By James Cogan
22 August 2018
The real victor of yesterday’s
ballot to decide who holds the leadership of the governing Liberal Party, and
therefore sits as prime minister of Australia, is former Home Affairs Minister
Peter Dutton—the candidate who lost.
Dutton, representing the most
right-wing faction of the Liberal Party, won 35 votes from his parliamentary
colleagues, just seven short of defeating Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who
received 48 votes. Turnbull’s position has been irreparably undermined. At
least 10 of his ministers, including Dutton, have tendered him their
resignations, in a blatant demonstration of no-confidence.
Dutton, with the gloating
support of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who Turnbull ousted in a
leadership coup in September 2015, is confidently preparing for the next
opportunity to seize the leadership. Under some circumstances, such as
Turnbull’s resignation, it could take place before the end of the week.
Every political party and the
establishment media are aware that the campaign for the next Australian
election, which must be called by May 2019 at the latest, has effectively
begun. If the Coalition loses its threadbare one-seat majority, the election
could be formally called within days.
In a clear indication of the
plotting underway for a second challenge, the governor-general, who must
formally swear in a new prime minister, has cancelled a trip away from
Canberra, stating that it was “prudent” that he should remain in the national
capital.
The political lurch to the
right by the Liberal Party is indicated by the political record of the
nationalist and militarist cabal behind Dutton’s bid for leadership.
Whether under Dutton or a
so-called “compromise” candidate, Liberal policies will consist of blaming
immigrants for the social crisis afflicting millions of people and inane
demagogy against the “inner-city elite” supposedly represented by the
opposition Labor and Green parties. It will include the rejection of any
measures to reduce carbon emissions and vows that constructing new coal-fired
power plants will lead to lower energy prices. On foreign policy, it will
consist of blanket commitment to the military alliance with the United States
and stepped-up xenophobia against purported Chinese “interference” in
Australian politics and society.
The objective of such a
campaign would be to try and win back to the Coalition the large number of
Liberal and National Party supporters who have switched over the past decade to
supporting a variety of right-wing populist “minor” parties, such as Pauline
Hanson’s One Nation.
The Liberal Party, along with
sections of the rural-based National Party that is also part of the Coalition
government, is in the process of being refashioned into a Trump-style movement.
One of the ministers who tendered their resignation, Concetta
Fierravanti-Wells, denounced Turnbull yesterday, asserting that “our
conservative base”—that is, a small but vocal right-wing constituency—“strongly
feel that their voice has been eroded.”
It is no mere coincidence that
the Dutton-Abbott wing moved to bring down Turnbull just days after a
newly-installed Katter Australia member of parliament, Fraser Anning, made a
nationalist rant on the floor of the Senate demanding a total ban on Muslim
immigration. Anning, summing up the fascistic tendencies coming to the fore,
declared that the “final solution” would be a referendum to reinstate
Australia’s past racist “White Australia” immigrant policy.
The realignment in Australia
is entirely in line with global developments. It is the political reflection of
the intractable economic crisis of world capitalism since 2008. In country
after country, support for traditional parties of the parliamentary
establishment has disintegrated due to their imposition of endless austerity
and hardship on the working class for the benefit of a tiny financial and
corporate oligarchy.
Internationally, the
representatives of the ruling elite are preparing to try and suppress the
inevitable eruption of mass struggles by the working class against the failure
of the capitalist system. Sweeping anti-democratic laws have been introduced
and vast resources poured into increasing the size and powers of police forces
and intelligence agencies. Under conditions in which sympathy for left-wing and
socialist positions is growing, desperate efforts are being made to censor and
silence oppositional views and discussion from the internet.
At the same time, factions of
the capitalist class are consciously cultivating extreme right-wing, fascistic
tendencies to try to undermine, and use against, the development of an
internationalist and socialist movement in the working class.
In broad terms, the
Dutton-Abbott cabal in Australia is paralleled by the “alt-right” constituency
in the US personified by figures like Steve Bannon; the National Front in France
of Marine Le Pen; the United Kingdom Independence Party and anti-EU faction of
the British Conservative (Tory) Party around Boris Johnson; the fascistic
Alternative for Germany (AfD); and the range of fascistic movements in other
so-called parliamentary democracies.
The ability of these extreme
right tendencies to gain a hearing has been directly facilitated by the
pro-capitalist parties once falsely described as the “left.”
The Labor Party in Australia,
the Democratic Party in the US, Labour in Britain, the Socialist Party in
France, the Social Democratic Party in Germany: all have been at the forefront
of the decades-long assault on the social rights and living standards of the
working class, as well as presiding over militarism and the undermining of democratic
rights.
The right-wing lurch in the
Liberal Party is taking place under conditions in which the Coalition is facing
defeat at the upcoming election. After nearly five years in office, presiding
over the decline of working-class living standards and the enrichment of the
wealthy, it is viewed with widespread hostility. Dutton and Abbott are among
the most unpopular politicians in the country. Dutton is reviled by millions
due to his ruthless persecution, as home affairs minister, of refugees.
The next government will most
likely be formed by Labor in a loose coalition with the Greens and other minor
pro-capitalist parties. It will have to respond to steadily worsening global
and domestic economic conditions and rising tensions between the US, Australia’s
strategic ally, and China, the country’s largest trading partner.
Already, Australia has
suffered a fall in its currency and is facing immense pressure to increase in
interest rates, which could trigger a meltdown in a highly speculative housing
market and crisis in the banking system. An incoming government will also face
intense demands by the Reserve Bank and global credit agencies to savagely cut
public spending to reduce the budget deficit and mounting state debt.
The Australian ruling class
has the measure of the Labor Party. It knows Labor, with the backing of the
trade unions, will ruthlessly impose the dictates of finance capital and the
major corporations against the working class. The dominant factions of Labor
are no less fully committed to upholding the strategic alignment with the US
against China, regardless of the economic consequences and the immense danger
it is leading toward war.
Like extreme right-wing
formations internationally, Dutton and Abbott represent preparations for
immense class conflict and political upheaval. As the official parliamentary
opposition, they would employ populist demagogy to attempt to channel
discontent in reactionary, nationalist directions while behind-the-scenes the
ruling class conspires to dispense with the façade of democracy altogether.
The critical and urgent task
is the development of an independent political movement of the working class
against all the establishment parties. Workers must be united around a
socialist and program against the capitalist system and the social inequality
and war dangers it produces. The fight for such a movement will be at the
centre of the election campaign conducted by the Socialist Equality Party, the
Australian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
