Comment by Peter Anderson
With federal elections approaching and under the new leadership of Senator John Coulter, the Australian Democrats issued their electoral platform in July. First there was the Liberals' Fightback; then there was Labor's One Nation; now we have the Democrats' "Getting to Work".
Does Getting to Work live up to its claims that it presents a fundamentally different view from the sort of future outlined in the programs of the two major parties? And would the implementation of the Democrats' platform really create a more equitable and environmentally more sound Australian society?
Many current and former supporters of the Democrats will be disappointed by what the party now offers.
The platform states that creating jobs and moving towards environmental sustainability are at the heart of the Democrats' agenda. Nevertheless, the positions outlined in Getting to Work move the party away from the strong emphasis it gave in recent years to environmental issues.
Where formerly the party showed an interest in the concerns of the progressive movements, this platform puts it very much back within the mould of parliamentary politics.
Furthermore, Getting to Work accepts many of the precepts of the economic rationalist debate that has dominated the Australian political scene in recent years.
Why living standards are falling, what the causes of the economic crisis and of the environmental crisis might be, or how the interests of working people, women, the poor and disadvantaged social groups could be defended are issues that Getting to Work does not attempt to address.
Restructuring
Rather than concentrating on finding adequate solutions to unemployment or environmental destruction, it proposes to attack these problems indirectly, by using government resources to stimulate restructuring of private industry towards export-oriented, high-technology production (and through a range of other penalties and incentives).
"We owe it to the unemployed and to ourselves to restructure our economy. We must focus on the new industries in which Australia has a comparative advantage. And we must promote the development of these industries into the 21st century."
In reality, the cause of the employment-environment problem is not primarily the inadequate use of technology but the relentless search
The Democrats' approach is not far from that adopted by Labor or the Coalition. At the centre of the platform are a number of macro-economic fiscal and monetary settings and micro-economic reforms that would supposedly produce a better outcome with respect to industrial performance, jobs and the environment.
In summary form, Getting to Work presents a set of major initiatives, a national industry strategy and a set of industry initiatives. While some of these proposals could be acceptable alone, this concentration on "industry" — and therefore on the owners of industry — is counterposed to the needs of the labour and progressive movements.
As a result, Getting to Work makes proposals which are simply unacceptable, like a levy on the employed to fund job creation (in the form of a 1.25% income tax surcharge to provide $2.5 billion which would finance 150,000 new jobs). This asks working people to pay for a jobs crisis not of their own making with a further cut in living standards.
Attempting to be even handed, the Democrats also propose a $2.5 billion industry development program funded by increased company taxes and cuts to defence spending. Such subsidies to big business will not help those most in need. It would be far better simply to propose a program of socially useful public works.
The proposed national industrial strategy includes a further range of handouts to big business — incentives for value-added primary production, stimulating private sector research and development, commercialisation of technological research, accelerated depreciation allowances on plant and equipment. It supports major elements of the Carmichael Report, which is a proposal to bend education to the needs of business.
According to Getting to Work, "the first priority is to establish a climate which encourages productive investment and restructuring".
To achieve this it proposes a 2% cut in interest rates and a consequent 10% devaluation of the Australian dollar. This, it claims, will raise net export revenue, increase international competitiveness, improve the profitability of small businesses and give industry access to cheaper capital.
Wages
If these proposals were not unrealistic, big business would probably rush to accept them. But there is a deeper problem anyway. Getting to Work argues for simultaneously low interest rates and low inflation, and increasing international competitiveness. In today's world, that could be achieved only by a dramatic reduction in production costs — which could be achieved only by further deep cuts to wages and conditions. Moreover, Getting to Work accedes to much of the Labor government's "industrial relations" practice, which has been characterised by falling real wages, declining conditions and mass unemployment. Many of the assumptions on which Labor's restructuring program is based are also at the base of the Democrats' platform, like the need to raise workers' "productivity".
It is not surprising, therefore, that Getting to Work commends the ACTU-Labor government Accord for ensuring that the unions do not pursue any wage claims that would cause inflation to rise above the rate of Australia's major trading partners.
It claims the "inflationary impact [of lower interest rates and dollar devaluation] could be offset if any lift in inflation did not flow through to wages". That is a typical prescription for further cutting real wages, which have already fallen by 20-30% under the Accord.
The drafters of Getting to Work perhaps sensed some of these real problems. Because the Australian economy is heavily dependent on commodity exports, they conclude "we enjoy a first world material standard of living based on a third world economy". They argue "we are already unable to support our current lifestyle", "our foreign debt" is too large, and "we are spending five percent more than we earn".
Whose debt?
These conclusions are misleading. Saying Australia's is a Third World economy and that "we" spend too much implies average living standards should be lower.
Australia's is not a Third World economy in any respect. The major Australian commodity exporters rank among the world's largest trading companies. Australia has a diversified industrial base, majority owned by Australian capital. The social conditions that prevail in the Third World are not common to Australia, though poverty is becoming a more and more serious concern.
It is not "our" foreign debt, nor are "we" responsible for mass unemployment. The economic crisis of the '90s is the product of the long-term decline of the world capitalist economy which began in the early '70s. It has been made worse by the speculation, corruption and financial excesses of the '80s.
Investors and speculators borrowed heavily in the '80s and in many cases went bankrupt. Often the debts they incurred were underwritten by governments, especially Labor governments. The defence of our real interests (maintaining wages, jobs and social welfare conditions) should be given priority rather than simply spreading the blame for the economic crisis equally over the victims as well as the perpetrators of the problem.