By Allen Myers
"Labor is using Cheryl Kernot to try to create a feeling that alternative parties have failed, and that the ALP is the only answer to Howard's policies", said Sue Bull, one of three Democratic Socialist candidates for Molonglo in next February's elections to the ACT Legislative Assembly. "It would be more accurate to say that Kernot's defection proves how badly Labor has failed.
"The excitement of some people about Kernot's move is mainly due to the fact that the ALP has not been a real opposition. It refused to vote against the budget in the Senate, it only proposes to amend Howard's anti-native title 10-point plan, and its criticisms of cuts to social welfare ring hollow because most of them were begun by the previous Labor government."
Because of Labor's failure, Bull said, many people were "grasping at straws" and hoping that Kernot would "turn Labor into a real alternative".
"Sadly, these people are going to be disappointed. A real opposition to Howard doesn't depend on dynamic personalities or the ability to look good on television. It depends on policies that are fundamentally different from the Liberals' policies.
"Labor doesn't have such policies, and it wouldn't accept them from Kernot if she had them, which she doesn't — it was Kernot who negotiated passage of the Workplace Relations Act, after all. They are all basically committed to protecting the profits of Australian business; all they differ about is the details of how to do it."
But what about the argument that the defection of the Democrats' leader proves that small parties can't be effective?
"It's certainly a blow to the Democrats, but we should understand why. After all, any party can lose members, even leading members.
"It's such a blow because Kernot was the most important Democrat. Not in a formal sense — I'm sure the Democrats' constitution says all members are equal.
"But the Democrats are focused on trying to change things through parliament — and that focus can't help but make the parliamentarians all-important. That tends to persuade the parliamentarians themselves that they have tremendous power to change things — by switching parties, for example."
By contrast, Bull explained, the Democratic Socialist Party sees change coming about through broad movements of working people and all those who are oppressed by the present arrangement of things. Parliaments are of importance only to the extent that they can be used to contribute to the building of such movements.
"Kernot's defection doesn't mean the failure of alternative parties, because a party that remains within the framework of parliamentary politics is at best only a very partial alternative", Bull said.
According to Bull, a real mass alternative to the Coalition government has still to be built. "An alternative, to be real, has to have a clear idea that it's defending the interests of ordinary people, not governmental 'stability' or 'the national interest' or other frauds that are just code words for the bosses' profits."
From this standpoint, the Democratic Socialists oppose all of the government's pro-big business measures, "whether it's the Workplace Relations Act or a GST.
"Sometimes, when the other side is stronger, you can be forced to compromise. But we should understand that the government's so-called 'reforms' are intended to aid the enemy at our expense; they aren't something that can be made neutral or beneficial by a few trade-offs around the edges."
Bull said that the socialists are "eager" to form working alliances between those opposing the government inside and outside parliament. "The problem at present is that the alternative parliamentary parties seem to regard such alliances as something which, at best, would distract them from the main game.
"It seems to me that such a view is very short-sighted. A strong, campaigning extra-parliamentary movement is indispensable to getting progressive legislation through parliament, or blocking reactionary measures." She pointed to the fact that only a mobilised union movement will be able to defeat the employers' use of the Workplace Relations Act.
"On the other hand", Bull continued, "such a movement is a distraction — or an embarrassment — if your main concern is appearing 'responsible' in the hope of winning a few more parliamentary seats."