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I am in broad agreement with the *en passant* commentary on Australian politics. I hope he is correct when he suggests that we may be on the verge of resistance to the Austerity measures outlined in the recent budget. If asked to wager, though, I would say that resistance will take the form of electoral support for Labor. Certainly, the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, had a triumph with his speech in reply to the budget. His was mainly a moral critique saying in effect that the budget was breaking the Australian consensus that binds workers and bosses together as Aussie mates. Despite the justifiable rage on the Left, that remains a powerful myth for Australian working class people. With all my heart I wish it was not so, but it is. In any case, Shorten tapped into the consensus myth and shot up in the polls. There is one aspect of all this opposition to the Austerity program, which does have me puzzled. I have been reading Richard Seymour on the neo-liberal project of creating the new entrepreneurial subject and positioning as deviant all those who do not fit into the "make yourself employable" agenda. It would appear that this agenda was at play in the government's rhetoric about the "end of the age of entitlement" and the beginning of the "age of opportunity". The line is that if you are poor or unemployed, you have not seized the opportunities that are everywhere. I am puzzled, specifically, about the source of resistance to the neo-liberal project in Australia. This is a most nonmilitant people. Trust me. Yet they will not be led like lambs to the slaughter, unlike their counterparts in the the UK. Here in Oz, the figures show that overwhelmingly, people are worried about the cost of living and very few are worried about the debt and the budget deficit. This is despite the government's staged audit of the economy and the Murdoch press going all out to spook the public about the debt. So the government is in a quandary. They have badly bungled their austerity program. To win government they had to lie and say there would be no cuts. There is no consensus that we face an overwhelming emergency, which would justify the savagery, they have imposed. This in turn has produced a political legitimization crisis. So deep is this crisis that the Labor Party opposition in the Senate and the minor parties may be compelled to block the budget and deepen the political crisis accordingly. The normal way of doing things in the Senate is for the Labor Party and the other parties to take turns at supporting the unpopular measures and so manage the odium from supporting anti-people policies. Certainly, that was how they operated when John Howard was in power. Now though, such is the level of hatred of the government and its program, that to support any of the budget measures may be electoral suicide. My reading, of the situation is that the people in Australia are enraged by the austerity program. The political parties on all sides are frightened of this mood. They may be forced to drive the government to an early election. If they do not and they allow the budget through the Senate, then they will pay a heavy price. In the meantime, within the next twelve months, there will be elections in Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. That should tell us a good deal about the strength of the anti-austerity mood. comradely Gary ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
