Labor goes pragmatic

Their "principles" are totally rubbery. Power is all that really matters to them

"Envy is dead," Labor's NSW secretary Mark Arbib has declared as the party attempts to shake off the class-war mistakes of the Crean-Latham era and reposition itself for government. In a rare public analysis of Labor's electoral failures, Mr Arbib has described what he calls "a huge change in the dynamic" as former blue-collar workers turn away from unions and become independent contractors, with no rusted-on political allegiances. "They think, 'I'm running a business, I want to keep going up the ladder, so who's the best party for business, who's the best for managing the economy, and who's the best party for aspiration?'," Mr Arbib said. "The truth is now, especially in Sydney, that envy is dead. There's really little personal envy between people living in different parts of the city."

Mr Arbib says the Howard-Costello tax cuts created little electoral reaction, "the reason being that in a lot of cases people are saying that if you're earning over $125,000 you're paying private health insurance, you're probably sending your kid to a private school, you're paying a huge amount of tax - why shouldn't they get a big tax cut? "And the truth is that most of these people who are earning $50K, $60K, $70K or $80,000 all want to be earning $120,000, and think that one day they'll get there. So therefore many are happy to see tax cuts at the higher end. And they're not envious of it - they just want to be there themselves."

Mr Arbib's comments, which contrast dramatically with the disastrous "politics of envy" campaign in the lead-up to the last federal election, are contained in a new book, Reconnecting Labor, a series of interviews with Labor luminaries and party faithful by former journalist and ALP staffer Barry Donovan. Discussing the changes Labor needs to make to get back into government, Mr Arbib says the Liberal Party has understood the aspirational "McMansions" changes in society a lot better than Labor, and on the issue of education he concedes "many families nowadays would like to send their kids to a private school because they believe it will give their kids a better start in life".

Reconnecting Labor - one of several books dealing with the state of the federal ALP - was launched yesterday by Julia Gillard, touted as a future leader, who said: "It is said if sharks don't swim they die, but if progressive forces don't debate ideas, then they may as well die." She said there was a "lively debate within Labor about what our traditional values are, whether we are honouring those values, or whether in truth we have sold them out". To laughter, she quoted Groucho Marx: "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them ... well, I have others."

Source

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