Socialist Party Australia - SP fortnightly political report, 8/12/03, Latham's Victory Analysed

The SP welcomes the debate, discussion and vote inside the ALP around the question of its Federal leadership. Far better a vote than a backroom deal. The issue of Beazley vs. Latham was an issue of discussion amongst workers for days and this provided an opportunity for socialists to contribute with their ideas.

The SP would have preferred a candidate from the Left faction of the ALP to stand as it would have raised issues such as an alternative economic policy, refugee policy etc that were not real issues as both candidates were from the right-wing of the party.

Beazley was backed by the trade unions as they oppose Latham's extreme neo-liberal economic ideas. For example Latham has argued in the recent past for shares to be given to unemployed people instead of/or in partial replacement to money payments. He wants the government to encourage saving amongst the very poor by meeting every dollar saved with a dollar from the State up to a certain point. His ideas echo the shareholder democracy of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

Encouraging workers to gamble on the unstable stock exchange must be opposed. Economists have shown that if every unemployed person in Australia was given $10,000 this would only generate a weekly income of $8 on average and cost the taxpayer $20 billion! Latham's ideas on saving fail to take into account the fact that the working poor and the unemployed can't save because they are surviving from one week to the next and in fact most are in debt - Australia has the highest debt to income ratio in the world (125%).

When Latham was Mayor of Liverpool (in South West Sydney) in the early 1990s he privatised and outsourced services and sacked a massive percentage of Council staff.

Latham has in the past slammed Bush - and Howard's craven attitude to Bush - while Beasley privately supported the war on Iraq and has a long track record of being pro-military and pro-US imperialism.

Nevertheless it only took one day after winning the leadership election for Latham to stand in front of a US flag after meeting the US ambassador and declaring his love of all things American.

Depite our criticisms of Latham we acknowledge that his victory has sparked political discourse in Australia. If Beasley had won it would have seemed as if nothing had changed. Latham's victory has sparked renewed interest in ALP membership with 2000 applications in one State alone. Workers - even the advanced layer cynical of Labor - are looking with interest as to what Latham will deliver.

We confidently predict that Latham will - if anything - drag Labor to the Right. We continue to call on unions to break with Labor and move to establish a new workers' party. However, his victory has 'sexed up' the Australian political scene - mainly through his larrikan language and image (a wolf in sheeps clothing). This can only be a good thing for socialists who are fighting hard to create greater involvement by workers and young people in political discussion.