FASHION, music and bad haircuts have much in common with politics. Anything old can quickly become new again, no matter how insincere the imitation.
The modern Labor Party has become expert at this contrived re-invention.
Today it would have you believe that it is the very re-incarnation of the Hawke-Keating model.
It brags about the policy courage, the vision and the zeal with which the Labor governments of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s tore down the barriers of economic isolationism and propelled Australia into the new world.
But the fantasy New Labor is now selling, that it is cut from the same cloth, is like a bald man rubbing gel into his hairless dome.
Bill Shorten would know, instinctively, that the modern Labor Party he leads has little if any legitimacy in laying a claim to the legacy left by Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Bill Kelty.
So too does Tony Abbott. That is why he and Joe Hockey have set about stealing Shorten’s inheritance.
Shorten, as ambitious as he is, is by nature, more disposed to the Hawke/Keating/Kelty principles than his predecessors.
He presents, however, as a leader lacking not just a sense of conviction but an absence of any comprehensible ideology.
The question starting to be asked is whether he is suited to the role of leading the modern Labor Party.
But a better question would be to ask whether it is in fact today’s version of the Labor Party which is ill-suited to a leader with the potential of Shorten. This is the conundrum that has several thinkers in the Labor Right somewhat disturbed.
One of Shorten’s own factional colleagues lamented privately on Tuesday after emerging from a caucus meeting that it was like watching a “theatre of the unwell”.
“We are not now at risk of being viewed as pre-Hawke Keating, we are not even pre-Whitlam. We are looking more like a pre-Calwell Labor party,” he decried.
“In fact I don’t even know who we sound like anymore.”
He was referring to the economic nationalism and protectionism which Labor appears to have adopted as the language of the new economy.
It started with the auto-industry and reached a crescendo this week over Qantas.
This apparent devolution had one Labor shadow minister even trying to argue against lifting foreign ownership restrictions on Qantas on the grounds it was government owned.
As much as some in Labor may wish it to be so, it is not. It was gradually privatised by Labor between 1993 and 1995.
Some Labor MPs believe a new paradigm is emerging within Labor that may not be that obvious to everyone yet but will become more apparent over time.
Labor in opposition has historically gravitated back to the Left.
But this natural cycling has become demonstrably more pronounced since the post election structural changes to the party — primarily the decision to allow the party branch members a potential veto over caucus in the election of the party’s leader.
In principle there would be nothing wrong with this if the branches were more broadly representative of mainstream community views and values.
In practice, however, Shorten is confronted with a new internal constituency often dominated by social misfits, union hacks and members of the Socialist Left.
It will be impossible to align the political interests of the ALP under this sort of structural system with the broader interests of the majority constituent groups.
This has immediate consequences for Shorten. And it is beginning to show.
Hawke and Keating said to win elections you need votes in the middle ground. They not only ignored the Labor party structures, they overwhelmed them. Privatising the Commonwealth Bank and Qantas would have been horrific for the branches.
The new Labor Party, however, says “we will protect the Labor structure”.
Unlike Hawke, Shorten’s union past will dog him unless he takes on these structures.
The trade union movement’s relevance to the modern productive economy is narrowing.
The sectors in which they are still influential are in decline in terms of their contribution to the economy.
It is obvious that Abbott’s strategy is to push Shorten further in their direction, forcing him to adopt an ‘‘old economy’’ position that proposes taxpayer industry subsidies (aka tariffs) and re-regulation.
To drive home the point, Abbott has taken to now praising Keating and Hawke as well.
Labor’s recast policies on asylum boats, climate change, energy policy and industrial relations are all a consequence of this new paradigm.
They may make sense to his internal constituency but makes no sense to the majority of Australians.
Despite all this, and even perhaps because of it, Shorten however, is presented with an opportunity.
He has the chance to become the type of leader he thinks he could be, but it will require him to stamp his authority over not only policy but also the structures of the party itself. Shorten probably only has 12 months within which to do i
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/lets-do-the-time-warp-again/story-fni0cwl5-12268472751...
