I don't really care if the ALP are the worker's party, because I would hazard a guess that the majority of "workers" (whatever that may mean now) do not support progressive social or environmental change. Howard did an amazing job of picking up "battlers".
Vlad, you may be able to define what makes a "worker" now. Obviously it traditionally refers to blue collar workers, but that's an increasingly small percentage nowadays and many of those who remain are conservative, possessing more in common with the social agrarians in the Nationals than anybody else (i.e. they broadly support state ownership of services and a certain degree of welfare but are socially conservative and wary of green politics). So is it still blue collar employment? Is it any field earning a below average wage? Is it the bare fact of being employed rather than an employer, even if you're an urban professional earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? Whatever it is, what is the unifying quality that brings together shared interests? I just don't see it, which is why I am sceptical when people bang on about workers, party of workers, working families, etc.
Broadly relevant to our discussion is this review, announced early thanks to a little slip-up: Massive review into workplace laws to examine penalty rates and the minimum wage
I wonder if this might be just enough to mobilise a wide grouping of people. You just know Tone et al. are frothing at the bit to reduce penalty rates, minimum wages, and workplace conditions in service of whatever irrational agenda, and that will provoke a massive kick back.
I just see it as anyone who is employed by an employer (and yes, that would include those who earn over a hundred grand a year, but due to their income they're more likely to associate themselves on the level of their employers based on their income)..
Touching briefly on the first part of your post, I don't think any political party in the western world, including the Greens, has even the inkling of a clue about a possible future of mass technology-driven unemployment, and what a worthwhile life might look like in that future, and what happens when the protestant work ethic is mugged by reality.
That won't fly when you're talking 30, 40 or 50 per cent of the population as permanently surplus.
It seems no political party even wants to discuss the possibility, let alone come out and say that it accepts the possibility a majority of the population may not need to work. The entire discourse of work frames it as desirable, and until somebody questions that in a way that cuts through and engages a significant amount of the population then nothing will change. I have to wonder if a large part of this comes from the fact many people dislike their work and actively resent anybody not working - even if they have a perfectly good reason to not work, even if the jobs do not exist, even if the person actually contributes more to society outside of conventional employment - so this resentment encourages an insistence that everybody work. "If I'm unhappy then damn it everybody else will be too."
I wonder if we are already seeing this in Europe? I realise that's in countries not experiencing growth, but then that's the other underlying assumption that needs to be debated: should economies always strive for growth? Is growth necessary for a good standard of living? We are so accustomed to growth providing increased standards that it's very hard to conceive of an alternative.
As for your last paragraph, it would make a good plot for a dystopian novel! But yes, I'd say reactive rather than proactive. There is little evidence to suggest most of these people are competent or organised enough to be so farsighted. Individuals may be, but there is an obvious inability for some of these ideological warriors to stick together for long enough to achieve grand ambitions at present.
Fantastic article by Greg Jericho on tax. Seriously, this should be mandatory reading regardless of political opinion: Joe Hockey either doesn't understand how tax works or he is deliberately misleading the public | Australia news | The Guardian
Hell, I must confess even I was essentially ignorant that you only pay the higher tax rate on earnings above the amount required to enter that bracket, and pay the lower tax rate on earnings up to that point. It rang a bell when I read Jericho's piece, but if you'd asked me yesterday morning I wouldn't have identified it.
Yeah I feel pretty fucking outraged and take pleasure in voting against these immoral pricks but I'm not exactly doing much else. I once taught a student who worked at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and I really respected her. I just wish I had the time for that. Or really the ability to do something useful other than posting angry and/or dejected rants to the e-choir. Uuggghhh.
Oh well, history's verdict will be brutal, that much I can tell already and I can be a part of that. It's not much but it's something.
Oh OH and holy shit what about those journos who, at the government's request, are being investigated by the federal police because they dared to tell the public about what's being done in our name to asylum seekers. I mean seriously HOLY FUCKING SHIT that's actually happening.
This piece: I must admit I too was pretty shaky on the exact mechanics of what it means to, for instance, say that someone on $180,000 pays a top marginal rate of 47% (or whatever). Now I get it, and Joe Hockey certainly does too - he is simply a salesman, a spruiker for hire.
In one respect at least, I fear we've gone backward. In the ancient world, even Emperors did not always survive the opprobrium of Byzantium's mob. Kings, great ministers and generals, could and did go to prison or worse. A fate rarely seen in the 'civilised' world nowadays, but I gather not unheard of in China.
It takes a hell of a break to put that kind of conversation on the table. Post-Fitzgerald-Inquiry Queensland, briefly (the window closed around 1991-92, and yes Joh was very, very lucky), for instance.
Now here's a fucking joke: Prince Philip awarded Knight of the Order of Australia by Prime Minister Tony Abbott
I'm not sure what's more unsettling - if Hockey doesn't get it and is therefore grossly unqualified, or if Hockey does get it and is telling straight up lies. There's a world of difference between lying on the one hand, and on the other using spin, vague language, and half-truths. Even Scott Morrison understood that and chose silence over lying.
I suppose it's suited both sides of politics to ensure there are no prosecutions for gross misdeeds while in office. On the other hand, the Libs have been throwing convention out the window right now, such as with providing cabinet papers of their predecessor to inquiries, and it seems they were really hoping for the possibility of laying charges against ALP ministers over the pink batts scandal or union corruption. They better be careful with that, because - even though the asylum seeker disgrace has been bipartisan - you know the ALP would be very swift in seeking revenge. No party does bitter revenge quite like the ALP, as we've seen from enough of their in-fighting.