By Pip Hinman
The very public attack by the leader of the Democrats, Cheryl Kernot, on the Queensland Greens following the state election last month surprised some. Kernot lashed out at the Green Party, accusing it, among other things, of doing politics "the old way".
Kernot claimed that the Queensland Green Party was not a party of "new" politics, because it gave preferences to the Nationals in five seats. She said it wouldn't be beyond the Greens to line up preference deals with the Nationals for the upcoming federal election. But Kernot was tight lipped about the fact that the Democrats also directed preferences to the Nationals in four seats.
Kernot's criticism of the Greens as splitters and wreckers of the environment movement reflects the fact that the Democrats are losing support to the Green Party which, as the Queensland election showed, is keen to pick up support from the right.
As the Greens have moved into the political space traditionally occupied by the Democrats, the Democrats have moved to the right in what appears as a relatively unsuccessful attempt to broaden their base.
Kernot, now in her third year as leader, had sought to capitalise on widespread disaffection with the Liberal Party, but since the election of John Howard as leader, this space has been closing up.
Which side of the road?
When the Democrats formed in the 1970s, originally as a break from the Liberals, they capitalised on discontent with the Coalition among conservatives. "Against big business and big unions" was former businessman John Siddons' and later Don Chipp's small business pitch.
During the 1980s, with the rise in the peace and environmental movements, the Democrats strengthened their green platform. With the help of the establishment media, which painted them as "radical" and "left-wing", the party increasingly came to be seen as the party of the protest vote.
This image shift from "middle of the road" boosted the Democrats' profile and membership. They sought to present themselves as the only progressive parliamentary party. In Victoria and Tasmania, they directed their preferences to Labor ahead of the Liberals.
So confident was the then leader, Janine Haines, of grabbing the space vacated by Labor's shift right, that in 1990 she forfeited her Senate position to campaign — unsuccessfully — for the federal lower house seat of Kingston.
At the time, the Democrats' emphasis on social justice and environment issues tended to overshadow their economic policies, which have always been an uneasy combination of utopian ("to serve the best interests of all Australians", "to be even handed to employee and employer") and conservative.
While the Democrats' environmental policies still look good on paper, these days it is rare to find a Democrat activist at any campaign meeting. Their flirtation, under the leadership of Janet Powell, with the fledgling Green Party in the late 1980s — many Democrats were keen to merge with the Greens — ended with the election of Kernot to the leadership.
While the Democrats' policies in the 1980s did tend to reflect some aspirations of the social movements, they almost always went to the polls dividing their preferences between the Liberals and Labor. There is now talk of their national executive amending the split-preference policy to not direct preferences to either major party in the next federal election. Deputy leader Meg Lees says that the Democrats will be "left behind" if they don't make the change.
'Old' ways
Doing politics the "old" way — through deals in parliament and at election time — is intrinsic to the Democrats' style of "keeping the bastards honest".
In the March NSW elections, the Democrats reneged at the last minute on a preference deal with the Greens. They allocated preferences to Fred Nile's arch-reactionary outfit, Call to Australia, rather than to the Democratic Socialists, another indication of willingness to align themselves with the right.
The Democrats didn't shine in either NSW or Queensland election. In NSW their average statewide vote dropped from 5.4% in 1991 to 4.7%, compared to the Greens' average primary vote of 6.8%. In Queensland the Democrats averaged 6.2% in 32 seats while the Greens notched up an average of 8.7% in 28 seats.
There's little doubt that this was uppermost in Kernot's mind when she let fly at Drew Hutton and the Green Party. The Democrats are no longer the main pole of attraction for the anti-major party vote.
This must be especially alarming for the Democrats because five of their seven senators will face the voters at the next federal election.
A Bulletin Morgan poll, conducted in May and June and published on July 26, predicted that in the event of a full Senate election (with a 7.7% quota), the Greens would be "the big winners", picking up a seat in NSW, Queensland and most likely Tasmania. In a half Senate election (with a 14.3% quota), Labor and the Coalition were predicted to pick up support at the Democrats' expense.
In WA, the Democrats are in complete disarray. Last year two Democrat factions were embroiled in a court case over which was the legitimate division. The case is now expected to go to the Supreme Court.
Seeking space
Kernot has, on a number of occasions, lambasted the WA Green senators for their role in parliament. During the last two budget debates, Kernot accused the Greens of being anarchistic mavericks. She attacked them for not supporting Labor's native title legislation and even repeated the tired and meaningless "Trotskyite" slur which rightists have aimed at the WA Greens.
In her attempt to differentiate the Democrats from the Greens, Kernot has worked hard to profile her outfit as one that would not "rock the boat" like the Green Party and some independents.
It is not coincidental that Kernot's push to profile the Democrats as the "responsible" green party has come about at the same time as Democrats are rarely to be found in activist campaigns. Where they have played a role, it has often been a sectarian one, such as when the Democrats attempted to prevent Drew Hutton from speaking at an anti-woodchipping rally in Brisbane earlier this year.
Even in Adelaide, where the Democrats have traditionally had their strongest activist base, they are no longer visible at campaign meetings of the anti-nuclear movement, although Senator John Coulter is introducing a private member's bill to ban uranium exports.
In Adelaide the Democrats have a close relationship with HEMP, which acts as the party's research wing on marijuana law reform. State leader Mike Elliot has introduced a bill to legalise the growing and selling of marijuana. This is a by now not very controversial campaign, which allows the Democrats to be seen as "activists" without being too closely aligned with the left.
On "law and order", the Democrats have tended to ape the major parties' "crime is on the rise" scare campaign. During the NSW election, Democrat candidates in Sydney's west advocated an 11pm curfew for under 18-year-olds!
The Democrats, under the leadership of Kernot, can more and more be characterised as pure parliamentary opportunists. Even in the parliamentary arena, they do not lead the fight against the bipartisan austerity policy. Kernot used every opportunity to repeat the mantra that she was in favour of "fiscal responsibility" and would not stand in the way of the government's efforts to reduce the budget deficit.
Workers and business
The Democrats in the past sometimes supported progressive reforms. Under the leadership of Powell, they reversed their previous position and called for repeal of Sections 45D and 45E of the Trade Practices Act, which outlaw solidarity strikes. But in the main their economic policies have been geared to attracting the support of small business. Their opposition to the Hilmer reforms fits into this framework.
At last year's launch of a new package aimed at small business, Kernot commented that the Democrats were "returning to their roots". She said, "The Democrats and small business go back a long way".
In South Australia, the Democrats gave their support to the Brown Liberal government's changes to Workcover legislation, which reduced employers' payments.
More recently, in NSW the Democrats lined up with the Shooters Party and Call to Australia to block the Labor government's legislation to extend preference clauses for union members, guarantee unions' entry rights to workplaces and ensure that enterprise bargaining didn't undermine award conditions. Democrat MLC Elizabeth Kirkby commented: "To me, that is moving towards compulsory unionism. Our policy is not for compulsory unionism."
While the Democrats' platform today may not, on paper, appear very much different from the 1980s, they have shifted to the right. In competition with the Green Party for the "middle ground", the Democrats are now emphasising their anti-working class policies to the extent they are often indistinguishable from the ALP, and in some instances line up to the right of it.
Green Left Weekly contacted Kernot's office for her comments, but she did not return our calls.