I have discovered a new online magazine, The New City.
The New City is the joint project of Jeremy Gilling, John Muscat and Rolly Smallacombe (all blokes), and its stated aim is to
foster critical thinking and debate on contemporary public issues, including the future of the Australian labour movement and the disproportionate exercise of political, economic and cultural power by inner-city interests on urban planning and national, state and local politics.
The cliche about “inner-city interests” gives one clue to the content of The New City. So does the involvement of John Muscat, a close collaborator of Michael Thompson in the latter’s manifesto for Howard, Labor Without Class.
The message of The New City is predictable. Labor’s only hope is to move right and embrace a combination of the socially conservative prejudices of the right wing of the party’s Right, and the revanchist anti-environmentalism embodied by the Australian Workers Union and the Forestry Division of the CFMEU. It is an article of faith with these people that their prejudices are shared by the working class.
Within this master frame, particular obsessions of The New City include:
* the superior virtue of western Sydney residents and routine workers over inner-city Sydney residents and tertiary educated professionals;
* the evils of childcare and the superior virtues of stay-at-home mothers;
* greenhouse denialism;
* promotion of uranium mining as the magic bullet for climate change (this, juxtaposed to the last point, brings to mind a comment by Anthony Albanese that “some of those who argue for nuclear energy to combat climate change, in the very next sentence question the very existence of climate change!”);
* the rank and file ALP membership are unrepresentative swill because they elected Carmen Lawrence as National ALP President;
* cars and urban sprawl are good, whilst urban planning and urban environmental protection are bad.
The New City is clear about who its goodies are. Predictable Labor heroes include as Martin Ferguson, Michael Thompson, Peter Walsh, the CFMEU Forestry Division and Gary Johns. But the list of non-Labor goodies is perhaps more revealing - Ray Evans (ex of the H. R. Nicholls Society in his current role as Director of the Lavoisier Group of greenhouse denialists), Angela Shanahan, Miranda Devine, P. P. McGuinness, Frank Furedi, Mark Steyn, Alan Moran, Michael Duffy, Katherine Betts, William Kininmonth, Bob Carter, Ian Plimer, Bjorn Lomborg (who New City thinks is an economist) and a couple of US anti-enviromentalists from Reason Online, whose motto is “Free Minds, Free Markets!”
The New City’s baddies include “self righteous but self-serving inner-city action groups”, Tanya Plibersek, Anthony Albanese, Lindsay Tanner, John Button, John Faulkner, Carmen Lawrence, Peter Botsman and various Labor-aligned think-tanks. It doesn’t appear to include any Liberal Party politicians, bad corporate citizens, bad employers or religious Rightists. One wonders what John Button has done to make the list: he was a pro-development Industry Minister in the last Federal Labor government who hardly distinguished himself for economic leftism or social progressivism. That Button can be ranked by New City as a trendy leftist says less about him than it does about New City and its authors.
The New City’s Links column is also intriguing reading, providing links to News Weekly (published by the National Civic Council), the Australian Family Association (an NCC front group), the Institute of Public Affairs, Quadrant magazine, the Daily Telegraph (but nothing from the Fairfax Press), the Sydney Institute, the Centre for Independent Studies (some at the CIS would be genuinely embarrassed at being embraced by this mob), and a range of greenhouse denialist and anti-environment sites including Climate Change Issues, JunkScience, Reason Online, the Lavoisier Group and the Manhattan Institute.
We have known for a while that there is a current within the Labor Party which is far more hostile to most people in and around the Labor Party and the broad left than it is to the Coalition parties and their supporters, or even to far-right outfits such as One Nation and the NCC. It is nonetheless sobering to see it confirmed and stamped home in triplicate.
Interesting list of alliances. A lot of tension there. Reason’s libertarians would not get along with the likes of Angela Shanahan and Michael Duffy, I suspect. And to muddy the waters further, there is no necessary relationship between greenhouse denialism and economic liberalism (exhibit 1 - I nominate my humble self, exhibit 2 - the Chicago school’s Richard Posner).
That lot might attract a few votes - better kill them off quick smart!
Paul, you are losing your touch - they are obviously going after the voters that left the ALP for One Nation and then went to the Libs.
“there is no necessary relationship between greenhouse denialism and economic liberalism”
Indeed not, Jason. In Australia many of the most ardent greenhouse deniers are outrageous mercantilists and rent-seekers (or rent-retainers).
Michael Thompson’s book was a tad Third Way influenced (and distinguished by appallingly bad social and psephological analysis). I reviewed it for the Journal of Sociology. I take it they’ve dropped the Third Way stuff now? The Three Lane Highway?
Is awful web design a badge of honour to prove you’re not an inner city latte leftie?
“Rolly Smallacombe”?
Let’s see how far they get with Mar’n Ferguson as their hero.
You could add Ferguson to that list, Naomi.
Looks like a pretty solid program to me. If Labor wants to get back into government, it has to take votes off Howard, not the Dems or the Greens. This could be the way to do it.
Except, Rob, that there’s no evidence that the workers are necessarily hostile to environmental causes, as I think Paul has pointed out before. I’m sure he can refer you to the relevant research.
There’s little doubt in my mind that this “journal” is astroturf. It’s a front. Look, as JS suggested, at its lists of allies. Is it really what it purports to be?
Well, can’t they get their developer mates to front up for some decent web design? Yikes!
Oh hang on, Mark already said that. More or less.
It’s hard to refute the the logic that says Labor has to stake a convincing claim for the middle ground if it’s to win back Howard’s battlers.
Where’s Labor now? Nowhere. How many here would give Labor a ghost of chance at the next election? True it is that some of this is poor leadership. There’s talent a-plenty on the front bench but we seldom get to see it.
But that’s not all. Labor has to find a position that appeals to middle Australia. That’s not palatable to the Left, but it’s an inexorable fact of electoral reality.
As I see it, that’s what these guys are trying to do.
But where’s the evidence that middle Australia is against public transport and all for no holds barred development or whatever this mob are banging on about? As opposed to assertion…
“Looks like a pretty solid program to me.”
The obvious problem being that it’s already taken. Presumably people who want Howard’s policies will vote for Howard.
Jason…I see you nominate yourself as “exhibit 1″. Point taken. But do you have any links for those such as me who haven’t been around this corner of the blogosphere long enough to see how a purely libertarian stance translates into meaningful action to combat global warming?
Just curious.
See here for example, Pingu
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2004/12/global_warming.html
Rob:
ALP vote up as Beazley’s rating lifts:
Polls, shmolls. The only poll that counts is the one that’s taken on election day. I find those figures pretty hard to believe. Labor hardly has a public profile these days, except for bitching and backstabbing.
An interesting post, Paul. My first reaction (that they were merely ultra right) was that Labor ought to be a broad enough church to accommodate views which diverge significantly from mine.
But second thoughts are more worrying. I mean, with friends like Devine, McGuinness and Duffy, who needs enemies? And how on earth did Button, who almost has Barry Jones status, make the baddies list? Even Lindsay Tanner, who has the personal misfortune to be aligned to the Left factions, has always seemed pretty much into new economics and ideas. Why is he a baddy?
I guess my main concern is why I (who have lived in country Victoria for 20 years) have to cop the label of inner suburban latte lefty just because of the views I hold. My neighbour, a National Party voter (or Lib when there is no Nat) is xenophobic, sexist, homophobic and racist. He holds views somewhat to the right of Pauline Hanson. He is well aware of my views, even saying he’d vote for me if I stood for public office. This is because he has more faith in the individuals than ideology. Believe it or not, we get on quite well -something to do with trust and integrity.
My main concern with this bunch is that they don’t attempt to become a new Groupers movement.
Rob, I think these polls are less about Labor’s lack of public profile and more about unwelcome attention for the Liberal’s.
I think Mark’s spot on when he effectively asks, what is the middle ground? There might be a case for a centre encompassing greenhouse denialism and a deep faith in Nuclear. But if this centre does exist, I think it is largely a consequence of a decade of the Howard government defining the agenda. I wouldn’t bet on it lasting. And if I was a Labor politician I wouldn’t resign myself to satisfying the ‘new city’ constinuency at the expense of all else.
The group seems to me to contain at least two main political groups. Liberal supporters who want a bet each way and stalwart Labor people who want a drift to the right for a combination of practical and ideological reasons. This leaves me with 2 questions.
1) Given that the right factions of the labor party are already in a strong postion, what is the significance of their mobilising in this way? and 2) Echoing Prof Quiggin, what can they offer (or believe in) that distinguishes them from the Liberals?
Oh, and Don, that last bit (trust and integrity) could be the basis of a heck of a pitch to the ‘middle ground’ voter.
michael, I think it way over-states the power of politicans to say that Howard ’sets the agenda’. He reads the public mood, and keeps his finger on the pulse. That’s his genius. If anything, it’s the people that set Howard’s agenda.
Good heavens .
Michael G, Rob
You’re like bloody Hanrahan - no matter how good the rains, no matter how high the polls you still see the dust beneath the nodding fields ofwheat
Just face reality. The Howard government like all the other governments that were going to rule for ever (Blair, Wran, Hawke, Bush ) are starting to sink into the mire of cronyism, laziness, corruption and self-contradictariness that comes after 10 years in power.
JWH has been cleverer than most but like all things, he will pass.
And how much public pulse exists about nuclear energy, Rob?
OK, Rob,I overstated but i think you definitely understate.
And Andrew, i’m not sure where you’re coming from. I subscribe to a milder version of your theory.
The “Age” poll that Don Wigan cites above also once again confirms that a clear majority of voters support Big Government ahead of tax cuts. I think Labor should go to the next federal election with a bold and visionary infrastructure program.
Personally I admire the Nordic Model where government accounts for 45% to 50% of GDP. It annoys me that we hear so very little about the successes of social democracy in the Scandinavian countries.
Michael G
Mainly that no matter how well Labor does in the polls, it is still stated that they cannot win government, which seems to grow out of the “Howard is a genius” idea.
Even when he makes the most monumental blunders, the prevailing feeling is “JWH moves in mysterious ways,his wonders to perform” .
IR really really hurts a lot of people and scares the crap out them. Those who aren’t personally affected fear for their kids. And John Howard is tied to that totally.
And if the last 10 years has shown nothing else, the Australian voters do not like pollies who make them scared for themselves and their families.
Andrew, I think Howard is the closest we have to a political genius. He even manages to use his blunders tactically.If he’s got the stones he’s got the ability to extinguish I.R. However geniuses can definitely lose elections, Howard’s come close in the past. Labor can win.
Other than that, I think we’re well Off Topic. You might like to talk with Aussie Bob over at surfdom.
Andrew, Mainly that no matter how well Labor does in the polls, it is still stated that they cannot win government
Complex systems have a habit of becoming self-dampening and resist outside inputs which may change their state. The good news for labor (both major parties really) is that the system has a slow oscillation. So opposition party patience will eventually be rewarded with government.
Jeremy Gilling (via Naomi):
“Why is it that this call for the ALP to abandon its links with knowledge workers and return to its roots as a party for routine workers being spearheaded by … knowledge workers?”
This reminds me of George Orwell’s comment in 1937 on the comparable phenomenon of “bourgeois baiting” in the British labour movement: “It is largely hum-bug, coming as it does from bourgeois-baiters who are bourgeois themselves…”.
Don Wigan:
“My main concern with this bunch is that they don’t attempt to become a new Groupers movement.”
What they are on about is the ALP reinventing itself as the DLP, a strategy which will end up with the ALP matching the DLP’s share of the vote (which was always somewhat less than the Greens are currently polling).
On the question of what the punters are actually thinking, the Australian Election Study (2004) found that:
* 40.2% of voters think that equal opportunities for women have not gone far enough, compared to 9.9% who think it has gone too far;
* 87.7% agree that stronger measures should be taken to protect the environment from pollution, compared to 2.9% who disagree;
* 83.2% of voters regard the logging of forests as either a “fairly urgent”, “urgent” or “very urgent” environmental concern; and [drum roll, please]
* 89.1% of voters regard the greenhouse effect as either a “fairly urgent”, “urgent” or “very urgent” environmental concern, with 41.5% rating it as “very urgent”.
It hardly seems necessary to add that a figure of 89.1% of voters would have to include a fair slice of the “routine workers” that the impresarios at The New City presume to speak for.
Indeed. The ALP Right hates the left (ie, anyone to their left) more than they hate the Liberals. Why? Dunno. But in the long run they’d rather sink the party than deal with the Greens.
This is clearly a push from some in the far right of the ALP for their party to form a Howard government under another name once the rodent eventually retires. Beats me why anybody would vote for the ALP when they have the Coalition to vote for if they’re that way inclined.
Slightly OT (but related) did anybody catch ‘Australia Talks Back’ yesterday evening, about leadership in Australia? One reason that the ALP’s electoral prospects remain gloomy is that the electorate apparently “trusts” Howard, albeit in a managerial and uncharismatic way i.e. they know him and vote for him because he’s a boring little lying rodent with a knack for saying what they want to hear. The ALP currently doesn’t have an equivalent at Federal level - which is of course why Shorten’s being fast-tracked.
Interestingly, several of the punters who called in nominated Bob Brown as an example of a good political leader in Australia, despite the fact that the Greens, of all political parties, is the one that actively eschews structural leadership of the kind that Howard manifests.
“Basically, if you are ALP and have an education you’ve lost all credibility.”
Which is a great shame considering that one thing which ought to unite all strands of the labour movement and its allies is a desire to see members of the working class improve themselves through education (formal and informal) and through access to opportunities for artistic and cultural production and consumption. I say this as someone who grew up in a working class family in Reservoir, whose father left school at eleven and whose mother left school at thirteen. Would I really have been a better person if I had left school at fifteen to tote bricks rather than going on to higher education?
I also recall a meeting on urban development at the Sutherland Trade Union Club in 1988 which was addressed by Frank Stilwell, and attended by an overwhelmingly blue collar male audience from the surrounding suburbs. These blokes really were the cream of the working class - active trade unionists and retired unionists for the most part, and all concerned about issues in their local suburbs - and they were chuffed to be addressed by a professor, and to have the chance to improve their understanding of urban issues. Examples could be multiplied.
Interesting stats Paul.
On initial glance New City is proof positive that the ALP is a complete waste of space - same old hacks waving the banner for the same old hacks and cutting through how exactly?
Even on the critical question of industrial relations the ALP managed to somehow fuck things up. Had the issue been left solely to Beazley, Smith, Ferssun and co it would have been dead and buried long ago.
The only reason it cut through was because the ACTU had the foresight to do some intelligent market research and throw serious money at some pretty effective advertising. It was a wonderful departure from the tedium of your ususal union tactics (ie march/rally/march/rally/march/rally ad infinitum)
And yet who remains Labour’s spokes on IR? Party hack Stephen Smith (the televisual equivalent of porridge), who I presume would fit nicely into the role of New City poster boy.
The party’s problem isn’t trendy inner-city types attempting to foist unattractive ideas onto an unwilling electorate. It’s the party itself - top heavy with union officials and party timeservers with few new ideas and who are still preoccupied personal slights delivered by Joe Bloggs or Tiddles the Cat in that preselection stoush thirty years ago.
It’s neatly summed-up by the presence of Beazley himself, a classic example of a man who simply doesn’t get it if ever there was one. In an interview with the Fairfax press earlier this year he said something along the lines of ‘goodness me, i’ve just realised that the electronic media only deal in three-second grabs. Who would have thought?’
Still, Peter Garrett’s in there somewhere, so maybe there’s hope.
I think it would be crazy for Labor to embrace the mesage coming out of The New City. Haven’t had enough leakage to the Greens yet?!?
I can vividly remember the attitude of younger voters/professionals when I was handing out how to vote cards for The Greens at the 2001 election. The suberb I live in (Coolbellup) is made up of younger couples who wish to live near Freo and older retired blue collar workers , with a high amount of homeswest residents also. I would consider this a typical ‘Labor’ suburb, in normal circumstances. The people who told me they were voting for The Greens were not feral environmentalists, or ‘Resistance’ type activists. They were mostly Uni students/ teachers/ white collar professionals who were doing so because they considered Labor had moved too far the right on social & environmental policies. The blue collar voters weren’t helping out Labor either as a fair few of them seemed to be voting for Johnny Howard (not for The Liberals mind you).
An interesting anecdote from the experience: The only other volunteer I got on with was the One Nation guy. He was a 80 year old WWII veteran with a MUA cap on. Initially I felt sorry for him as he had no replacements coming to take over for him (he was to be there for 12 hours), and the Labor/Liberal workers were mocking him. It ended up being a great chat as to why an ex union worker would be attracted to the One Nation policies.
Of course, at the birth of the Labour movement, and for many years afterwards, there was a strong streak of autodidacticism and a great desire to spread the benefits of education to the working class through various forms of adult education.
I see the New City types, as just another bunch of people who want us to stay uneducated so they can manipulate us with their PR copy about nuclear power, IR, or any other bollocks that keeps their snouts in the trough. Not much different to the middle-class campus Leninists who used to berate me for not being working class enough because I dared to have ‘bourgeois’ ideas about people actually enjoying their jobs and being able to think for themselves rather than following Democratic Centralism.
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the knowledge workers. Two party systems were ever thus.
I have a friend who said in 1998 that if she made a new friend every year of her life till she was 70, she might make preselection in the ALP ( at present we are both 46). A good ole working class party run by good ole boys, hey? Good post, Paul.
I’m surprised that John Button is a “baddie”!
In any political party there are all sorts of ideas, which is great, as people in the general population have all sorts of different ideas. Put different ideas into the mix, let it swirl around, and see what happens.
I respect Peter Walsh (and recommend his autobiography) - but suspect that The New City isn’t my thang.