BY RENFREY CLARKE
ADELAIDE — Throughout five years as a Labor member of South Australia's state parliament, these were the rules Kris Hanna was expected to abide by: stay quiet as party leaders steered the ALP in behind Howard government policies, vie with conservatives in playing for support from the big-business media, and when elections neared, hope the voters would dislike Labor less than its openly conservative rivals.
Finally, Hanna could stomach it no longer. In late January he resigned from the ALP, and applied for membership of the Greens. A special state conference of the SA Greens was due to consider his application on February 1.
"I won't stand by idly with an ALP badge on while they act like a Liberal government", was Hanna's parting shot to his former colleagues.
Several issues had played a particular role in disillusioning Hanna with the ALP leadership. Last August, he told Green Left Weekly, he was appalled by moves to amend insurance legislation to limit compensation payments to injured people — a change that would have the direct effect of increasing insurance company profits.
Then there was the issue of asylum seekers, on which Hanna could see little difference between the ALP's policy and that of the Howard government. Again and again, Labor was abandoning the people who most needed representation, while pandering to xenophobic prejudice.
"You hear them talk tough on locking people up for longer", Hanna observed to the Adelaide Advertiser, "while funds are cut from community crime prevention and prisoner rehabilitation programs.
"Even last year's election promises are under a shadow: this year, they will be talking about massive cuts to the public hospital system.
"They also plan 'public/private partnerships', which means privatisation from the beginning instead of selling off government assets."
From about November, Hanna began putting his views with increasing bluntness. The response from the ALP machine was furious. "I got cracked over the knuckles for breaking the code of silence on refugees, the war with Iraq and civil liberties."
Since quitting Labor, Hanna has rejected a call from federal ALP leader Simon Crean for him to resign from the seat he won as a Labor candidate. People who voted for him because they wanted a Labor state government, Hanna points out, will still have one, because he will support the government on questions of confidence.
Meanwhile, he poses the question: Who has really abandoned the values and philosophy of Labor's traditional supporters — Kris Hanna, or the ALP leadership?
The links between the Labor Party and working people have been breaking down for many years, Hanna told GLW. "The culture of the ALP has changed. It's become a conservative centrist party."
Hanna believes there is widespread backing for his stand among residents of his electorate of Mitcham, in Adelaide's southern suburbs. In the state elections of 1997 and 2002, he achieved well-above-average swings of 10.5% and 4.7% — evidence, he believes, of a strong personal vote tied directly to the reputation he already possessed for supporting progressive causes.
Now, he relates, he is "really thrilled" by many messages of support he has received from current and former ALP members.
From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003.
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