By Pip Hinman Voter alienation from the two major parties is fast becoming a hot topic of debate. Surveys, feature articles and even small booklets such as the recently published Politicians and Citizens: Rights and Responsibilities, by the Catholic Social Justice Commission, have offered various explanations and advice about what to do about this phenomenon. A Morgan survey reprinted by the Catholic Social Justice Commission found that 84% believe that federal politicians lie at election time, 79% said that federal politicians could not be trusted to keep election promises, and 91% said that politicians twist the truth to suit their own ends. Author John Warhurst, the head of the Australian National University's political science department, listed corruption, conspicuous consumption, arrogance and politicians' failure to listen to people as among the many factors which have turned people off politicians. "Parliamentary democracy is in danger of losing its credibility", said Hugh Mackay, author of Reinventing Australia. ALP backbencher Mark Latham also sounded the same warning in the February 6 Bulletin: "If there's no trust between the elected and the electors, then so much of what we believe in breaks down, and democratic values dissolve". "Participatory democracy ... is rare and generally unsuited to the governance of large numbers of people", stated Warhurst. He also claimed several times that "we get the politicians that we deserve". Warhurst's solution is for a new code of conduct for politicians. Elaine Thompson, associate professor of politics at the University of NSW, in a feature article, "Sshhh ... you'll scare the voters" in the January 6 Sydney Morning Herald, argued that Australia's "democratic system" is failing. Thompson argued that representative democracy worked when protest movements were strong, such as in the 1970s. Since then, the end of the long postwar boom has forced the government to buckle under to pressure from the right to govern in the interests of the "whole of Australia" and not just "single-issue groups". This, she said, has been the main factor which has prevented important social and economic issues from being addressed. While Thompson makes the correct point that "parties attempt to get elected using a bag of attractive tricks for the marginal seats", she ends up by putting the responsibility to change this onto "political consumers", who need to do more than "express satisfaction or dissatisfaction".
Undemocratic
Thompson, like Warhurst and others, misses the main point — that the institutions of government are fundamentally undemocratic, and actively work to prevent people from getting involved in the major decisions affecting their lives. People do not get the politicians they deserve. And they do, generally, take a keen interest in decisions which will have a direct impact on their lives. Last year's mass mobilisations around the country made clear that a majority of people wanted Australia's few remaining old growth forests protected, along with timber workers' jobs, and that we disagreed with the Keating government's continued mining and sale of uranium to France. Despite these mobilisations and the numerous polls which showed that these were issues about which people felt very strongly, we were ignored. People
are cynical about the political system, because it is fundamentally undemocratic. The numbers of single-issue and other political parties and independents contesting parliamentary seats at this federal election, and the growing number of voters who are not registering or are spoiling their ballots, make it very clear that people do not feel that their interests are being adequately represented.
Bipartisan approach
The increasingly US presidential-style campaigns that dominate Australian electoral politics are cover for the lack of real choice. Since the federal election date was announced, both parties have been concentrating on "style" and "leadership qualities" of their respective leaders in order to avoid a discussion of the main economic and social issues such as privatisation, protection of the environment and jobs and training for youth. Hence the most contentious issue to date has been the timing and moderator of the "great" debate. Like the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States, Labor and the Coalition are geared to serving the needs of capital. Their common neo-liberal outlook means that their policies are virtually the same, the only difference being the timing. Both parties have pledged to privatise public assets including the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas and, in the case of the Coalition, Telstra (although Labor initiated its corporatisation). Both agree that cutting the budget is key and that this will be achieved by cuts to welfare, and that without greater incentives to capital, the economy will slow too much. This lack of choice has created a major headache for supporters of the two-party system. As young Liberal president Leon Beswick recently bemoaned: "We'll basically have two parties bickering over minute details rather than philosophical viewpoints". While Keating tries to make out that Labor's policies are more socially responsible, and aimed at helping the "battler", this is hollow talk after 13 years of evidence to the contrary. As numerous polls and surveys have shown, Labor's traditional working-class base has eroded considerably since it's been in office. The government needs only a 0.5% two-party preferred swing against it to be removed from office. Out of a total 148 lower house seats up for grabs, 30 Labor-held seats and 25 Coalition-held seats are held by less than 5%. For some months the Coalition has maintained a steady lead in the polls; in the February 5
Bulletin Morgan poll it was 8.5% ahead of Labor. However, this is more by default than anything else. Voters' anger at Labor, and the lack of a mass alternative working-class party to represent and defend workers' interests, could be a major factor in the Coalition's fortunes. While there's an establishment consensus that the two major parties' policies are virtually indistinguishable, it is not perceived as a bad thing — apart from having to put a little more thought into image-making. According to Geoffrey Barker, the
Financial Review's political analyst, "the ideological differences between the Labor and non-Labor sides of politics have narrowed greatly ... National politics will be less about detailed policy alternatives and more about persuading voters that parties and leaders have the strength to lead the nation." However, the ruling class is worried about the unpredictability of, and repercussions from, an increasingly alienated electorate. The same
Bulletin article warned, "The disenchantment of the Australian electorate will prove the greatest challenge for Keating and Howard". Barker, in his January 22 article, "Perils of poll predictions", warns the ruling class about the unpredictability of voters who "are wearing their political allegiances more lightly. Younger voters, especially, are more likely to change sides, producing an increasingly volatile electorate. Swinging voters and voters attracted to small parties and single-issue and independent candidates are increasing in number." Given that Labor's vote is down, preferences from the Greens, the No Aircraft Noise Party and the Australian Women's Party, as well as some single-issue candidates, will be crucial if it is to win its sixth consecutive election.
Money rort
Why is it that smaller parties cannot get beyond the parliamentary margins? It's called the financial gerrymander, another factor which makes the parliamentary system totally undemocratic. Unless you are a millionaire, or are mates with a media magnate or two who is willing to donate up to $25 million to your election campaign, you are more or less excluded from getting a hearing. It's a sad irony that, with cynicism about politicians at an all-time high, the public will be forced to cough up about $34 million towards the 1996 federal elections which, all up, are estimated to cost $100 million! Last year, without a lot of fanfare, the major parties voted in a law which doubled the amount of public funding for candidates receiving more than 4% of the first preference vote. This, together with changes to the legislation covering public disclosure and funding, will mean that the public will be funding more than half of the two major parties' election campaigns. Each party will now receive $34 million of public funding! This compares with $15 million for the 1993 federal election. Needless to say, this rort was stitched up with a minimum of publicity. Among the biggest beneficiaries of this waste of public money will be the advertising agencies, which have obviously had to work overtime to think up such brilliant slogans as the Liberals' "Enough is Enough". However, the crisis of legitimacy currently overshadowing the parliamentary system will not disappear with a few gimmicky advertising clichés. Parliament has long ceased to be the institution where the major decisions affecting people's everyday lives are made. The diminution of parliament's role as the centre of political power coincided with the concentration of capital in the hands of small number of monopoly corporations with interlocking boards of directors. The right to universal adult suffrage — which no longer restricted voting rights to the propertied classes — was unevenly won. (In Australia, the first state to allow women the right to vote was South Australia in 1895, and nationally Aborigines won the right to vote only in 1967.) It became much more convenient to make decisions about improving capital's profits, and squeezing labour for even more surplus value, in company boardrooms rather than parliament, where workers had, for the first time, been able to directly elect their own representatives. The real decisions about the economy are still made in company boardrooms. Labor and the Coalition simply do the capitalist class' bidding by introducing legislation to carry them out. As politicians strive to defend their careers and institutions, the myth that there is no political freedom without parliamentary democracy is being pushed for all it's worth. However, for the majority of people this "formal" democracy actively excludes them from running the state. Our "power" has been restricted to putting a vote into a ballot box every three years. How do we change this? Some parliamentary reforms, such as proportional representation, which has been won in New Zealand, would help to democratise the system. Democrat leader Cheryl Kernot's latest pitch for a code of conduct for politicians, however, is unlikely to do much. New codes, without a change in the power relations, will only amount to window dressing. The problem goes far beyond reforming the electoral system. A large part of the government apparatus, including the police, the army and judges, are never elected and are therefore not accountable. A major factor in the crisis of confidence in the political system is the fact that so many of the people who are supposed to be the guardians of law and order have been found to be criminals who rip off the system. We have to create new institutions of democracy that involve the majority of people. Democracy is not a once-in-three-years exercise, but needs to be active and ongoing. Right now, we have a rotten choice. Both parties defend a system which puts profits before the needs of people and the environment. The only real choice is to start to build a mass movement that can change that.