GEORGE GEORGES was for many years a Labor senator for Queensland. In a long career in the ALP, he became a major voice of the party's left wing. But Georges also distinguished himself as an activist outside the party — he was renowned for his commitment to civil liberties during the Joh Bjelke-Petersen years; he is a leader of the peace and nuclear disarmament movement, active in trade union struggles such as the 1985 SEQEB dispute and a long-time campaigner for animal rights. After resigning from the Labor Party in 1987 and thereafter contesting — and losing — his Senate seat as an independent, Georges has recently rejoined the ALP. DAVE RILEY interviewed him for Green Left Weekly on what prompted him to return to the party he had rejected seven years previously.
Our initial discussion centred on the reasons for his resignation. Georges had voted against the legislation that outlawed the Builders' Labourers Federation on the grounds that it was contrary to ALP policy to intervene in the internal affairs of a trade union.
"I argued that the rest of the party was in breach of ALP policy", he said, "and I wasn't at all. I received a suspension. I think they would have liked to expel me at that stage, but there was outrage throughout the union movement at that possibility, so I escaped expulsion."
Georges was suspended for six months. Following his suspension, the party continued to do things that Georges strongly objected to. "Rank and file members of the party were completely disenfranchised by the factions and by cabinet solidarity. The members of the caucus had very little say — the decisions were made by the government of the day. So it was a hopeless situation to go into a caucus meeting and argue because no-one was listening."
When the party decided to sell uranium to France at a time when France was continuing its nuclear program in the Pacific, Georges felt that this too was contrary to ALP policy.
"I didn't take a stand on that at the time mainly because there was a state election on and a few left-wing members of the party were struggling in marginal seats. I decided to play it easy at that time."
The crunch came when the government decided to support the ID card. "I strongly objected to that, as I considered that the universal identification of citizens played into the hands of the law enforcement agencies." While the ID card was motivated by the party as supposedly picking up tax cheats, Georges argued that it would pick up the innocent as well.
"So I opposed the legislation and in opposing that I put myself in a position of being expelled. Virtually, that is what they said to me at the time: that if you do not resign by the following Tuesday, you'll be expelled.
"I decided that I preferred to resign. I could have fought it, but by that time I was tired and dispirited. I insisted on resigning at my own branch, and I did that by the Tuesday.
"That sort of behaviour on the part of the party made it very difficult for me to work within the labour movement. When I attended a function to support an issue like East Timor, I had to apologise for and try to explain away the position the party had taken. I found it very difficult and it was put to me: why do you stay? Even my family began to ask me: why do you stay?
"So when it came to making a decision as to whether to vote against the ID card, I knew it would lead to either my expulsion or my resignation. I had no hesitation in doing that. However, it was a mistake.
"It was a mistake in that I withdrew from a decision-making position in the party — difficult as it may have been. From then on, I had no role to play within the Labor Party except through my friendship with members of the left of the party who still regarded me as one of themselves. But it was a wrong decision because it ran contrary to the advice I had handed out to everyone in the past: Don't leave. Stay. Fight within it. You can't fight from without."
Georges found it very difficult to fight from outside the Labor Party. "Nothing emerged in the labour movement — although there were several attempts — to fill the vacuum created by the Labor Party moving to the right and taking up the conservative ground ...
"The attempt at a new left party foundered, and there didn't seem to be any other way. Possibly it is my fault for not taking a more positive position. All my contacts, all my influence and all my ability to work rested within the Labor Party, and it was difficult to work from without. Finally, when the left of the Labor Party came under increasing pressure within Queensland and as it started to break apart under a variety of influences, I just took the view that no-one could afford to be out of the struggle, so I rejoined."
Georges found it difficult getting back in, because certain sections of the party opposed his readmission. The party's Administrative Committee referred the matter to the state conference, which decided that he could not rejoin until the end of conference.
"If I had been a member on the floor of the conference, it would have been difficult for some of the people who voted against the left to do so. I also would have nominated for one or two key positions in the party organisation, and they didn't want that so they disenfranchised me until the end of conference. So I really lost three years before I could become effective again."
Georges believes that if anything can be done, it must be done from within the ALP. "The Labor Party has been hijacked by the Hawkes and Keatings and their supporters. The only chance is to wrench the party away from their grasp. And that can only happen by strengthening the left of the ALP.
"There seems to be a movement back into the Labor Party from among the people who have left over the years. The Labor Party succeeded in losing many of its most active members, especially those of the left. There was a great shedding of people through a process of people being so disgusted and frustrated that they didn't resign from the party, they just didn't renew their ticket. But there has started to emerge a move back into the party, and I think I may have been part of that feeling."
Georges recognises that the left's task is not an easy one. "You need to pull back into the Labor Party as many leftists as you can possibly put your hands on. You drag them in. You convince them. You have to deal with their disbelief when you approach them, because they have really had a gutful of what the party has done."
However, Georges believes that the ALP left cannot compete with the right by stacking branches. "The left must make certain that the people that they enrol in the party — to participate in left activity within the party — should be politically aware. Now, they are far fewer than the thousands of people who will just join the party because they were approached by somebody or are induced by other reasons. So the left cannot go into competition on the stacking, because it will water down its own position.
"What the left must continue to do is maintain a quality of membership of the left. It must go out and get those who are politically active and aware, those who are socialists — because the left still considers the party to be a socialist party, despite the compromises that have been introduced. And if there are no socialists there, go out and encourage people to become part of a socialist program."
But Georges recognises the problem the left has in sustaining its position. "When the party is in government, the first victim happens to always be the left. The voice of opposition is muted on practically every issue. East Timor, uranium mining, environmental issues etc are contained by the need to maintain and keep government.
"The reality has been that you lose as much ground when you are in government as you do when you are in opposition — in fact, more ground, because it is easier for the Labor Party government to deregulate the economy and financial system. It is easier for the Labor government to dismantle workers' conditions than it is for the conservative parties.
"This is why we have reached the danger point. Having gone through the process of dismantling our policies we are now at the complete mercy of the conservative parties when they win government."
He sees "a tremendous amount of wheeling and dealing that goes on which leads to the containment of the militant voice of the left. Anyone who wants advancement within the parliamentary party has to mute their objections. It would be better if the left did not seek ministerial positions."
Even the endorsement of candidates is fraught with danger. "One could say that that is the first part of how you begin to compromise because the same arrangement occurs now for the endorsement of candidates — the arrangement between factions to deal with the endorsement of seats. To achieve parliamentary representation leads to compromise, and that compromise can be damaging to the militant wing of the party."
So how does the militant wing know that it is winning? "It can only win by its representation on the conference floor in terms of policies. It can only win when, having established policies at the conference level, it has the power and the unity to demand that these policies be carried out."
Georges points out bluntly that he is projecting at least a 10-year program of rebuilding the left of the ALP. "They have got us to the point where the only way socialists can improve the situation is to recapture the Labor Party and to re-establish its socialist policies. There is long, hard work ahead. You cannot accept that at any time you have passed the point of no return."