The federal election on March 13 is not going to decide very much. The direction of government policy in Australia will be very much the same regardless of whether Liberals or Labor are the next government.
That direction is the one that has been followed for the past 10 years of Labor government. Briefly summarised, it involves the transfer of wealth to business — at the expense of workers, of the poor, of those least able to defend themselves and of the environment.
Despite their best efforts over the last year, Paul Keating and John Hewson have not been able to establish any major substantive differences in their policies: it is symptomatic of the whole campaign farce that Labor's main attack against the Liberals is over a sales tax (the GST) that Keating tried unsuccessfully to introduce in 1985.
The only real difference between the two parties is over how rapidly they think it is safe to continue impoverishing the lives of most of us for the benefit of the few. For this reason, many people will put Labor ahead of the Liberals in their preferences — not with any enthusiasm, but choosing the lesser of two evils.
But we need to look at this election with the understanding that there are more important questions than whether it's the Liberals or Labor who bash us for the next three years. By far the more important question is: how can we get out of this dilemma, where our only "choice" is between two governments both opposed to our interests?
That is: can we make use of this period to spur the building of something better than a lesser evil?
Green Left Weekly was founded two years ago on the premise that it is possible to win increasing support for the idea of an ecologically sustainable, socially just society.
In the present election, there are a number of candidates offering themselves as alternatives on the progressive side of the spectrum. They include independents, Democrats, Greens in varying degrees of agreement or disagreement with each other, and socialists.
In general (and not only in election periods), Green Left encourages any attempt to take a stand more green and left than that of the ALP. From that standpoint, we wish all such candidates well, and we will do our best to provide readers with information about these campaigns.
But we will do this from the standpoint of the central question: building a strong alternative beyond the election, which we think is a green, left alternative. There should be no illusions that any progressive/green group or combination of groups and individuals is going to emerge from the election with a "balance of power". Aside from the fact that parliamentary "power" is mostly illusory compared to the real power of money and the state, such a "balance" is impossible because Labor and the Coalition are not opposed to each tial; any progressive/green elected is going to be in a small minority against a Labor-Coalition majority.
Building an ongoing alternative requires another kind of realism as well: the recognition that no single group has the potential to solve all the problems that confront us. "In unity is strength" is as true today as it ever was, and the fact that there is a multiplicity of tickets instead of a united green/progressive ticket is a weakness that will be overcome, we hope, in the not distant future.