What can Labor do to earn back voters? It’s a question that will surely arise many times over the next three years. In the meantime, Crikey readers had some suggestions — from party culture to overarching strategy. Elsewhere, readers dug into the ABC’s deafening silence on the Witness K scandal.
On Labor’s next step
Mandy Stefanakis writes: I think we’re putting a lot of pressure on the Labor party to change when in fact what’s really required is for people to change. And people are scared of change, which is why the Libs, despite all their fuck ups, managed to run an incredibly effective scare campaign. Who buys that? Who re-elects Barnaby Joyce, or Pauline Hanson or Peter Dutton with the kind of duplicitous behaviour they have engaged in? What does it take? I worry about the Labor party changing direction and compromising their values when there is not a lot of room for that at this point in history. They chose to run a really clean campaign and were pounded for it. What does that say about our country? Why are we blaming Labor for not being able to herd a pack of mercurial voters?
Merrie Carling writes: I have been a Labor voter all my life. I have joined the party twice and resigned from it twice. I believe Labor needs to get out and talk to the people in the street, not gather together focus groups. They need to sit down and discuss what it is that motivates these people, what causes their lives to be difficult, what would help to make their lives easier. They especially need to talk to parents and grandparents about the climate and discuss their fears for the planet and the future of their children and grandchildren. They need to talk to adolescents who are worried about the climate and what is happening to the earth. They need to explain more clearly why it is important that the very wealthy contribute to creating a fairer society.
Lucille Rogers writes: The only way that Labor will return to power is to form an alliance with the Greens. Together they can work on the transition from mining to the production of non-polluting energy. In Germany the Merkel government set up a body that worked for several years to develop the transition. Groups involved included unions, mining companies, companies developing sustainable energy, training and educational bodies, affected towns and communities including their local officials, small business, employees and employers and the government. By including everyone affected by the transition the possibility of a positive outcome for all is achievable, and most importantly the level of carbon pollution is reduced.
On ABC and the Witness K scandal
Joe Boswell: Bernard Keane repeatedly asserts the ABC is missing in action on the Witness K and Bernard Collaery persecution. The ABC is not in action on this matter. Neither is it missing. We all know where it is and what it is saying. If we must appropriate a military term to describe the ABC’s shocking failure, it is either absent without leave, or it has deserted in the face of the enemy. I’d go for the latter. Perhaps a better word altogether would be derelict: “shamefully negligent of one’s duties or obligations”.
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I am worried we are becoming like the US, with the very rich mouthing neo-liberalism while actually practicing crony capitalism. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people who believe they too can make it and that the poor aren’t trying hard enough. Our sense of civic solidarity and mutual support has been gravely eroded and it will take enormous struggle to recover these, without which the ALP will always be fighting on hostile terrain.
Until humans can find a way to eradicate greed and self interest from the Australian public at large I am afraid the broader principles espoused by the Labor Party and other progressive politicians will never be backed by the majority of Australian voters. After reading about the excessive perks and lurks being handed out to Abbott and other ex PM’s, I thought back to the infamous budget of Abbott and Hockey when they talked about “leaners and lifters and shook my head in bewilderment. “ Poor fellow my country “is an apt description of the situation in this country at this time.
The People of Straya have forfeited the trust of the ‘Labor’ Party and must redouble their efforts to regain it.
In the meantime, a new people will be sort to pretend to be relevant.
AR it will be worse under Albanese, he will be held to the left and further alienate the people who decide elections
The left, you mean he will be communist like Communist China, our greatest trading partner who give us our wealth and prosperity. And that he will think of Climate Change and actually do something about Climate Change as Sydney goes under water restrictions because there is not enough water for Australia’s greatest and biggest city comprising 5 million people.
Are you sure you have not left your Straight-Jacket somewhere.
We are in drought, hence the water restrictions. And BTW how much less water for everyone will there be, if immigration, both legal and illegal, is not kept within realistic bounds?
Immigrants want to come to where the jobs are, the big cities. Sydney is bursting. You have to allow twice the time to get anywhere than you did ten years ago. Madness.
How many, how many, how many?
You ought to know that IPA/Menzies House base the pay of their minions on how much commentary their inane distractions & obfuscations generate and in order to do that they ought to be vaguely sensible or at least semi-sane and relevant to the thread.
Very poor attempt at linkage above – FAIL.
You & the foresnic one need retraining though you both appear to have the indoctrination bit well absorbed.
For one thing Labor will have to stop being so Liberal Party for rich people.
The amazing thing is that right-wing Laborites refuse to see this at all, when they defend the right-wingedness staunchly. There are no engine-drivers at the top of labor any more when the roots of Labor came from labour people like Ben Chifley and labourers and unions. Now, even bankers are in the Labor movement and they debate Franking Credits that half the Labor people have never heard of.
Half the Labor people heard of Franking Credits. Albanese met them in Caboolture and they were going to lose $1250 in franking credits.
When all else fails, self interest always wins. The ALP need to realize this fact. Instead of focusing on the science to convince the voters to tackle climate change, highlight the economic benefits of change. Renewable energy is cheaper, more reliable, and provides more employment than what we have now
The ALP failed because the Coalition were able to turn the dividend imputation policy into a scare campaign, taxing retirees. While major corporations get away with paying no tax, the budget will always struggle to reach surplus. We need to change the basis of company tax–the current system fails the country. We need to change company tax to a turnover tax system. Just think, that a 2% turnover tax on companies like Exxon, Apple, Microsoft, News Corp, etc would raise Billions of dollars per year, and it would be inconceivable that the Coalition would be able to mount a scare campaign
People looked at the high-handed, poorly costed Labour policies and rejected them.
This is a failure of Labour, not the electorate. The majority have had enough of being excoriated for not wanting go with ‘glorious new-world view’ proponents who have been scratching the same old politically-correct scabs for too long.
It’s actually all about the economy…
Some people are hard of hearing. They keep repeating there own argument