"No One Held Back. No One Left Behind."
Elim Garak
The recent flooding on the east coast has seen the labor government offer a one-off payment of $1000 to those who have suffered multiple damages from consecutive flooding in the past 18 months. Despite the Labor governments “environmentally friendly” attitude, they continue to wreck the climate with new coal and gas developments, furthermore, subsidizing these projects with public money. Anthony Albanese regularly brings up his “working-class” credentials of living in public housing with his mother and getting by on government payments, but this is just lip service. We must ask ourselves, what has he and his government done for those in that same position today? Their actions regularly contradict what they say and cannot be trusted by honest working people wanting to make a positive change in Australia.
The Labor party was elected on the promise of “understanding” and “empathy” towards working people, their campaign slogan being "No one held back. No one left behind", but this has been completely disregarded through their actions in government so far. 116,000 Australians are left behind due to insufficient public housing or rental support as they face winter cold and houseless. Furthermore, Albanese touts his public housing upbringing yet offers no policy solutions to the housing stress Australians face. Additionally, the Labor government’s policy of big spending and more financial support has been abandoned due to other “priorities.” This is evident based on the comments made by Labor’s Minister for Social Services, Amanda Rishworth in a recent interview about more financial support for struggling Australians. She said "I understand for people living on Job Keeper and other Government payments, it's not easy. But we have many priorities facing our budget." (Rishworth, 2022) One of those priorities which she is willing to guarantee is tax cuts for the wealthy. A politician, on a base salary of $211,250, will get a tax cut of $9,075. A registered nurse on $72,235 will get a tax cut of $681 according to calculations prepared by the Australia Institute (ABC, 2022).
We must realise that Labor does not have working class interests at heart and frequently panders to the rich and wealthy like their Liberal counterparts. Labor’s anti-worker behavior is nothing new. Bob Hawke stripped power from the working class by deceiving the people and unions through the Prices and Incomes Accord. The Accord supposedly traded “wage restraint” by the unions for price controls and raising the “social wage” – social welfare and provision of government services to working people (The Prices and Incomes Accord, 1983). However, in practice, while wages were held down, prices were never effectively regulated and social wage increases were limited. The Labor party of today wouldn’t even dare to suggest that wages should keep up with inflation. Labor only suggested a 5.1% pay increase because it was “economically acceptable” and was prepared to abandon the suggestion if the Reserve Bank of Australia found it economically unacceptable. The threat of further inflation if workers dare to ask for the same standard of living is nothing new and not the driver of inflation, it’s the greed of the ruling class hogging all the profits and demanding more of them.
It must be incredibly difficult for the Labor party to look out for the working class when their core class interests do not align. The Labor party membership is filled with lawyers, landlords and career politicians who are out of touch with ordinary working people. How are landlords going to tackle the housing crisis when they are making an enormous sum in this unaffordable market? How are career politicians going to tackle corruption when they benefit so much from the system? Even if they somehow manage to keep their election promise of a federal independent commission against corruption, they will be the ones designing and ensuring it is as ineffective and toothless as possible. This problem is not just a Labor issue but an issue inherent to the Australian system no matter the party. The Australian system is built on exploitation while wearing the costume of liberal democracy and is nothing more than an exploitative capitalist power. Labor continues to have a working-class facade and will not stop serving the ruling class.
Labor is not a working-class party. They are just another party sponsored by the capitalist class to look out for interests of the ruling class. They are just a symptom of a cruel capitalist system designed to make sure the owning class wins. This is evident due to the many contradictions between what they say and actually do. The only way forward for the Australian working class is for working people to organize and struggle using the Marxist Leninist revolutionary spirit. The Australian Communist Party supports meaningful action and organisation on climate change and measures to ease the cost-of-living and cure the chronic illnesses of capitalism. Without the support of the Australian working class, it is hard to see our lives improving.
References:
Rishworth, A, (2022), “Ministers for the Department of Social Services, quote from Amanda Rishworth on Labor’s priorities.” Australia <https://ministers.dss.gov.au/transcripts/8466>.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, (2022), “The stage 3 tax cut that will send middle earners backwards and give high earners thousands”, Australia <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-11/stage-3-tax-cuts-middle-income-earners-go-backwards-inflation/101053322>.