BY BOB AIKEN AND RON POULSEN
SYDNEY, Australia-Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party, an
incipient fascist outfit contesting its first federal
election, made the biggest gains in elections in Australia
October 3, winning just over 8 percent of the vote nationally.
The sharpened political polarization was shown in the support for One Nation across the country. The vote for the ultrarightists was highest in rural and provincial areas and outskirts of the main cities. One Nation took almost 15 percent in Queensland, down from its 23 percent vote in the June state elections but enough to win one of the six Senate seats up for election there.
The nascent fascist formation also won almost 10 percent of the vote in the most populous state, New South Wales. One Nation leaders immediately announced a campaign for the state elections there scheduled for March 1999. Hanson's party will get A$3 million (US$1.8 million) in federal funding as a result of its showing in the national elections.
Despite a sharp drop in support for the Liberal-National coalition as One Nation surged, the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard was returned to office.
Antilabor offensive meets resistance
Howard called the polls before the end of his first three-
year term amid gathering storm clouds of the world capitalist
depression, and in the face of deepening resistance to his
government's offensive against the union movement, social
welfare, and Aboriginal land rights. Waterfront workers in the
Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) dealt a blow to the bosses'
antiunion drive in a major battle in April and May of this
year. Winning widespread support, wharfies employed by
Patrick, one of two main stevedoring companies in Australia,
blocked a joint company-government attempt to sack the
unionized workforce and drive the MUA from the docks.
The central plank of the Coalition's election campaign was the introduction of a broad-based consumption tax, the Goods and Services Tax (GST), sweetened by promised income tax reductions aimed at middle class families. The GST, along with the announcement of further antiunion laws have become key to the Coalition plans to deepen its offensive on working people.
The coalition of the two main capitalist parties, Liberal and National, against the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has been an institution in bourgeois politics since World War II. These parties' direct vote fell from 47 percent at the last election in March 1996 to just under 40 percent this time. The ALP, which needed to win an additional 27 seats to take office again, picked up 18 seats as its vote rose from 39 to 41 percent. The social democratic vote increased mainly in working-class areas, as union supporters rallied to oppose the Howard government.
The ALP had previously held office from 1983 to 1996 under prime ministers Robert Hawke and Paul Keating, who presided over an "accord" between the government, top union officials, and business leaders. This class-collaborationist pact was aimed at binding the union movement to helping boost Australian big-business profits and competitiveness on the world market. It saw a marked decline in union mobilizations, real wages, and social benefits.
The ALP's main slogan in the elections was "Jobs not GST." Its leader, Kim Beazley, promised to cut unemployment from its current level of 8 percent to 5 percent within six years.
In an attempt to cut Hanson out of the electoral arena, the Liberal Party and most National candidates joined the chorus of the major dailies, the ALP, and minor pro-capitalist parties to put One Nation last in preferential voting. In federal and state elections in Australia, voters number the candidates on the ballot in order of preference. As lower- polling candidates are eliminated, these "preferences" are added up until one candidate has a majority.
Hanson topped the poll for the new House of Representatives seat of Blair, west of Brisbane, with 36 percent of the primary vote, but with a "preference" total of 48 percent she failed to win election. She will continue to function as the national leader of One Nation.
Fight for Aboriginal rights
Along with an increase in defensive battles by unions,
protests against Hanson's racist attacks on Aborigines and
Asian immigrants have been at the center of Australian
politics over the last two years. These antiracist protests,
recently spearheaded by thousands of high school students,
have dovetailed with protests against Howard's legislation to
gut Aboriginal native title rights.
Howard's campaign trail was dogged by protesters against the Jabiluka uranium mine being developed on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory. Several thousand protested the mine on October 2, election eve, in Melbourne.
Resistance has also grown in the Northern Territory where Aborigines led a campaign for a "no" vote in a referendum on statehood held along with the election. The Country Liberal Party (CLP) government in the Northern Territory, which had sponsored the proposal, was stunned when it was defeated 53-47 percent.
The rightist CLP government is moving to break up the two main Aboriginal Land Councils in the Territory against the wishes of Aboriginal people there, and has already moved to restrict native title negotiating rights using new federal laws passed July 8.
Earlier this year Aboriginal representatives walked out of the official Statehood Convention in protest of its refusal to recognize indigenous rights.
In August, more than 700 Aborigines from across the Territory met at their own Constitutional Convention at Kalkaringi. Among the demands they put forward were the recognition of their right to self-government and the repeal of mandatory sentencing laws. Aborigines make up around a quarter of the population in the Northern Territory.
Economy on verge of recession
The domestic economy is already on the verge of recession
under the impact of the global financial crisis and the
slowing world economy, especially in Australian imperialism's
key Asian markets.
This slowdown has being sharpened by overproduction and intensified competition in world markets for the main exports of Australian capitalism, from coal and metal ores to wheat and wool. The resultant fall in commodity prices triggered a sharp slide in the value of the Australian dollar relative to the U.S. currency in recent months.
There is growing concern among the multimillionaire families who rule Australia over the weakened conservative government amidst this growing international economic and political turmoil. This was shown in the lukewarm endorsement for Howard's return in the editorial columns of the capitalist dailies.
In its election-eve editorial the Sydney Morning Herald endorsed the return of a coalition government. But it scored Howard's first term in office as "a wasted opportunity to move ahead with structural change, industrial relations reform and improvements in public sector efficiency" - in other words, to deepen the bosses' offensive against working people. Howard "is no national leader" the Herald declared, calling for a change in Coalition leadership. The Australian likewise condemned Howard's cabinet as "an administration characterized by indecision or lack of thought," such as the "ultimate debacle over waterfront reform," referring to the failed attempt to bust the MUA.
After the election the Australian Financial Review concluded, "There is now a real question mark over the capacity of both sides of mainstream politics... [in] not just winning elections but actually governing the country well in increasingly difficult and complex times."
Bob Aiken is a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. Ron Poulsen is a member of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia.