The anti-politicians are not helping
Anti-politicians are everywhere. Clive Palmer is the left’s
current favourite anti-establishment politician because he is blocking
some of Abbott’s nastier budget policies. Palmer has broken progressive
hearts before, such as when he stood next to Al Gore and promised to
help repeal the Carbon Tax only if it was changed into an ETS; he
followed through on the repeal bit but failed to save the ETS. This time
we’re all really hoping he sticks to his guns on higher education
policy after disappointingly letting Abbott’s do-nothing Direct Action
policy through today. It’s easy to forget, while appreciating Palmer’s
Abbott-blocking ability, that this was the man who fought tirelessly to
destroy two of the previous Labor government’s most important
progressive policies – the mining tax and the Carbon Price. So Palmer’s
not a progressive politician, even if he does have some really
interesting ideas about asylum seeker policy. Just ask the people who
voted for him – those people he’s ultimately beholden. Or look at how he
makes his money.
I am torn in thinking about keep-the-bastards-honest,
a-pox-on-both-their-houses anti-politicians and minor parties because
there’s no doubt that sometimes some of them can be useful – like when
they’re blocking Tony Abbott. Actually, it’s not fair to just say
useful. Sometimes they’re entirely heroic and progressive policies
wouldn’t be implemented or saved from repeal without them. But just as
often, they’re unpredictable, flimsy, self-centred, untrustworthy, and
politically motivated to differentiate themselves from major parties for
their own vested interests and ideological purity. Yet they claim to be
above all this when painting themselves as ‘not like the baddies in the
majors’. But most are just as grubby as the spin doctors in the major
parties when it comes to election tactics. Otherwise they’d never get
elected in the first place. Don’t forget that independents and minor
parties rely on convoluted preference deals to get into power, deals
which are by their very nature political. Once in parliament they have
to do deals – otherwise they’d be both invisible and irrelevant.
A great example of these mixed feelings is my current love-hate
relationship with Russell Brand. I guess it’s not really fair to say
hate, because I don’t feel the same way about Brand as I do about
Abbott. Let’s just say love and frustration. I really respect Brand’s
moral stance on the danger of growing wealth inequality. His possible
bid to become London’s Lord Mayor is probably inspired by his campaign
to reduce unaffordability of housing in London, where he grew up on a
council estate. Helen Razor
suggests that if Brand wants to be a politician, he should learn a
thing or two about economics. But to be fair, when he says he can’t get
his head around economics, he may be joking, or he may be making the
very fair assessment that current orthodoxies about supply and demand
economics are a function of a capitalist system that favours the very
few over the rest of us. In that, Brand definitely has a point. Brand is
not just any celebrity who decides to talk about politics – he is
eloquent, intelligent, passionate, knows his stuff, and is incredibly
charismatic – all great qualities of a leader (or politician if you want
to call a spade a spade). And his values align very closely with mine.
On top of this, he promoted Australia’s March in March to his 8 million twitter followers. Also, his YouTube show The Trews is truly hilarious.
So I’ve covered the things I love, but now what about the
frustration? Really it all boils down to Brand’s anti-politician
strategy of differentiating himself from mainstream politicians by calling for a revolution and encouraging people who value his opinions not to vote.
When I first heard this, I was intrigued. The conspiracy theorist in me
wondered for a moment if he was being paid by the Conservative Party to
get young progressive voters off the electoral role. And even though
I’ve since become a huge fan of Brand, I still can’t see how he can’t
see that it’s an incredibly counterproductive action to urge support for
progressive policies by telling progressive voters not to vote. I’m
sure the Conservative Party are happy that they didn’t have to
pay Brand to mount this campaign. Perhaps a year on, Brand is shifting
away from this statement by considering running himself for Mayor – it’s
hard to get people to vote for you when you’ve told them that voting at
all makes you part of the problem. However, the trait that Brand shares
with many anti-politicians and minor parties is that he wants
everything to happen now, through revolution, and ignores the reality
that progressive policy reforms are never an overnight change inspired
by a single person or a small group.
Brand’s impatience makes him in the UK context just as anti-Labour as
he is anti-Conservative – he heaps them together into the ‘they’re all
the same’ type statements, which ends up benefiting the Conservatives.
Why does this statement benefit the Conservatives? Because if they’re
just as bad as each other, people may as well vote for Cameron, or in
our case, Abbott. If there’s no difference in the result. Reality is,
progressive reforms come about through long, hard-fought series of
carefully negotiated and compromised battles to inch forward away from
the right-wing ideal of letting the market rip (unregulated
neoliberalism) and keeping women barefoot in the kitchen (social
conservatism). I’ve quoted Judt before on this blog and I’ll quote him
again: ‘incremental improvements upon unsatisfactory circumstances are
the best we can hope for’.
The ideal of a revolution – a complete replacement of the status quo –
as compared to steady and incremental gains in the right direction
aren’t two options that you have to choose between. One is a fantasy,
the other is achievable. The real option is a choice between the two
major parties – one progressive and one conservative. I support the
party which aligns most closely with my progressive values, and has the
best chance of forming progressive government. As a Port Adelaide
supporter, I’ll remind you of the famous Port Adelaide line – we exist
to win premierships. The Labor Party doesn’t exist to be activists, or
to be ideologically fundamental or to promise a complete overhaul of the
status quo. Nor do they expect every progressive voter will agree with
everything they do. The Labor Party exists to form government that can
improve the lives of Australians through progressive reforms. And they
need progressive Australians help them to do this.
Many left wing independents or minor parties spend most of their time
bemoaning that the incremental improvements of the major progressive
party aren’t fast enough, large enough, or anywhere near revolutionary.
And they often spend most of their time fixated on one or two causes
which they feel effectively differentiate them from the progressive
major party. However, a pragmatist would say that in a country where an
extreme right wing conservative such as Abbott can be elected as Prime
Minister by a healthy majority and go about undoing Labor’s policy
reforms (such as mining tax, Carbon Price, Medicare, ABC funding, health
and educational funding, a social safety net just to name a few), it’s
unrealistic to believe you’ll achieve any progress by throwing your
weight (and lack of vote) behind an ideologically pure revolution, or a
single policy ideal, that has no hope of success, and no hope of
changing anything. And it’s unhelpful to spend all your time, energy,
campaign dollars, talent and voice in the community bagging the
progressive option when it’s the option you really want if you really do
value progress.
You might not like everything a major party like Labor does, and the
flash and colour of an independent or a minor party who promises you the
world without any hope of delivering might seem like a tempting option.
There’s no reason why these colourful and passionate people can’t
contribute to the debate and provide fresh ideas – and sometimes some
great blocking skills. But ultimately we need the workhorse – the
progressive major party – to be in power if we don’t want the country
run by conservative neoliberals. So who are you supporting in the 2016
election? I hope Australian progressives are realistically ready for the
fight.
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