Kerryn Williams
Since winning leadership of the federal ALP, Mark Latham's profile has sky-rocketed. An extensive campaign by the establishment press has branded him the "new generational leader" with "vision" and "ideas", who has "rattled" the "stale" Prime Minister John Howard.
"In the space of two short months, the ALP has gone from the Australian Losers' Party to the Australian Latham Party. It now has a leader who can talk to the people — and be heard", wrote Mark Riley in the January 30 Sydney Morning Herald.
On February 8, the Sydney Morning Herald's Ross Gittins declared that "at last Labor has acquired a leader who seems to believe in something". This leaves Howard "vulnerable", he continued, as he "doesn't have a personal reform agenda and can't come up with one. He certainly ought to be worried about Mr Latham's potential to beat him in the inspiration stakes."
Howard's February 12 announcement that he will implement Latham's proposed changes to the parliamentary superannuation scheme added more fuel to the Latham blaze.
Polls
The February 10 Newspoll found that 41% of people would vote for the Coalition if a federal election was held now, and 41% would vote for the ALP. In a similar poll conducted November 28-30 (before Latham became Labor leader), 44% indicated they would vote for the Coalition and 38% for Labor. The most recent Newspoll has the Coalition on 47% and the ALP on 53%, on a two-party preferred basis. Roy Morgan's latest poll puts the Coalition on 43.5% and Labor on 56.5%, two-party preferred.
The shift in opinion polls has been particularly dramatic on the question of leadership. In the November Newspoll, 22% were satisfied with Simon Crean's performance as Labor leader and 56% dissatisfied. The February 10 poll showed 56% satisfied with Latham and 18% dissatisfied. While in November, 65% said they would prefer John Howard as PM and 14% preferred Crean, in the latest poll, 47% picked Howard and 34% backed Latham.
Before Latham got the top ALP job, he was polling 5% support as preferred prime minister, lagging considerably behind Crean. This suggests that the dramatic turnaround may reflect more the media frenzy than any widespread endorsement of Latham-Labor's policies.
Latham's boost by the media is an indication that the Australian ruling class is not committed to another Coalition term in government. It may hope that Labor under Latham is able to re-popularise neoliberalism.
Howard deeply unpopular
91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly spoke to a range of unionists, movement activists and political figures about Latham's chances of defeating Howard, and their response to that. One thing was unanimous: the desire to kick Howard out of office.
Kate Gauthier, from the refugees' rights group Chilout, hopes that "this next election will see the end of John Howard in a landslide result. People are becoming sick of his style of politics, which seems based on hatred and small-minded miserliness. You can only play on the fears of the electorate for so long, and then the Australian people's innate good nature rises up against the politics of fear and selfishness."
According to Resistance national coordinator Stuart Munckton, Howard's "ultra-conservative social agenda combined with a savage economic agenda" have made him deeply unpopular among young people. "Howard is hated because he has reduced benefits for students and unemployed youth, reintroduced slavery via work for the dole, and slashed funding to public education."
Munckton believes that "anger at Howard has grown dramatically amongst a wide section of youth over his racist and war-mongering policies... and this only increased further when Howard ignored the largest student strikes in history and sent Australian troops to Iraq."
This sentiment is not confined to young people. Fred Moore, retired miner and life member of both the South Coast Labour Council and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, believes Howard has been "driven out into the open, now it's clear he's told a few lies — people are hooking onto the connection between him, Bush and Blair".
Labor MP Harry Quick, who was outspoken against the war on Iraq, is very optimistic about the ALP's chances of election victory. He senses a "change not only in Labor Party fortunes and attitude, but also from the press gallery and government members". Quick believes Howard has no agenda for another term in office. "The Labor Party, on the other hand, is busy putting out new policies that are being well received and Mark Latham is being warmed to by the general population who see him as a future PM."
Others are less welcoming of Latham's rise to fame. Renowned Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen tries to pay "as little attention as possible to the parliamentary circus", but believes "John Howard is revealing himself to be the grumpy old man he has been for decades and that may not play well with the voters on the Political Idol show". However, McQueen, a member of the Socialist Alliance, warns that, "from the wider political perspective, the danger at the moment is that everyone who hates Howard is so thrilled at seeing a new contestant in the Unreality TV show that is parliamentary cretinism, that they have put their brains into neutral".
Latham = Blair
Socialist Alliance activist Susan Price, a member of the National Tertiary Education Union, thinks that Latham's popularity is largely a media construct. "When you look beyond the media hype, there's not much substance there, and what there is doesn't represent a departure from 'politics as usual'. Just look at the failure of the ALP to find its collective spine on the plight of refugees, and Latham's sycophancy towards the Bush regime.
"I think the experience of previous federal Labor governments, current state governments and the scandalous Tony B.Liar revelations and betrayals are jolting many illusions in the ALP."
According to Munckton, "there is also a lot of disillusionment in the ALP amongst youth and Latham doesn't represent an alternative on any of the key issues. It is no surprise that polls suggest it is the Greens who will get highest vote amongst university students".
Chris Cain, state secretary of the WA branch of the Maritime Union (MUA) said he doesn't think that many MUA members "see a big difference between either party".
He told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that his union branch "won't be supporting... any ALP candidate unless he or she is prepared to get up and make statements, prior to pre-selection, that he or she will be supporting what the MUA wants".
This includes demands specific to MUA members, but also "workers' compensation and industrial relations for the trade union movement because that affects all of us... and you can't leave out the absolutely horrible policies they've got in respect to the war in Iraq and the boat people".
Former Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser Brett Cardinal put forward a similar view: "Latham has offered a few token crumbs. But when it comes to the real social issues on the agenda, for example refugees, the Labor Party is frightened to take them up because its main objective is winning elections."
Cardinal thinks the ALP's chances of winning the federal election are "growing every day", but feels that "Labor's shortcomings may very well be exposed if the Coalition can play the race card again, like if another Tampa occurs, because of the Labor Party's lack of backbone on issues like refugees".
Cardinal suggests that "if, a month out from the election, another boatload of refugees comes in, then Howard could use this as a means of scaring the public into believing that we're being invaded. The ALP will once again be left in the position of coming behind the government's scare campaign because of what happened at the ALP national conference, where the Labor Party refused to take a principled stand on the refugee issue."
Ladder of opportunity
Susan Price attacked Latham's new catchphrase, the ladder of opportunity. She suggested his policy of tax cuts for high-income earners shows just who he believes is deserving of opportunity. According to Coalition MP Tony Abbott, the phrase was coined by Winston Churchill, and taken up by former US president Ronald Reagan and current President George Bush. According to Price, "this says a lot about where Latham's coming from".
McQueen argues that "the task is to challenge Latham on the grounds of social equality — equality of outcomes not equality of opportunity". Others agree that Labor must be challenged.
Cain explained: "Our union, along with the trade union movement, will be fighting very hard to get rid of Howard, but in the interim it won't be just to put someone in his place who isn't going to perform. That is, to perform to the benefit of the trade union movement and to working-class people as a whole."
Price believes that "getting rid of the Howard government by popular demand would be a good outcome", however she also calls for "maximising political pressure on the ALP from outside the halls of parliament" before and after the federal election. "After all, Labor should be made acutely aware of the political price it will pay when ultimately it fails to meet the aspirations of their so-called 'aspirational' base!
"Meanwhile, and most importantly, we have to take seriously the task of building a real party for working people beyond the ALP. This party can't be one which just sticks its head up at election time, although election campaigns must be utilised as an opportunity to get out a socialist alternative into the public debate."
Price concluded, "Ultimately, the political alternative we need to build has to be one which is able to provide working people, the unemployed, the exploited and oppressed with real solutions to the neoliberal and capitalist nightmare, and provide the means by which people can start to organise themselves, and start to exercise the collective strength they possess."
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, February 18, 2004.
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