Every man & his dog has given up Labor as a dead loss
for the election in September. I am not so sure, John
Howard was pretty much in that position at one stage too and it
was only the intervention of ‘Children Overboard’ & ‘Twin
Towers’ that saved his butt. The sad fact is, they should
not have, though when people are scared, they stay with the
‘devil they know’. Now, I don’t wish the likes of a Twin
Towers to save the Labor party, though as I was discussing with
others on Twitter, a bit more focus on Tony Abbott may help at
least level the playing field so that people could hopefully get
past ‘personalities’ to actually look at what each side will do
for this country.
Having said that, I still don’t actually hold out much hope for
the ALP unless they can get back to grass roots. Basically
we have a 2 horse race in this country between the
Liberal/National coalition which = Money. Now everyone can
relate to money, everyone has aspirations, so that is a no
brainer for them to attract people, BUT for Labor, they have
traditionally been Labor = Unions.
For people like me – I am 45 in a few weeks so that will give you
an idea of where I am coming from – I understand that we owe the
unions a lot. Without Unions there would be no easy website
for a small business to go onto that has someone’s wage set in
stone, there would be no safety requirements in the workplace,
there would be kids working for 2 bucks an hour and more.
Unfortunately with so much small business now & basically the
fact that the Unions did such a bloody good job that the
Government has taken over in some respects when it comes to fair
pay & conditions, younger generations don’t ‘get’ unions, nor
do they appreciate them. Though, they do see the news and
Unions scare them, Unions stopped them getting on that flight
with Qantas to go to the mates 21st, Union ‘stuff’ meant they
could not get that part-time job on the work site (that they were
not qualified for but we won’t worry about that...), Unions just
have a bad rap...
Unfortunately for the Unions, they are not a large percentage of
our population anymore, also, like our politicians, too many
Union leaders are ‘career’ managers, not actually from the site
or factory floor, so it is even hard for old time blue collar
workers to support them. Worse, the Labor Party being so
closely aligned with Unions and the massive voting block they
have, that is not proportionate with the population actually
makes the Liberals case for them. Sadly, if you are not in
an area that has a big union presence, like mine, they mean
nothing to you.
Funny thing is though, Labor was not always like that, they
actually had more members & more support and it was not just
because we had more blue collar jobs in this country. It
was because often, the Labor party, just like the Lions or
Rotary, were part of the community.
I grew up with my grandparents living with us and my grandfather,
working on the Railways, was of course a Labor man. Back in
the day, he would take me with him (and other kids would be there
too, probably all with grandparents or dad supposedly babysitting
them LOL), to the Labor meetings, normally held at the pub and
not only would they discuss the politics of the day, they would
also talk about various members or neighbours that needed a
helping a hand. Even when talking politics, it was about
what affected us in our backyard, it was not mantra’s like it
often is now, it was deadset plans to get rid of Joh
Bjelke-Petersen, I think I knew what the word gerrymander meant
before I knew the word ‘politics’ LOL!
They also participated in the community, they were at
school fetes, they helped man the drinks and sausage at the wake
of the local family who had lost their dad & needed to raise
funds to help them carry on (who was not a card carrying ALP man
either mind you), hell, when I went overseas as an exchange
student the local member hears through god knows who cause
Granddad had died by then and I am handed a Queensland flag to
take with me to give to my school in Hong Kong.
Back in the day it seemed the Liberal Party were blokes in the
local Chamber of Commerce and Labor party were Union guys AND
people who cared about more than just money & had a social
conscience.
The ALP have not treated my area kindly. We had the Cate
Molloy fiasco where she backed her electorate in not wanting the
Traveston Dam & got sacked for it (sorry but 90% of us didn’t
want it, so was fair call to back us, the electorate, not the
State Govt), since then both State & Federally they have not
bothered to even promote who they put up in the area, worse, last
state election they tossed in some youngster from Brisbane, for
the experience... Yeah, not going to work in a regional
area and the local branch was almost decimated.
If I was a bloke – which I’m not – They are pissing up against a
brick wall if they expect any sort of support from areas like
mine with that sort of behaviour. If Labor want to become
‘relevant’ in people’s lives again they have to become part of
the community again. I know it sounds unfair as no-one has
that expectation from Liberals, but we do from Labor. They
need to stop putting Unions above ‘people’. I am not saying
ditch Unions, I am just saying make their vote just as important
as the local branches vote. They need to be part of the
community again, get back the old retired Unionists to turn
sausages at fundraisers & help with community youth
programmes, bake cakes for Fetes to raise funds to keep the
Community Hospice open etc.
A contest between Julia Gillard & Tony Abbott is a poor way
to try to win Government and when Labor has the likes of the big
media, big business & big money lined up against them, will
be hard to get any message out. Only when Labor becomes
those ‘good guys’ in the community and part of the community,
again, will the community support them, cutting through the media
spin. I don't think my grandfather would even recognise the
Labor party today. I am not saying they don't need
professionsals in the ALP but maybe not throwing out the baby
with the bathwater and remember 'why' they want to be in
Government would be a good start to get support?
But hey, what do I know, I am just a punter who is maybe getting
too old and reminiscing about the old days when their was a
political party that cared about the ‘have-nots'. Yes you
may not win this election, but you will start to get members, you
will start to get communities, you will matter again, all over
the country branches will build & community members will want
to support you, because they feel you care about them, that will
stand you in good stead into the future, and a future is what we
all want :)
Cheers
Noely @YaThinkN
Disclaimer: I am not a member of the Labor party, in fact,
I am glad my granddad was not around to see me join the Democrats
as a young adult. Since Meg Lees screwed over the Dems I
have not aligned myself with any party at all, being fond of
Independents. Though, I now find myself in a situation
where to be pragmatic, the Labor party needs to be supported as
what Tony Abbott plans for this country, which you would not hear
about on the news, does not bear thinking about, I wrote this
back in February which explains why: Are Liberals just for the
self-interested & wealthy or am I missing
something? :(
