.

That means that it’s up to the mass of ordinary people – workers, students and all those hurt by the Liberals’ attacks – to stand up and resist.

November 30 provides another opportunity to demonstrate against the Liberals’ vicious industrial relations laws that aim to destroy job security and drive down our working conditions and living standards – as well as our ability to organise against these and future attacks.

Since June last year, three mass protests have seen huge numbers mobilise on the streets. The November 2005 demonstration was the biggest workers’ demonstration ever seen in this country.

The fact that hundreds of thousands of workers have been prepared to take to the streets – and in many cases to go on strike – is not only clear proof of the overwhelming opposition to Howard’s industrial agenda. It has also shown that many people are willing to fight, and given us a glimpse of the enormous power and potential of the working class.

And this has made the bosses nervous. While a few smaller employers have moved to take advantage of the new laws, there has not been a generalised offensive. The larger and more highly unionised companies are holding off from a full frontal assault, waiting to see whether the government can ride out the union campaign.

Their hesitancy is testament to the power of the unions to inflict a decisive defeat on the bosses and their government. But it also underlines the importance of our side not only continuing to mobilise, but intensifying the campaign. Any backward step on our part will encourage big business to unleash a savage assault. On the other hand, determined action can turn Howard’s laws into a dead letter.

Beating Howard doesn’t necessarily just mean turfing him out at an election – though of course it will be enormously satisfying to see him humiliated at the ballot box. But serious and sustained campaigns by the unions on the one hand and the anti-war movement on the other could make it impossible for him to prosecute his anti-worker, warmongering agenda and turn him into a lame duck, causing him to lose the bosses’ confidence. And once that happens – given that he’s hated by most workers – he’s history.

This is not a fanciful idea. We’ve seen it happen before, and not so long ago. Howard’s hero Robert Menzies and his successors were in government for 23 long years before Labor was finally elected in 1972. But the Liberal government was defeated on a number of fronts even before the election.

Menzies had introduced draconian anti-union laws called the Penal Powers, under which tramways union official Clarrie O’Shea was jailed in 1969. Workers responded with a general strike in Victoria and a mass strike wave across the country. O’Shea was freed from jail and although the laws remained on the books, no employer ever used them again. It was a decisive victory for our side.

It was also the Menzies government that sent troops to Vietnam and introduced conscription. There was initially majority support for the Vietnam War. But a mass anti-war movement was built that radically changed the political terrain, eventually culminating in huge demonstrations and a massive shift in public opinion. Contrary to popular mythology, it was actually the Liberal government of John Gorton that began the withdrawal from Vietnam. Labor under Whitlam just completed the process.

The fighting spirit of the workers’ and anti-war movements created a climate in which other social movements flourished, and there was a generalised push for reforms. For example, when Zelda D’Aprano chained herself to the doors of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in Melbourne in 1969, the campaign for equal pay for women – and women’s rights more generally – stepped up a notch.

The industrial and social ferment of the late 1960s and early 1970s was a major reason why sections of the ruling class shifted from their traditional support for the conservatives and backed Labor, in the hope of containing the movements from below, and especially the union movement.

A similar fate befell the Fraser government in 1983. Malcolm Fraser’s image today is that of a venerable small-l liberal. But as the Opposition leader during the Whitlam years, and as Prime Minister after Whitlam’s dismissal, he was a ferociously anti-union class warrior. The ruling class expected great things from him. And he certainly tried to satisfy their demands, with a program of driving down workers’ living standards via wage cuts and policies such as the dismantling of Medibank.

But the workers’ movement, hating Fraser and still enraged over Whitlam’s sacking, successfully resisted many of the Liberals’ attacks and forced Fraser to back off. This – and not his criticisms of Howard – is why Fraser is on the outer in conservative circles. He is seen as a failure, incapable of carrying through the bosses’ agenda and crushing the labour movement.

In both instances, it was the movements from below – of organised workers, of anti-war activists and so on – that were key to getting rid of conservative governments. And – given the refusal of both the ALP and the ACTU to really take the fight up to Howard – it’s that kind of militant, grass roots movement that’s needed again today.

In France earlier this year, workers and students showed how to beat a government every bit as reactionary as Howard’s. With a concerted campaign of strikes and mass rallies, and by shutting down factories, schools and universities, they defeated laws similar to Howard’s IR laws.

But the events in France also showed that our rulers will only back off if the threat from below seems really serious. The current ACTU strategy – of set-piece rallies twice a year and hoping for the election of a Labor government – is pathetically inadequate. In order to win, we need to disrupt “business as usual”, hitting the bosses’ profits with strikes in the key sections of industry, and creating a political crisis for the government.

Such a campaign would not only galvanise broad layers of workers and breathe new life into the union movement, it would also inspire resistance in other areas, raise people’s confidence, build solidarity and help counter Howard’s despicable divide and rule tactics.

Mass resistance from below is both the surest and most desirable way to get rid of Howard. It would put the bosses on the back foot, while at the same time sending Labor a message that they will be under pressure to make good on their promises to tear up Howard’s IR laws and withdraw Australian troops from Iraq.

SA home

return to issue 110