SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT*

The notion that the Labor and Liberal parties are basically identical is a popular one. In a seemingly post-ideological era where what matters most is the emptiness or otherwise of someone’s bank account, the two major parties fight over a bland middle ground of economic responsibility. This looks to have begun in the 1980s when the traditional cleavages that separated the parties and their supporters were confused by new economic uncertainties. The parties looked for a common middle ground to expand their voter base and become ‘catch-all’ parties. It’s something that the Greens have also attempted to do in their 2010 State election campaign by emphasising their commitment to ‘mainstream’ values. So what are the differences and why are they important?

Compared to other Western nations, our party system is young. The modern Labor Party only emerged at the turn of the century and the modern Liberal Party emerged out of a coalition of anti-Labor groups united by Robert Menzies in the 1941. The purpose and histories of the parties are a clear indicator of what differentiates them. The Labor Party emerged to represent the interests of organised labour; the Liberal Party is a reaction to the organised labour and designed to resist it through the Parliament. The Liberal Party says that they are the party of individual liberty and free enterprise; the Labor Party is for representing collective interests (even if a group of people is still made up of individuals but whatever). The Liberals are inherently suspicious of government intervention in the market, centralised power, and are conservative in wanting to preserve what they see as the best of our traditions. Their belief system has been described by Australian political scientist Dean Jaensch as a “gospel for any occasion”.

Labor occupies, or has for most of its existence, a space on the moderate left and draws on many ideological traditions including anti-clericalism, egalitarianism, Puritanism and democratic socialism. Whereas the Liberals see every person as equal to pursue their own future, Labor traditions dictate that the government is duty bound to provide an equitable distribution of the common wealth to protect and provide services to the poor, sick and aged. This tradition has been adopted by both parties; while both might tinker with Centrelink and other forms of support for the disadvantaged it would be political suicide to think that anyone would ever propose wrapping up the welfare state. The Labor Party has also adopted plenty of Liberal beliefs, like courting the support of small and big business.

It is obvious that the two major parties have different histories and ideologies; how then have they converged on a middle-ground? Jaensch calls the two parties “two capitalist parties offering two slightly different capitalist programmes”. The economic changes that became obvious during the 1980s and the concurrent decline of partisan loyalties as the population becomes increasingly urbanised have been impossible to ignore. As such, much of the responsibility for this convergence lies with the parties themselves, who, in the pragmatic style of Australian politics, have responded and sought to reshape themselves to fit a political landscape in which economic management is the real battleground.

Not surprisingly, given its origins on the Left, the Labor Party is criticised most for the convergence of the major parties. As the notion of class becomes much more ambiguous, a 'middle-classing' of the Labor Party has occurred to parallel that of Australian society, leading to criticism of Labor. Ironically then, the move to the Middle can accurately be called a Labor construct. It began when the Hawke-Keating Government in the 1980s and early 1990s was able to, through an Accord with the ACTU, pursue an agenda of economic reform that embraced the market. Labor managed Australia’s transition to a modern global economy but did so by surrendering much of their hard won socialist tradition. Interestingly, policy moves such as floating the dollar, deregulating the financial sector, adopting conservative budget strategies, privatising publicly owned companies, cutting corporate tax rates, loosening the centralised wage-determination system, and so on seems like Labor cutting the Liberal Party’s lunch. Conversely, the Howard Government initiated further reforms that seemed to appropriate much of the Hawke/Keating legacy. Kevin Rudd tried to steal this ground back for Labor by calling himself a fiscal conservative during the 2007 election; no doubt it is something that will resurface to dominate the next Federal election campaign in 2011.

Combined with the desire to catch all voters the need for party unity and the focus on personal leadership has also served to make the two major parties more similar. But this trend is still opposed by the partisan nature of parties, the party system and voters who traditionally support those parties. While overarching ideology is less important, the major parties instead use wedge politics, over issues such as immigration and asylum seeker policy for example, that hark back to a more ideological era. These traditions still feed the policies of both parties but you have to wonder how much. Both at the State and Federal levels the two major parties have become scarily similar and now, in Tasmania, the Greens appear to be following suit, even if Nick McKim doesn’t seem to own any ties. It’s sad in a way: is the only thing that unites us the desire to accumulate more wealth? If not, then why do we elect parties based on who does the best job at convincing us they will make us wealthier?

*This is the final version of the story that appears in the May 2010 issue of Togatus. Any errors that appear in the print version are not Julius Ross' fault. No, seriously.

By James Walker