Howard's explosive agenda

Bob Briton

One week after the election Howard is doing his level best to 
sound humble and moderate. He insists the Government will not 
ride roughshod over its opponents to enact its reactionary 
program. "We're not going to allow this enhanced position to go 
to our heads. That would be a big mistake and the Australian 
public would not appreciate it," he told the media recently. 
Howard, who is not noted for his honesty even in small things, 
wants the Australian people to believe that his majority in the 
House of Reps and the likelihood of his control of the Senate 
will not lead to his turning Australia into a neo-liberal 
laboratory with fearsome legislation.

The fact is that Howard and his soon-to-be-announced ministerial 
team would not have to dream up even one new piece of anti-people 
legislation to achieve that goal. The passing of the various 
bills previously rejected by the Senate would see to that.

The list is a long one. While the public was generally aware that 
the full privatisation of Telstra and unfair dismissal laws were 
being put back on the agenda, the controversy surrounding many of 
the other thwarted bills had subsided by election day. This 
undoubtedly helped the Government's re-election cause.

Parliament resumes on November 16 with the old Senate still in 
place. Initially, Howard & Co may well choose to concentrate on 
relatively less contentious (though still very damaging) 
legislation to bring about changes to Medicare and the Private 
Health Insurance Rebate. They might wait until the new Coalition-
dominated Senate is in place next July before pushing the more 
confronting parts of their "reform" agenda. Whenever it happens 
the passing of rejected bills and already drafted new legislation 
poses a grave threat to the people of Australia.

Potent reactionary mixture

The longest wish list of the Coalition's corporate masters is 
headed "industrial relations reform". On it are plans for:

* Exempting small business from unfair dismissal legislation and 
removing the consideration of most unfair dismissal matters from 
the states.

* Assisting business to get their workers into non-union 
Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) and extending the contract 
period from three to five years.

* Reducing the number of allowable matters in awards — from 20 
to 17 to start with.

* Establishing a special commission for the construction industry 
to continue the union-bashing work of the Cole Royal Commission.

* Allowing third parties affected by strikes at other workplaces 
to apply to the Industrial Relations Commission to outlaw the 
industrial action.

* Toughening the provisions of the Trade Practices Act outlawing 
secondary boycotts.

* Tightening the restrictions on union representatives needing to 
enter a workplace.

* Forcing secret ballots of union members before a strike.

* Excluding workers obliged to work as contractors from the 
protection of awards.

* "Harmonising" state and Federal industrial legislation with the 
ultimate aim of gutting state structures.

* The "War on Terror"... and beyond

Howard has no intention of being left behind in the rush by 
reactionary governments worldwide to get laws limiting the civil 
rights of the people on the books. In every instance it is being 
done on the pretext of being "tough on terror". The PM has just 
appointed Major-General Duncan Lewis of the "elite" Special 
Operations Command to head the country's most powerful policy 
advising agency — the national security division of the 
Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

The Major-General will co-ordinate the Government's "anti-terror" 
efforts and defence policy issues. Among the "terror" measures he 
will be helping to bed down are:

* The Surveillance Devices Bill, which will set out a more 
"flexible" national approach to the use of bugging devices by 
police.

* Legislation to allow easier access to stored information like 
SMS messages and answering machines.

* The doubling of the staff and funding for the Office of 
National Assessments.

* $20 million for ASIO to build up a regional spy training 
school.

* $100 million for the establishment of Australian Federal Police 
flying squads to be deployed in the region in the "war on 
terror".

* The "protection" of evidence given by security agencies in 
court proceedings — full blown secret trials.

* The screening of lawyers of terror suspects and their exclusion 
from court cases deemed to be in the national interest.

* A new business liaison unit within ASIO "to strengthen 
coordination and information flows between the business world and 
the intelligence community", as The Australian put it.

* Shooting the ABC's independent voice

The conflict and controversy that will flow from Howard's fourth 
term agenda are easy to foresee from the brief survey given 
above. Another important objective of the Government is that the 
radical changes and disruption to Australian society should go 
ahead with as little adverse comment as possible. Malcolm Fraser 
once described this as the desire to keep politics off the front 
page.

The ABC will remain a target of the Government's smothering 
attention. Last year former Communications Minister Richard 
Alston hounded the ABC through the Australian Broadcasting 
Authority over alleged bias in its reporting of the invasion of 
Iraq. The national broadcaster was bullied into employing Rehame 
— a polling company owned by Murdoch's News Corp — to monitor 
the ABC's programs for anti-government "bias".

The appointment of members to the ABC's board used to be 
accompanied by a tense political struggle. The Coalition should 
now be able to appoint trusties to these positions with ease. It 
is due to make three such appointments shortly. The Government 
has promised a review of ABC funding and the rewriting of the 
Corporation's charter is on the cards. Advertising on the ABC and 
the intrusion of the additional corporate influence are likely 
outcomes.

Attorney General Philip Ruddock has warned the states that the 
Commonwealth will introduce federal libel legislation if they do 
not submit to a uniform national defamation code. Defamation 
actions are already a refuge from criticism of the rich and 
powerful in most cases. Ruddock's new code would remove truth as 
a defence for the media and put the onus on defendants to 
demonstrate that the "national interest" was served with their 
comments.

To add to this short list of nasties are such measures as the 
elimination of proportional representation for the Senate, 
thereby hoping to eliminate the smaller parties forever. Then 
there are changes to the present cross-media ownership laws which 
would allow an even further monopolisation of the media by Packer 
and Murdoch.

Peter Saunders from the Centre for Independent Studies, one of 
the "think tanks" advising the Federal Government, wants the 
Government to use its historic power to overhaul disability 
pensions, end compulsory voting and to look at a proposal to end 
government funding of public schools and instead, issue vouchers 
to parents to pay the school of their "choice".

Nightmare

If this nightmare should come about the people of Australia will 
have none other to thank than the ALP leaders in several states 
who gave preferences to the Family First Party rather than The 
Greens and, thereby, handed Howard its likely free hand.

The result of the Federal Election is a call to action for the 
labour movement, the trade unions and all left and progressive 
community organisations and individuals. There is now an even 
greater urgency to build unity among opponents of Howard's 
corporate agenda. The weeks and months ahead must not be wasted. 
Discussion that leads quickly to organisation and action is 
required to defeat Howard's savage fourth term agenda.