Cheryl Kernot and the two-party system

by Peter Symon

The defection of Cheryl Kernot from the Australian Democrats to the 
Labor Party (ALP) again throws into discussion the roles played by 
Australia's political parties and the limitations of the two-party 
system.

In joining the Labor Party, Cheryl Kernot has abandoned many of the things 
she has said in the past about the two-party system and the many policies 
issues on which she has criticised the ALP.

Here are just a few statements:

* "It's pretty hard to sound credible on the partial sale of Telstra when 
you sold the Commonwealth Bank ... the policy convergence between the 
Government and the Opposition makes it much more difficult for the ALP to 
carve out a positive reason for people to vote for them."

* "I am proud to stand here and say that we (the Democrats) are the only 
political party in the Federal Parliament which can and will ... stand up 
for free public education."

* Debating media ownership she said: "I reserve my condemnation for 
successive Australian governments for not having the guts, the integrity 
and the fundamental respect for democracy to stop playing payback and suck-
up politics and to draw a line in the sand somewhere."

* On the work for the dole scheme she accused the Labor Party of "dishonest 
politics" when it abandoned support for a Democrat amendment and allowed 
the scheme to pass the Senate without a vote.

In announcing her decision, Cheryl Kernot said: "I have reached the 
conclusion that, for me, the imperative at the next Federal election lies 
not in battling to extract a share of the third party vote to keep balance 
of power in the Senate. It is to play a more direct role in the removal of 
the Coalition Government."

She went on to give good reasons with which many people would agree.

"I have watched as the Government stepped up the process of dismantling the 
State, throwing thousands of people onto the scrapheap, abolishing job 
creation and training programs.... I watched them maniacally cutting back 
programs ranging from industry R&D to family planning to dental hospital 
services for the poor."

"I watched this Government create a crisis of confidence in the higher 
education sector and attack our public school system."

She said: "Australia cannot afford to flounder for six years. I believe it 
is now very important who wins the next election. Our destiny in the 21st 
Century is at stake. We don't have the luxury of a vision vacuum."

An implication of Cheryl Kernot's move is that the Liberal-National 
Coalition can only be defeated by the Labor Party. She has thus reinforced 
the stranglehold on Australian political life of the two-party system.

To justify her switch, she made some bold claims for the ALP: "The world is 
moving on. And Labor in Australia is moving with it. I believe the ALP is 
working on a road map for the new millennium for Australia. Labor is 
reaching a position where it will be best placed to meet the economic 
challenge of the future and ... rebuild a sense of community, make society 
fairer, restore tolerance — in short, advance the great founding tradition 
of caring egalitarianism."

In effect, Cheryl Kernot is declaring that one of the two parties making up 
the two-party system, and a party that has been in and out of government a 
number of times during the last 100 years, is transforming itself to the 
point where it is now going to do the things that it never did in the past 
(with the possible limited exception of the Whitlam years).

This is another form of the great illusion which has nurtured the hopes of 
many people in the past: if only the Labor Party would become a genuine 
workers' party, if only it would stand up to big business, if only it would 
fulfill its declared policies for social betterment!

In 1996, the Labor Party Government was thrown out because it had let the 
people of Australia down. Unemployment remained high, living standards went 
down, the process of massive privatisation was unleashed, the award system 
was undermined, welfare services were being cut, monopolies became 
stronger, media concentration increased, the ABC was being strangled. Labor 
Prime Ministers rubbed shoulders with Packer, Murdoch, Abeles and their 
kind rather than with the working people.

Has this lesson been learnt by the Labor Party leaders? Cheryl Kernot wants 
us to believe that it has. 

All that has really happened, however, is that the Labor Party is now in 
opposition. In that position, the ALP finds it easy to vote against some 
Howard Government measures, and to talk about "new Labor" as though there 
has been a resurrection.

The Labor Party is one of the social democratic parties of the world and 
such parties (which have often been in Government) have invariably ended up 
in disappointing and disillusioning their supporters.

Writing about social democratic parties, and about the Australian Labor 
Party in particular, the Political Resolution adopted by the 1996 
Communist Party Congress says:

"Social democratic parties, such as the ALP, have moved substantially to 
the right in recent years. Many of the policies adopted in earlier times 
are now being thrown out....

"Social democratic governments are implementing economic rationalist 
policies, have deregulated the economies of their countries, are attacking 
the conditions and rights of the working class, privatising public 
enterprises and adopting other policies very similar to those pursued by 
the conservative parties. They are assisting the growth of the TNCs and 
their domination of all important aspects of the economy ... Social 
democracy is incapable of leading the working class in an organised, 
consistent struggle against economic rationalist policies."

The Political Resolution points out: "The Labor Party's platform 
called for the public ownership of the means of production, distribution 
and exchange and many publicly-owned enterprises and services were 
established by Labor governments in the 1920s and 30s."

However, although public ownership remains in the ALP's platform and it 
even declares for a "democratic socialist objective", these are no more 
than paper aims.

We are now in a period in which the big corporations have become even 
bigger. The largest of them straddle the world and command huge resources.

They are conducting a vicious attack against the working people of all 
countries. It is a period of great take-back. All the economic and 
democratic political gains made in the last century are being destroyed to 
make way for the open and dictatorial rule of the transnational 
corporations (TNCs).

If economic, political and social progress is to be made in the future, it 
can only be successful if a conscious and tenacious struggle is waged 
against the TNCs. 

While many Labor Party members have been active in fighting privatisation, 
in battles for the environment and Aboriginal land rights, and so forth, 
they do not always understand that the source of all these problems is the 
TNCs. And there is nothing in the statements of the ALP's leading right-
wing personalities which suggest that they even recognise this. 

While Cheryl Kernot's statements as leader of the Democrats are a rejection 
of some of the consequences of TNC demands, she does not recognise that 
both the Howard Government and the Labor Government before it were 
implementing policies expressing the deliberate objectives of the big 
corporations. To change the direction of Australian politics in any real 
way necessitates a struggle against the big corporations.

No significant change will come from the leaderships of the two main 
political parties. In government they have and will both continue to put 
forward essentially similar policies. In the case of the Labor Party, as 
the Political Resolution says, this is because "the party's basic 
political and ideological position is one of a non-socialist party 
committed to the maintenance and continuation of capitalism".

In a similar position in the United States, the Democrat and Republican 
parties are both parties of big business.

For the capitalist ruling class of Australia, the ALP is now and always has 
been an acceptable alternative in circumstances when the Coalition parties 
have been discredited.

At present there is a growing chorus of discontent coming from big business 
circles about the Howard Government. It is getting into trouble because it 
is not pushing its anti-worker and anti-trade union agenda hard and fast 
enough.

Cheryl Kernot's reputation was built as the leader of the Australian 
Democrats, not as a member of the Labor Party. While she may carry some 
voters with her into the ALP, her move will not change the fundamentals of 
the Labor Party, nor will it change the need to provide a left and 
progressive alternative to the two-party system.

The vote in the recent South Australian election confirms the reality that 
a sizable and growing percentage of Australians are disillusioned with both 
main parties.

The CPA's Political Resolution says: "The failure of the main 
political parties over a long period of time to look after the interests 
and needs of the majority of the working people and the similarity of their 
policies and programs makes it more imperative than ever to build in 
Australia an alternative political force which will be capable of 
establishing a new type of government and implementing policies in the 
interests of the people.

"Even though both major parties always claim that they are representing the 
interests of the Australian people as a whole, experience does not bear 
this out. Their first commitment is to the needs and demands of the big 
corporations. This is so obvious as to be beyond argument."

Realising this is inducing more and more people to look for other political 
organisations to support and to vote for. 

This tendency has been revealed in one election after another over the last 
decade or more. Ten, 15, 20 and sometimes up to 25 per cent have bypassed 
the existing two main parties and voted for Greens, Australian Democrats, 
the No Aircraft Noise Party and progressive independents. 

For the last 100 years, Liberal or Labor has been the only choice. Now 
another choice is needed.

The Communist Party Resolution calls for "alliance building rather 
than the creation of a new party....

"A strong coalition of left and progressive political organisations and 
individuals bringing together the working class and other democratic and 
progressive social forces is essential if the economic, political and 
social problems which have accumulated are to be tackled. 

"Such a coalition must set its sights on winning representation at all 
levels of government, breaking the two-party system. The mass movement must 
take up the fight for a new type of government which really represents the 
people.

"Alternative policies which bring lasting solutions can only be implemented 
by establishing people's power. This means a people's government backed by 
a united and militant mass movement. From such a position of strength the 
Australian people can defeat the power of big business and start to build a 
new society giving priority to the needs of the people."

In terms of social forces, a left and progressive coalition will include as 
its core the large and organised working class, teachers, technologists, 
scientists and other professionals, small businesses and small and working 
farmers. 

It is important to emphasis the key role of the working class. 
Without the working class there is no social force capable of standing up 
to the rule of the big corporations. The trade union movement will, 
therefore, have a most important role to play in the coalition itself and 
in the active mass movement.

In terms of existing political parties, a left and progressive coalition 
would include many members of the Labor Party who are against the right-
wing policies of the ALP leadership. It would also include Communists, 
Greens and Democrats. As time goes on, other political parties may come 
into existence bringing into play other sections of progressive society.

Among people with left opinions two points of view are often found. Some 
pin their hopes on the renovation of the Labor Party, believing that if it 
could only be transformed into a left party, it will lead Australia to 
socialism.

The Labor Party continues to win the support of a large section of the 
working class and the trade union movement. However, if we limit our 
perspective merely to returning a Labor government without the development 
of the mass movement and to the exclusion of other left and progressive 
forces, little if any progress will be made, as past experience shows. 
There will continue to be an endless cycle of Liberal and Labor 
governments.

Another point of view excludes the Labor Party altogether because of its 
past failures. Parties such as The Greens and the Australian Democrats are 
also excluded because they draw their support mainly from non-working class 
sections of society, do not have a socialist perspective, and are not 
revolutionary.

Both these viewpoints are one-sided and will not succeed in building the 
sort of alternative which could challenge the control of big business and 
the conservative political parties.

We can learn much from the coalition which defeated apartheid in South 
Africa and is now working to implement the many economic, political and 
social needs of the South Africa people. The South African alliance 
includes the African National Congress, the Congress of South Africa Trade 
Unions and the South Africa Communist Party.

The weakness of the present situation in Australia is the weakness of the 
communist movement and the left generally. Splits and divisions over the 
last three decades have done a lot of damage and everyone concerned for the 
future of Australia should work to overcome this legacy. The weakness of 
the communists also led to a decline of the left in the trade union 
movement and in the Labor Party.

When a strong communist party existed, the trade union movement was 
stronger both in the level of organisation of workers and in the capacity 
of leaderships. This was helped by the co-operation between communists and 
left labour members in many trade unions in the 1950s and 60s.

When a strong communist party existed, the Labor Party left was also 
stronger, was more vocal, advanced good policies in a more determined way, 
and was generally more influential.

The Communist Party's Political Resolution recognises the need to 
"build the Communist Party into a really strong and influential 
organisation whose membership is more active in the life of the Party and 
in the working class and community organisations and movements." 

Because the working class has the key role to play, priority should be 
given to building Party organisation in the workplaces.

The defection of Cheryl Kernot will, in the short term, probably channel 
some votes back to the ALP and will, consequently, strengthen the two-party 
system. It will delay for a time the growth of the left and progressive 
political alternative. She has done Australian politics a disservice. Her 
move is short-sighted and there is probably an element of opportunism.

However, her defection does not remove the necessity to build up the left 
and progressive alternative in Australia. Every effort must be made to 
strengthen and unite all the forces in the rising tide of popular 
resistance to the Liberal-National coalition's class government.