Labour vs. Liberal
On my way to work, I’ve begun seeing small examples of political activism: a man dressed in a sack and hood, as in the photos from Abu Ghraib, holding fluorescent anti-Howard posters; chalked graffiti on the sidewalks protesting Howard’s lies. . . . Over the next six weeks, I expect there will be more, but little enough in my neighborhood supporting the present administration, particularly as the area that used to be South Sydney is a traditionally Labour bastion. But what are the differences, you may ask, and the answer may be that, as in the U.S., very little. Gerard Henderson’s political analysis piece in the SMH today says it’s the “little things,” not the big policy issues, that make the difference, pointing to two key areas: foreign policy and industrial relations. Latham would pull Australia out of Iraq and would seek to give more power to the Industrial Relations Commission, which would potentially give unions back an option they’d lost back when Howard was Minister for Business & Consumer Affairs in the 1970’s.

The arguments against pulling out the troops are not limited to the political message sent to the wrong people, but also to Australia’s relationship with the U.S. Kerry would prefer the ADF to stay just as much as Bush, but I have to agree with Latham on this one: Iraq is a foreign adventure Australia probably shouldn’t have supported in the first place. The U.S. throws its weight around a bit much over the ANZUS treaty, and Richard Armitage’s bully-boy tactics put me right off. The U.S. is welcome to cordial relations and even free trade, but Australia isn’t the third world and should be treated with respect. Bush has shown little of that, and Kerry would do well to take notice of Latham gets in.

As for industrial relations, I’m already on record here that I admire the strength of Australia’s organized labor, and it seems to me that there isn’t the problem of corruption that exists in the States. The IRC does a good job, and attempts at gutting workers’ power to effect redress need to be reformed. It’s all well and good to strike a balance between workers and management, but this is better effected by methods such as Latham is proposing, rather than by the legislation Howard implemented.

If these are the only differences between them, then I’m still in favor of a Labour government coming to power, despite dire warnings of fiscal irresponsibility from the past. But I think it’s a simplistic gloss to draw the distinctions only on these two policy matters. Labour and Liberal have a long-standing philosophical divide, one that is quite evident on a daily basis.