Editorial:

Howard will thank Labor, Democrats

Many readers will be shocked and angered if, when the 
allocation of preferences are finalised, a government majority in 
the Senate has come via the preference decisions of the 
leadership of the ALP in several states. The leadership of the 
Democrats will also have added to this likely outcome. By their 
preference decisions they have, yet again, exposed their 
unprincipled, irresponsible and untrustworthy 
characteristics.

Some of the real nasties that the Howard Government may now be 
able to roll through the Senate are listed in this issue of 
The Guardian — "Howard's Explosive Agenda" — although this list
is far from comprehensive as, in a three-year term, hundreds of
different bills will be implemented.

The leaderships of the ALP and the Democrats knew exactly what 
they were doing. They knew that their preference decisions were 
likely to keep Green Senators out and put Family First candidates 
in. They knew what Family First stood for.

The leadership of the ALP machine in most states is firmly in the 
hands of the right-wing of that Party. This faction not only 
feared the growing support for the policies of the Greens and 
their principled advocacy, but are also intent on maintaining the 
dominance of the two-party system which allows the ruling class 
to maintain its absolute sway over the political and economic 
life of the nation.

The ALP right wing is just as conservative as the leadership of 
the Liberal and National Parties. Their differences are marginal. 
Their ideology is very similar even though Howard tries to 
persuade everyone that the Labor Party pursues a different 
ideology to his own, while right wing Labor promotes itself as an 
"alternative".

It was the ALP leadership of the 1980s that introduced 
"competition policy" and started in earnest the process of 
privatisation of public enterprises.

The ALP leadership supports the privatisation of health and 
education, and it should be recalled that in government it was 
Labor that privatised the Commonwealth Bank and Qantas, reduced 
funding to the ABC by stealth, and a whole host of other sell-
offs.

Labor's Medicare Gold policy, announced during the election, 
would have actually poured millions into the private hospital 
system and would not have restored Medicare to a universal health 
service.

It was Federal Labor that started the process of undermining the 
award system while promoting not only enterprise bargaining, but 
also individual work contracts.

Given all this, is it any wonder that the current ALP leadership 
could so easily preference the Christian fundamentalist and 
conservative Family First Party that they knew would, if elected, 
be a ready ally of Howard's men and women in the Senate.

It is also no wonder that the same ALP leaders should look 
askance at giving any support to the progressive Greens whom they 
see as a threat to the electoral base of the ALP.

The idea of a two-party system has and is being promoted 
worldwide by the ruling classes of many countries as an effective 
way of appearing to make a qualitative change at election time 
every few years, while in fact changing practically nothing. It 
is a device that has been used in many European countries and is 
currently being implemented in Japan (See article page 8)

The two-party system is a clever fraud. Both of the Coalition 
parties and the ALP want to "reform" the Senate voting system to 
ensure that never again are they restrained by others having an 
effective voice in the Senate.

Putting in motion a process of disempowering the Senate, with the 
objective of scrapping it altogether, is almost certainly one of 
the agenda items of the Howard Government in this term of office. 
The Labor Party leadership will be sympathetic to such a move 
which will ensure one or the other of the two major parties keeps 
a grip on parliamentary power.

They also understand the wider, longer-term possibilities of the 
development of a real alternative, of which the election of 
Senators from other parties and organisations is but one aspect. 
They will do whatever they can to snuff out, in its infancy, the 
emergence of any such alternative — on the streets or in the 
parliament.