The rise of the Greens attracted Labor comment, some of it is uniquely self-absorbed we have those who blame their rise on the 1990 election when Labor appealed for second preference votes. Or historian true believer Nick Drenyfuth who identifies a looming battle betweenLabor’s social democracy and Green environmentalism, in fact the Greens are currently more ‘social democratic’ than Labor (and we have other Labor supporters claiming that they are Communists). We might argue that in the future the Greens might become less social democratic than Labor, much would depend on what sort of votes they attracted from Labor as Tad Tietze argues, but currently they are clearly a social democratic force.
In November Americans will vote in Congressional elections that will probably deliver a major rebuff to the Democrats. Is there any way the Democrats could have prevented this outcome? From an Australian viewpoint the American discussion of Congressional elections is curious as relatively little attention is given to overall voting intention, it is true that personalities count for a great deal and there are strong Republican areas represented by Democrats and vice versa but overall the generic vote is a reasonable predictor and it points to swing of more than 6% against the Democrats. Continue reading Would bank nationalization have made a difference?
Just go on the record. Some may call this a history-making campign, but I expect that this will be a campaign that will inspire low levels of interest and enthusiasm compared to 2007, Julia Gillard notwithstanding (see my recent article here and my earlier one here) Tony Abbott has done exceptionally well so far, he has presided over a surge in Coalition support and driven the policy debate to an extent remarkable for an opposition. This has been despite his lack of public appeal and here is a lesson for those observers that fixate on approval ratings (2.5 cheers out of 3 for Peter Brent), Joe Hockey would have been more personally popular but would he have got the Liberals to this position? Continue reading Election (and after) predictions
Some interesting observations from The Independent’sSteve Richards on British Labour’s excessive caution and centralisation of leadership. that seem very relevant to the ALP. First referring to hopeful suggestions from the new British government about prison reform as part of a general evaluation of New Labour’s ‘reformism’: Continue reading British lessons for Labor
Does political leadership make a difference? The rise of Julia Gillard and the downfall of Kevin Rudd remind me of the ongoing American debate. Here a variety of critics from left and right have argued that Barack Obama’s declining approval rating (and the closely related prospects of the Democrats in the upcoming Congressional elections) is in decline due to failures in his leadership style, which is too cerebral and not populist enough. With Julia Gillard Labor hope that style can make a difference. Continue reading Julia Gillard feels your pain?
Yet another ‘debate’ about the role of the Communist party in Australian history. It’s like most contemporary political debates purportedly about past events: largely meaningless in the absence of any criteria for making evaluations, in the absence of such criteria history simply becomes a stock of anecdotal examples. Contemporary discussion of Australian Communism almost entirely ignores the extent to which the Party largely functioned as caucus of left-wing trade union officials with a small intellectual (much smaller after 1956) and organisational tail attached. Continue reading Labor, Communism and the Accord
Long before CSR meant ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ there was another CSR, the former Colonial Sugar Refining Company. Its history is deeply entangled with that of Australia in so many ways, including as an example of Labor’s accommodation with corporate capitalism and racism. The sale of CSR’s sugar division is noteworthy. Continue reading Sucrogen and White Australia
In many respects modern Labor has returned to the type of inward musing that it engaged in after 1996. Then there was an assortment of vaguely defined rhetoric about the party’s perceived excessive social liberalism, these critics however were very vague as to exactly what alternative policies they proposed, instead they preferred to focus on what social liberals were alleged to think about former Labor voters. Continue reading Labor goes back to 1997?
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