Forgotten Country - Why Regional Australia Needs Socialism
Occer Maloney
Regional Australia, often home to the quickest critics of any seemingly left-leaning policies, is also the strongest display of the decay that late stage capitalism reaps across the world. It would actually be one of the largest beneficiaries of a socialist economy if one was established, but the exodus of industry and the nature of inflation have combined to create a particularly dire situation for these regional communities.
In the last few decades we’ve seen a large decline in population, wealth and productivity in regional Australia. From the collapse of industry that once supported generations of Australians, to the decline of small family based agriculture and farming that had allowed many regional Australians to earn a living. The collapse has been lead by monopolistic agribusiness that controls farming regions across the nation accompanied by the dismantling of Australia’s once strong industrial base because of global capitalism always looking for a cheaper and easily exploited workforce to manipulate.
“Regional Australia needs a new economy; one that puts the needs of its people ahead of the profit motive lining the pockets of Australia’s richest. We need a socialist economy”
These factors have resulted in the development of the ‘gig economy’ and a general rise of casualisation of what would have normally been a part/full time position. This has created an atmosphere of job insecurity and the need for many workers across the nation to have to rely on multiple jobs just to make ends meet. In fact, the rates of casualisation, while being fairly stable over the past two decades, rose dramatically between 1982 through till 1998 (From 13% up to 24.9%). When you also take into account the growth of the population in Australia, there would most definitely be more workers forced into these casual positions within the workforce.
“We need to emphasize the rebuilding of Australia's once proud industries, from automotive to textiles and manufacturing”
Due to these factors, the regional population of Australia have taken a more reactionary route, one fuelled with fears and prejudices sustained by a constant barrage by politicians and the media propagating an ‘us vs them’ narrative about migrant workers and asylum seekers. As Communists, we need to raise awareness in these regional areas and create a new narrative, one that shifts away from the ‘us vs them’ myth and helps regional Australians understand that their enemy is not migrants who just want to live a better life, but instead the capitalists and politicians that have gutted their industries and livelihoods.
Regional Australia needs a new economy; one that puts the needs of its people ahead of the profit motive lining the pockets of Australia’s richest. We need a socialist economy. We need to emphasize the rebuilding of Australia's once proud industries, from automotive to textiles and manufacturing. We need to push back against the monopolistic agribusiness and mining companies that want to strip Australia bare and hoard its precious water supplies causing tens of thousands of people downstream to go without. We need to fortify our agriculture and expand it investing in new practices like holistic farming that can rejuvenate the land and push back the rapid desertification of our country. This is the future regional Australia needs and the future we as Communists should be pushing for.
The other issue facing regional Australians is that of transport and infrastructure issues in general. Currently, regional people are even more reliant on cars than city dwellers. This is a reliance that we need to escape from. Under a socialist economy we should be striving to create a public transportation system that is wholly able to support the growing population of Australia. The aim of this transportation system should be to decentralize the population of the country away from the cities/coastlines and more evenly distribute the population around the country. If we can achieve this, we should be able to lessen the footprint on the environment that is currently happening in our densely populated urban regions as well as boost the ability for the country to re-industrialize in areas that were once industrial centres.
Trotskyists, Socialists and other leftist groups in Australia have failed these regions, becoming hyper focused on University Campuses and other more ‘left-wing’ oriented areas. Too many are writing off these regions as too reactionary and unfriendly to our ideas, when in reality it is these regions and the people who live in them that are the ones who need to be shown the benefits of communism and a socialist economy. It is up to Marxist-Leninist organizations to apply its principles and begin to reach out to these communities and build the once strong connections with these regional communities.
Educate, Agitate, Organise!