Australian Labor Party

Australian Labor Party
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Wednesday 17 September 2014

What Should Shorten Do? - The AIM Network

What Should Shorten Do? - The AIM Network



What Should Shorten Do?














All the latest polls give Labor a clear lead over their Coalition
opposition. In fact the latest Essential poll shows disapproval on every
issue except foreign policy and Labor has a 53% to 47%
two-party-preferred lead.



You might ask what then Bill Shorten is doing wrong. In spite of a
clear lead in the polls he has of late come under fire for his inability
to cut through as Opposition Leader. Even on the pages of this blog he
has been criticised for an inability to confront his opponent,
communicate policy or at least differentiate it.



Leading your Party in Opposition must surely be a job you wouldn’t
wish on your worst enemy. It’s a thankless, powerless task that has few
positives but comes with enormous expectations from those who follow
you.



Releasing policy is considered precarious until the election campaign
begins. The media focus on the incumbent and often a 10 second grab on
the nightly news is about all one can expect. Often you are damned if
you support something with bi-partisan intent or damned if you don’t.



Your followers have a “why doesn’t he stick it up ‘em” mentality that
is laced with an unrealistic desire to win every argument along the
way.



And in their urgent desire to obtain office they don’t take into
account the re-thinking of policy and party structures necessary to win
back government, and the work involved in doing so. Abbott made the
mistake of not formulating policy in opposition and is paying dearly for
it now.



More often than not you are likely to have your focus on the polls,
whilst at the same time, be wondering who might have the knife raised
above your head conspiring to unseat you. In Parliament your
effectiveness is limited, and you can only ask questions that your
opponents are not required to answer.



It is all made the more difficult when your own ability is limited by
your personal capacity to deliver succinct messages because people have
an expectation that you should have the presentation skills of a Barack
Obama or Bill Clinton. Shorten has none of their eloquence, instead
showing a distinct inarticulateness that is at times depressive. Often
he comes over as just another apparatchik or Union boss. As a
communicator he lacks charisma and personality.



So opposition leaders tend to come over as unconstructive, having
nothing good to say, or just carpers. Abbott of course made a virtue of
it. (More later).



Having said that, Australia has not been blessed with charismatic
leaders with a passion that excites and inspires. Howard, Gillard, Rudd,
and now Abbott have been dour, if not intelligent, individuals who
would hardly enthuse one to alight from bed each morning let alone be
excited by ideas emanating from enlightened and sagacious minds.



You would have to go back to the period of Whitlam, Hawke, and
Keating to experience the exhilaration that might come about with an
enthusiasm for what might be possible through the political process.



Brendan Nelson, Kim Beazley, Mark Latham, Simon Crean, John Hewson,
Andrew Peacock, Malcolm Turnbull, and Alexander Downer all suffered from
the helplessness of opposition and failed as leaders despite their
aptitude.



My personal view, as an aside, is that Kim Beazley would have made a
fine Prime Minister had he obtained office. And he nearly did.



Tony Abbott it must be said turned the negativity and all the
difficulty of opposition into a virtue. Whether it was intentional or
not we might never know. But the personality of the man gives us a good
indication. I doubt that we will ever see another opposition leader like
Abbott.



Why? Well only a person of Abbott’s character, or lack of, could do
what he did. By the sheer force of erasing all pretense to decency he
imposed himself on the Australian people, telling lie after lie, day
after day and week after week on a scale hitherto inexperienced by an
electorate well and truly sick of politics. He said “no” to anything and
everything with propaganda like intensity and the people never realised
the wrongs that would eventually be perpetrated on them.



He had the assistance of a newspaper baron equally deficient in
decency, in Rupert Murdoch, and a government preoccupied with leadership
squabbles rather than good government.



One year in it is demonstrably apparent that a daily avalanche of
Abbott style deleterious destructive opposition might gain you
government and give you power, but it makes the task of transposing
yourself into a credible statesman-like Prime Minister almost
impossible.



So what should Shorten do?


Well he could just sit pat and let Abbott’s self-destruction take its
course. But as I see it Bill Shorten, at this time in our political
history, has been handed a unique gift. The opportunity to create a
two-year narrative about the decline in our democracy and Abbott’s
involvement in it. It’s an invitation to do the same as Abbott did. Re
define what opposition is, and do so, in a resoundingly positive way.



Acknowledge the faults, the corruption on both sides together with
the destruction of our parliamentary conventions and institutions. Shout
the need for a new democracy as often as Abbott said “Stop the Boats”.



In every utterance say that good democracies can only deliver good
government and outcomes if the electorate demands it. Deliver a campaign
message that speaks to young and old alike by appealing to people to
participate in a new democracy where all policy is cantered on the
common good. I can hear the first sentence of his first speech:



“I speak to all who have a common interest in renewing our democracy regardless of ideological association”.

Where did all the voters go, and why?


Indeed, where did they go? Mysteriously, 3.3 million eligible voters
went missing at the last election. That is a whopping 15% more than the
previous one.



There is something fundamentally wrong when, despite a huge
recruitment drive by the Australian Electoral Commission, 1.22 million
citizens failed to enrol to vote, and 400,000, or one-third of the
non-registrants, were aged 18 to 24. Additionally, 760,000 House of
Representatives ballots were informal – about 6 per cent – up more than
0.3 per cent from the 2010 election.



Who carried the loss? Our democracy did.


Unlike the US and the UK, who both have voluntary voting systems, we
have a compulsory one. We shouldn’t need to entice voters to the polling
booth, but something has changed. It seems that in increasing numbers
our citizens are walking away from their obligation.



Are they just morons who we should ignore anyway, or are there other
reasons? I don’t in the least subscribe to that moronic theory. I
believe that most of these people made a conscious decision not to vote
because they have become disenchanted with the system. Who can blame
them?



In 2010, 93 per cent of eligible people voted in Australia. In the
US, about 60 per cent of the population voted, and in the UK it is about
65 per cent.



What would happen if the lost voters returned? Recent analysis of the
election result suggests that fifteen of the Coalition’s new seats are
held on very thin margins. Eleven seats have margins of less than 4000
voters. In essence, the election was a lot tighter than was first
suggested. Theoretically, this means that it would only take about
30,000 people to change their vote to change the government.



Answering the “what if” question may be complex, but simply put, it
lies in a worldwide dissatisfaction with the practice of traditional
Western politics – left vs right. People who once saw politics as tough
but with an ability to compromise now see it as tough but indecent. It
is now an institution of power that drives self-interest and ignores the
common good. If we look around the world, wealth has become the measure
of success and the rich are becoming wealthier at an alarming rate. In
the history of this nation the rich have never been so openly brazen.



Something will have to break or there will be a revolution. Even
Americans no longer believe the dream that has been instilled in them
since birth, that they all have an equal opportunity of success. It
simply doesn’t exist.



What should Shorten do?


There is no doubt that the Australian political system is in need of repair, but it is not beyond it.


Labor has taken a small but important first step in allowing a
greater say in the election of its leader, however it still has a reform
mountain to climb. Besides internal reform that engages its members, it
needs to look at ways of opening our democracy to new ways of doing
politics: ways that engage those that are in a political malaise so that
they feel part of the decision-making process again.



Some examples of this are fixed terms, and the genuine reform of
Question Time with an independent Speaker. Mark Latham even advocates
(among other things) its elimination in a new book. In fact he has many
suggestions of considerable merit.



Shorten needs to promote the principle of transparency by advocating
things like no advertising in the final month of an election campaign,
and policies and costing submitted in the same time frame. You can add
reform of the Senate into this mix, and perhaps some form of citizen
initiated referendum. Also things like implementing marriage equality
and a form of a National ICAC. Perhaps even a 10 point common good
caveat on all legalisation.



He needs to convince people of a collective democracy that involves
the people can be creative and exciting one. In a future world dependent
on innovation it will be ideas that determine government, and not the
pursuit of power for power’s sake.



His narrative must convince the lost voters who have left our
democracy to return (and I am assuming that most would be Labor), it has
to turn its own ideology on its head, re-examine it, and then
reintroduce it as an enlightened opposite to the Tea Party politics that
conservatism has descended into.



It must promote and vigorously argue the case for action against
growing inequality in all its nefarious guises, casting off its
socialist tag and seeing policy in common good versus elitist terms. The
same fight must also be had for the future of the planet.



It must turn its attention to the young, and have the courage to ask
of them that they should go beyond personal desire and aspiration and
accomplish not the trivial, but greatness. That they should not allow
the morality they have inherited from good folk to be corrupted by the
immorality of right-wing political indoctrination.



It might even advocate lowering the voting age to sixteen (16 year
olds are given that right in the Scottish referendum). An article I read
recently suggested the teaching of politics from Year 8, with
eligibility to vote being automatic if you were on the school roll.
Debates would be part of the curriculum and voting would be supervised
on the school grounds. With an aging population the young would then not
feel disenfranchised. Now that’s radical thinking; the sort of thing
that commands respect. It might also ensure voters for life.



Why did the voters leave?


How has democracy worldwide become such a basket case? Unequivocally
it can be traced to a second-rate Hollywood actor, a bad haircut, and in
Australia a small bald-headed man of little virtue. They all had one
thing in common. This can be observed in this statement (paraphrased):



“There is no such thing as society. There are only
individuals making their way. The poor shall be looked after by the drip
down effect of the rich”.

Since Margaret Thatcher made that statement and the subsequent reins
of the three, unregulated capitalism has insinuated its ugliness on
Western Society and now we have an absurdly evil growth in corporate and
individual wealth and an encroaching destruction of the middle and
lower classes. These three have done democracy a great disservice.



Where once bi-partisanship flourished in proud democracies, it has
been replaced with the politics of hatred and extremism. Where
compromise gets in the way of power, and power rules the world.



3.3 Million Australians have tuned out of politics because of the
destabilisation of leadership, corruption on both sides, the negativity
and lies of Tony Abbott, the propaganda of a right-wing monopoly owned
media, and the exploitation of its Parliament by Abbott. Somehow the
lost voters must be given a reason to return. A reason that is valid and
worthwhile. A reason that serves the collective and engages people in
the process, and a politic for the social good of all – one that rewards
personal initiative but at the same time recognises the basic human
right of equality of opportunity.



We need a robust but decent political system that is honest, decent,
and transparent, and where respect is the order of the day. A political
system where ideas of foresight surpass ideological politics, greed,
disrespect, and truth. Where respect, civility and trust are part of
vigorous debate and not just uninvited words in the process.



“The right to vote is the gift our democracy gives. If
political parties (and media barons, for that matter) choose by their
actions to destroy the people’s faith in democracy’s principles and
conventions then they are in fact destroying the very thing that enables
them to exist”.

The reader might determine that the writer is an idealist of long standing. That is so and I make no apologies.


There is much in the way of common sense to support the narrative I
suggest but would a politician of Bill Shorten’s ilk take the plunge. I
doubt it. He would have to turn conventional politics on its head.



But a few well-chosen words can create an image hitherto unrecognised.


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