The general line of this draft report was adopted by the Political Committee of Red Ant in September and October. It is now part of the discussion by Red Spark’s members as they assess their political perspectives leading into their next national conference.

The report is divided into three parts. This is the first in the series. Part Two is available here and Part Three here.

Overall, there has not been a fundamental change in the Australian political situation over the last year or so. This is the case, notwithstanding the rise of widespread Palestinian solidarity sentiment and organising over the last year, which is a critically important development to which all political forces have had to relate. However, this development has not fundamentally re-ordered the Australian political map – at least not yet. At the same time, there are very important small-scale changes taking place. Understanding and relating to these will be critical to the success of socialist groups over the coming period. On balance, the build-up of pressure towards some sort of large-scale re-ordering of the Australian political scene seems to be increasing.

1. SUMMARY OF THE FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CURRENT AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL SITUATION

THE LONG-BOOM HAS INSULATED THE SITUATION

The long-period of economic and political stability over, roughly, three or four decades, and extending until recent years, still shapes the present political configuration.

The relatively delayed and muted political developments in Australia compared with other imperialist societies reflect on the one hand the isolated and relatively marginal character of Australian imperialism (as an outpost of world imperialism) and the relatively high level of prosperity here even compared with other imperialist states.

Australian capitalism’s extra prosperity is a long-term historical phenomenon going back to the 19^th Century. However, as a primary goods exporter, this characteristic becomes accentuated during periods of global capitalist boom. The China-led commodities boom that lasted around a quarter of a century had no historical precedent in terms of scale.

For example, the international “great recession” of 2008-09 did not occur here as a recession. There has been virtually no unemployment (or very low) in the major cities outside the pandemic period and that is still the case to some extent. The pandemic handouts were huge: average income in Australia actually went up! Consumption has been very high. Australians, on average, consume many kilograms of clothing per year, have had increasing average car and house sizes and so on. It’s only now, in the last few years since the pandemic that some of the boom period benefits appear to be unwinding – reflected in inflation and the rental crisis.

The long and tempestuous nature of the expansion in Australia has meant unevenly distributed benefits of the boom, yet a part of the national wealth that did make it to the working class was sufficient to slow down or forestall the growing dissatisfaction seen in many other imperialist states among working people. The Tea Party, Trump, Le Pen, Melani, Farage, other European far right movements, or leftists like Corbyn and Sanders, have no established equivalent in Australia.

CONTRADICTORY ASPECTS OF THE BOOM PERIOD: EVISCERATING THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT

The high degree of social stability is increasingly being undermined by processes that are eroding the legitimacy of the bourgeois political establishment.

The boom did not bring real security or clear improvements to most working people. Working people were squeezed and thrown about by “neo-liberal” market (or “free market”) capitalism. This included casualised employment, run-down government services, lack of security and spiralling housing costs.

So while the “loot” of the boom diluted the development of popular consciousness or opposition, other tendencies acted to erode the popularity of the political establishment. More accurately: we are witnessing the continuing historical evisceration of the political establishment, a long-term global trend essentially associated with the attacks beginning in the early in1980s on the working class and the post-war welfare state.

Over the last few years, the imperialist countries as a whole have been characterised by stagnant or declining income and consumption for large sections of the population. In Australia this is much more recent than in the United Kingdom (UK) or Europe: it started with the onset of post-pandemic inflation.

Australia has seen two and a half years of declining real wages, with a total decline of 6.5 percent between April 2021 and September 2023, though with still historically low unemployment rates. The inflation has hit hardest renters (31per cent of the population) or people on low incomes. Thousands more people have been forced to sleep in cars, in insecure or unsafe accommodation or on the streets. For young people in major cities, the cost of renting or attempting to buy accommodation is something of a political landmine.

GENERALISED WEAKNESS ON ALL SIDES

Even as the popularity or legitimacy and influence of the capitalist establishment is slowly eroding, there is an absence of any effectively organised political opposition. The organised far-Right is weak. There is neither a Left-wing organised, or ideological, force, nor a revolutionary current capable of challenging the status quo. In line with international trends, there has been a historical decline of organised social opposition in the form of trade unions, student unions, environmental campaigns and struggles, critical church groups, or any other forms.

This combination of the eroding strength of the bourgeois political establishment AND the absence of any left or right opposition parties or social movements creates a situation today characterised by a generalised, all-sided weakness.

On the one hand, the Left’s retreat has meant the mainstream parties and policies have more or less been able to continue as before, alternating Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Liberal National Party (LNP) governments with insignificant policy changes. Yet the edifice of bourgeois stability (here and all over the world) is reminiscent of a white-anted house. The “house” of the Australian political structure still appears intact, concealing a lack of structural integrity.

IMPERIALISM’S CRISES AND NEW RADICAL THINKING

The turbulent, chaotic and violent, character of global capitalist imperialism has created a long series of shocks, bumps and ruptures that are impacting on the Australian social and political scene. The growing economic pressures are combining with sensational political developments to generate new surprises, new ideas, new thinking or questioning among broad sections of the population. In many individuals this results in radicalisation, often to the Left.

The shocks, bumps and new developments include the election of Trump and other far Right governments (such as in India, Brazil and Italy), the increasing imperialist military and economic belligerence against China, Russia and many other Global South states. The pandemic, higher global inflation, the electoral rise of far Right (and some Left) parties in Europe and the increasing intensity and frequency of emerging climate change fuelled weather chaos are all important.

In addition very important social struggles have emerged in the United States. Probably the most influential of these in Australia has been the movement that became known internationally as “Black Lives Matter”. The attacks on abortion rights and publicity around sexual assault of women (“Me Too”) in the United States (US) were also reflected here.

Also crucial is the increasing pushback by important Global South states against this imperialist aggression. The setbacks and defeats of US imperialism and its relatively declining strength have put the question of global power into the minds of many working people. History is no longer “ended” and people are starting to think about how it might develop. The strength or character of China, the BRICS, Russia are things that hundreds of thousands, or millions of people have started to consider.

This was already the case last year but now Palestine, and in particular imperialist support for genocide, has become the biggest of all shocks to the system. Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the unwavering support by all the imperialist states, including Australia, has caused hundreds of millions of people all over the world – perhaps billions of people – to question their understanding of the character of the imperialist “democracies” like Australia.

It is clear to almost everyone that Israel simply would have no means to carry out its genocidal campaign without US and internationally manufactured and supplied munitions and equipment. Gaza would still be standing if the US had requested it. Albanese, Wong, Plibersek and the LNP have essentially stood back, and by doing so they have facilitated genocide (while jostling among themselves for electoral advantage). Huge numbers of people in Australia will not quickly forget what the ALP in particular has done.

Domestically, besides rises in the cost of living, there are a range of social issues that remain festering sores undermining capitalist legitimacy. These cause people to think, question, oppose this or that policy, or in some cases to draw radical conclusions. They include inequality (especially in access to housing), climate change and racism, especially indigenous rights.

Large numbers of people are receptive to new ideas and in many cases they are radicalising. In the absence of any social movement seriously challenging the status quo, this new thinking and opposition mostly takes the form of individual reactions to the current conditions. 

Within this context, there are also significant numbers of people, especially young people, reaching socialist conclusions of various types or who are very open to them. Again, this is occurring outside the framework of any socialist organisation. The socialist organisations then all try to find and reach these people.

THE UNORGANISED, DETACHED NATURE OF THE PROGRESSIVE OPPOSITIONAL LAYER

While the objective situation causes many people, especially young people, to draw or be open to radical or socialist conclusions, the large majority of people opposed to different manifestations of capitalist injustice and oppression are not at this stage.

There is quite a large social layer, especially strong among young people, which is generally opposed to all obvious forms of injustice and destruction meted out by the capitalist system. They react against such things as oppression of Indigenous people here, Palestinians, nuclear submarines, continued climate destruction, corporate mega profits and so on.

While much of this layer might vote for the Greens in elections, the Greens Party does not seem to have much impact on shaping the ideas or political activity of most of this social layer.

Fairly often, over the last decades, this oppositional sentiment has been mobilised in political actions – such as invasion day actions (or earlier there was “reconciliation” and other indigenous rights marches), Palestine Solidarity actions, climate actions, there were large abortion rights actions after Roe v. Wade was overturned in the US and so on. This sporadic activity occurs not under the influence or organisation of any party, ideological current or united front, but in the form of more or less ad-hoc or spontaneous reactions to injustice.

As a result of the decline of political organisations of all types, the “all sided weakness”, this oppositional or questioning sentiment is not organised into or attached to any particular organised movement, be that left social democratic, revolutionary socialist or any other. Left social democratic and also small-l liberal constituencies have existed for decades. They were the basis of the ALP Socialist Left before 1984 and the Democrats as well as the “wets” in the Liberal Party. Today, these constituencies have become detached from their historical traditions, ideologies and organisations.

In the past, we characterised this layer of people as having a “democratic humanist sentiment”. This sentiment is possibly more widespread today. Democratic humanist sentiment, exactly because it exists as sentiment detached from conscious ideological alignment, is open to manipulative appeals from petty bourgeois liberalism, including Identity Politics. However, it doesn’t seem that the tens of thousands of people that demonstrate on democratic issues are a kind of “woke” mass whose consciousness is dominated only by identity politics. Their democratic humanist outlook is also important.

Later, the report will argue that the key task for revolutionary socialists in this overall scenario is to find ways to reach out to and win people from this democratic humanist layer to revolutionary socialism and organise them to carry out more systematic struggle. Before that, it is necessary to give an outline of how the other political forces in Australian politics are orienting to this overall situation and our orientation to them.

Read Part Two of this report here.