By Peter Boyle
MELBOURNE — Although there will be 22 candidates on the ballot paper when the Wills by-election takes place on April 11, one progressive independent, Coburg football coach Phil Cleary, believes he has a chance of beating the major parties. He has been getting substantial and generally favourable press coverage.
With a week of campaigning to go, Cleary told Green Left he was confident that he had already secured between 15 and 17% of the vote, and his campaign was still "gathering momentum".
Perhaps borrowing from his experience on the football field, Cleary's campaign strategy is focussed on a dogged attack on "economic rationalism", as he promised when he announced his candidacy at the last possible moment:
"I felt I had a positive duty to offer the people of Wills an alternative to the two parties that are dominating the political scene at the moment. Their policies — economic rationalism, level playing fields, reduction of tariffs — are doing nothing for the people of Wills or for the people of Australia. Manufacturing industry has been decimated. There's 20% unemployment in Wills, and the place is in a state of depression.
"If elected, I will be pushing to have those policies altered, and push forward some notions of social justice for the people that are struggling out here."
Cleary says a major difficulty for his campaign is that he doesn't have the support of a party. "It is a chance to test the water. And the support out there from ordinary people is just magnificent. I think we are on the verge of a new social movement. People who are disenchanted with the Labor Party realise that the Liberal Party offers nothing. The goods and services tax will make even bread and butter more expensive on the average table. That won't work.
"The Labor Party's policies have this obsession with economic rationalism. But the bureaucrats in Canberra are on notice, from today, that the people of Wills won't stand for this any longer."
Tackling unemployment is Cleary's priority. He summarises his economic program as: "The resumption of tariff protection, stimulation of manufacturing, creative industry policy, the injection of money, more serious government intervention in the economy ... this is the prevailing mood, this is the alternative."
Cleary is proud that his full-on assault on the "level-playing field myth" made Paul Keating temporarily "baulk on tariff reduction" in recent parliamentary debate. He concedes that the Labor government hasn't changed its mind on the issue but says it is "forced to make the right sounds".
"I'm in the contest to win it. It is not simply a protest vote", says Cleary. But he acknowledges two possible dynamics from a successful campaign. "The momentum from my campaign has both the eform in the Labor Party as well as to help build an alternative to Labor", he said.
"Under Labor income discrepancies have grown, and Labor has plenty to answer for. But there are some good people still in the Labor Party and the divisions in the ALP about whether or not to give me first preference reflects this."
Cleary opposes the GST, the Accord (which he called a "system of keeping wages under control") and recent calls to cut immigration. He was an activist in the anti-Gulf War and anti-apartheid movements, campaigned for the extension of the Upfield railway line, women's and gay and lesbian rights and defended the Builders Labourers Federation against deregistration. He promises to continue as football coach for Coburg even if elected. His preferences go to the Democrats, followed by Bob Lewis, and he places Labor ahead of the Liberals.