Is Kevin Rudd a new Menzies?

August 28, 2007 on 9:20 pm | In Uncategorized |

I was underwhelmed by Labor’s latest instalment in its IR policy announced today (I posted about it at Surfdom). However it got me thinking about a more fundamental thread running through Kevin Rudd’s leadership of the ALP: he’s declared war on the unions.

Now it’s nothing new for leading ALP figures to acknowledge the problems caused by the unions having so much influence in the Party. Bob Hawke took on the BLF and the Pilots’ Federation. Paul Keating enthusiastically championed the decline of centralised wage fixing. Simon Crean invested considerable time and energy in restructuring the Party, albeit to little effect.

It’s possible that Kevin Rudd is simply carrying on this tradition and being careful to distance himself from the unions to minimise the impact of the tiresome ‘union bosses’ chanting mouthed by Howard’s mob. However it’s also possible that he sees clearly what needs to be done to recast Labor as a viable political force for the next 20 years, and his vision doesn’t include much of a role for trade unions.

It makes sense. Just as Menzies in the 1940s saw that there were a lot of Australians who didn’t feel that their interests were represented by any of the parties of the day, so Rudd might feel that many contemporary Australians are alienated from politics because they can’t stand Howard’s mob but also feel little empathy with a party like Labor, identified so closely with outdated notions of class warfare and fighting for wage justice. Gordon Brown is apparently toying with the same thoughts in the UK.

Rudd’s behaviour is consistent with that of a man who is intent on driving the unions out of their own party. It’s kind of a political party equivalent of a management buyout. If he can hang on to the leadership while breaking the unions’ hold on the Party, he could fashion a genuinely centre-right progressive party that would leave the Libs floundering as an extremist voice, powerless at state level and increasingly sidelined in Canberra. Sure a lot of disaffected unionists would drift to minor parties (although we’re probably talking in the tens of thousands, not the millions) but it’s not like they’d start voting conservative.

It’s still hard to read Kevin Rudd, but he just might be a man with enough vision and determination to tackle such a long-term strategic challenge. We always tend to fall into the trap of thinking that the status quo will continue indefinitely but even a passing familiarity with history demonstrates that change occurs frequently and unexpectedly. The current alignment of political forces isn’t set in stone in Australia. Someone like Rudd might just be the man to revitalise politics by forging a genuinely new party out of the somewhat ramshackle ALP.

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  1. I believe that Unions are more comfortable with Labor not in power. There is a lot to be said for breaking the nexus between labor and the Unions. It would not be the end of the if this happened, both would become stronger if this happened.

    Comment by Florence Howarth — August 29, 2007 #

  2. Interesting thoughts.

    Another thing about looking at the historical long-term… it seems to me, that whatever you might want to call ‘the left’ has had its high-water moments in government, in the wake of the kind of disasters that make people sit up and pay attention. The Great Depression. The Second World War (to a much lesser extent, the First World War).

    I don’t wish for another such calamity, although it’s probably coming anyway. In the meantime, it really does seem like centre-right is the way of the present, anyhow.

    Can’t say I’m thrilled with that, but I also do recognise that there is a difference between centre-right and toxic Right.

    As for whether Rudd will be another Menzies in that party building sense, who knows. But things will change. One thing is going to happen for sure, the National Party will cease to exist at some point. Its death is prematurely announced quite often, but eventually it will be for real. Even so, rural Australia is not going to just disappear. People still live there, probably always will. So wither those people? Embracing the extreme Christian Right like they do in the depressed country towns of America? Or something better?

    Point being there, that the Liberals wouldn’t be sitting near as comfortably without their Coalition. Which also perhaps shouldn’t be regarded as ‘for all time’.

    Comment by Kieran — August 29, 2007 #

  3. “Sure a lot of disaffected unionists would drift to minor parties (although we’re probably talking in the tens of thousands, not the millions) but it’s not like they’d start voting conservative.”

    What about the CFMEU, Tasmania 2004?

    Comment by Steve Goldsmith — August 30, 2007 #

  4. Tasmania 2004 was a very different situation. Specific local issue and workers believed the Coalition’s position benefited them more than Labor’s.

    No matter how disappointed unions or workers might be in Rudd’s IR policy, they’re hardly likely to think the Coalition’s is better.

    Comment by Administrator — August 30, 2007 #

  5. People who might vote for the National Party will probably vote for the Liberal Party, as many do when given the chance (witness the Liberal Party winning Farrer, Murray and Indi in the last few decades).

    I seriously think that it would be positive if trade unions were structurally removed from the ALP. While some people say that business has an intrinsic input into public policy and having workers’ representative organisations structurally part of a politically party in one political party helps even that up, I am unconvinced.

    As far as I can tell, it is not positive to have one sectional interest group having such a large influence on one of the major political parties. The structural influence of this sectional interest group can distort policy making, let alone its systemic influence on the natures of the individuals that come through the political party as candidates for public office.

    Comment by Sacha — September 1, 2007 #

  6. I should add - it is entirely possible that under a leader, a political party may effectively remove the structural influence of a sectional interest group while not removing the form of its influence. Indeed, one could argue that many of the decisions of the Hawke/Keating govt reflected this.

    There may be relatively easy ways to reform the ALP - e.g.
    (i) requiring that delegates to its conferences from trade unions be directly elected by that union’s members by proportional representation. This would stop the blocs of delegates being seen as blocs of votes.
    (ii) requiring that delegates from the membership be directly elected by the membership by proportional representation. Currently in NSW, the default is that intermediate bodies (state electorate councils and federal electorate councils) elect the delegates - although federal electorate councils can decide that the membership elect the delegates.

    Comment by Sacha — September 1, 2007 #

  7. Both (i) and (ii) put greater influence in union and party members as opposed to higher-up people, which can only be positive.

    Comment by Sacha — September 1, 2007 #

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